Valendar breathed in deeply, the wound in his side very clearly mortal. As he dropped to one knee he tore off his helm and tossed it at the foot of the man who had doomed him to death. He was not conceding defeat, rather he wanted to look into the face of the man who had betrayed him, to see the anger and pain in the eyes of his once brother. 

His murderer removed his own helm and held it in his hand as he, too, took a knee. His sword clattered to the ground loudly and he stared, face to face, at his fallen foe. The tension between the two men was filled with a haunted energy, a long standing love severed by a simple difference in opinion. At least, as far as Valendar was concerned. 

But the hatred and animosity the fallen paladin expected to see was not there. Instead, written boldly, loudly, plainly on the face of his elder brother was compassion, regret, and fear. The battle’s champion removed his gauntlet and held out his hand. Valendar, his life’s blood seeping from the large gash in his side, weakly pushed the proffered truce aside and crumpled to the floor. 

When the two brothers, only a year apart in age, had joined the order together several years ago, they had both been warned that to take their vow was to set aside their own personal opinions, to cast away from their hearts the greed and anger of the common warrior and to uphold their vow until their dying breath. Failure to do so, to fall from the Grace of the Gods, without any kind of atonement and restitution, would be catastrophic for their souls. Both had taken their vow, forswearing the impulse to exact revenge and to only defend the weak and repressed, and both had been granted full status as paladins.

As the months and years ticked by, the two brothers witnessed many things that had they not been so resolute in their vow, would have turned their hearts dark and their minds to retribution. Every time Valendar felt his heart icing over, he would confide in the brother he looked up to so much and would be reassured of his own goodness, reminded of his vow, and he would feel the coldness in his heart recede. 

Two years ago, Valendar had witnessed a truly gruesome death--one that haunted him for nearly a year. He confided in his brother as before but his words fell on a deaf heart. Fearing that he was falling from grace, he turned to his Highlord and begged for help. He was told that he must reflect, meditate, and find his own way back to the Light.

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Heeding the words of his commander and carrying the respect and love he bore for his brother, Valendar tried hard to resolve the anger and injustice inside himself. He secluded himself, refusing sustenance for a week, succumbing to hallucinations, but to no avail. The visions in his mind were pierced by the screams of the slain woman, the sounds of her rending flesh, the laughter of her murderers. 

He begged the Gods for help one last time to guide him back to the Light before he finally hardened his heart and decided that retribution was the only recourse. Visiting the grave of the slaughtered woman, he made a secret vow to her: that he would not rest until she was avenged, the men that had enacted horrors upon her would be unidentifiable when he had finished with them. He sought the help and counsel of his brother shortly after.

Unsurprisingly, his brother refused to help him and even threatened to stop him if Valendar tried to dole out his own brand of justice against the criminals. He implored his younger brother to see the Light, to find these men, yes, but to bring them to justice within the constraints of the law. Valendar, disgusted and disheartened by his beloved brother’s refusal to see his side of the matter, tore off his tabard bearing the sigil of their order and left. 

The Fallen Paladin lived in the shadows for many months, finding each man covertly and enacting his revenge in a cold, detached way. It wasn’t until his last sworn enemy lay slaughtered before him that he finally realised what he had done. He wondered if he should seek atonement, briefly concerned for the state of his soul, but the men of his order, lead by his own brother, descended upon him and accused him of betrayal. 

Not a single one of them offered him the chance to atone, to make amends, to confess, to pay for his crimes. Instead, they laid his charges against him and gave him his judgement: death. The injustice of his own situation wiped away any regret that had been fomenting in his heart, and as he grasped his spear, once a weapon of holy power, now corrupted by his fall, he roared in defiance. 

“You may strike me dead, you may carry out your own justice, but if my life ends here you are the ones that will regret today--not I.” 

As the light and the Light faded from him, Valendar felt his body grow cold and his heart, once that of a paladin of the Light, turn to nothing but the coldest, hardest lump of rotten ice, and he knew that he would rise again in time, more powerful than he had been in life.