Page 78

The End of Oaths

The cannons roared like the trumpets of judgment, shaking the cobblestones beneath Rollant’s boots as he sprinted through the smoky streets, caught in the revolt on his commute to the Temple.

Screams of the dying mixed with the thunder of grapeshots.

He ducked behind an overturned cart as royalists rushed past him, their muskets raised and their faces grim with determination.

They were emboldened by the aristocrats’ return and their hope to rid France of the corrupt Convention, which had done nothing but make life worse.

Rollant knew, deep in his soul, that this battle would mark the end of something far greater than the uprising itself.

Twenty-five thousand Parisians raised arms against the new French Republic and marched toward the Tuileries Palace, where the National Convention met, to overtake it. But their objective wouldn’t be gained so easily.

The Republic Guardsmen had cannons and blasted grapeshots at the royalist insurrection, ripping men apart. Civilians lay dead, caught in the crossfire. The acrid smell of gunsmoke clawed at Rollant’s throat.

He stayed crouched, watching the chaos ensue. The wood splintered just above his head, hit with an iron shard.

The royalists were the remnants of the monarchy he swore to protect, but their violence felt futile and dishonorable.

Where were they when the king needed them?

But the French Republic had only left blood and brutality in its wake.

He’d seen people starved to death and frozen in the streets the prior winter, rotting because their families could not afford a burial.

He no longer knew where he stood or where his loyalty lay.

Duty compelled him to act for the royalists, but witnessing the civilians’ plight tore at his heart.

Families tried to run; some made it whole, while others were not so lucky.

A young boy tripped as he followed his parents; his father held a baby. A grapeshot blasted, tearing the side of the building and causing its stones to fall on the boy’s foot. He called for his father, but the father did not hear amid the ruckus.

Rollant bolted for the boy, ripped the stone off his foot, and carried him.

He took a bullet in the back but pushed through the pain, clutching the child as tightly as possible to prevent stray bullets from catching a limb.

He wore the blue coat of the National Guardsmen, and it drew attention.

He caught up to the family, handing them their boy, when a shot ripped past the side of his face.

“Republic Guardsman!” The royalist shouted as he reloaded. His shout summoned four more royalists.

“Run,” he told the father, who took off with the child.

“I am Captain of the King’s Bodyguard,” Rollant shouted as he approached them, hoping not to spill blood that day.

But he was met with a volley of bullets. He dodged two, but one caught his arm and the other his hat, knocking it to the ground beside a civilian woman with lifeless eyes. Rollant’s gaze ran down her bloodied dress.

For centuries, the crown had been his compass, his reason for enduring.

But now, staring into the eyes of the rogue men who fought for a crown already lost, putting innocent lives in danger, the weight of his oath crumbled like ash in his hands.

These men didn’t fight for a king—they recklessly fought for vengeance. And vengeance had no honor.

“If that is your answer,” he growled, drawing his sword to attack his supposed allies. They were not defenders of the monarchy but pawns of chaos.

The wounds stitched together as he approached them, his large frame cutting through the smoke. Their knees shook, and their hands fumbled the gunpowder.

The Royalist charged first, musket raised as a bludgeon. Rollant twisted his body, letting the wooden stock narrowly miss his shoulder, before slamming the pommel of his sword into the man’s jaw, sending him into the cobblestone. Rollant stepped over him as the royalist writhed in pain.

Another musket shot rang out, echoing in Rollant’s ears. He ducked instinctively, the lead ball grazing his shoulder and tearing through the fabric of his coat. The heat burned his skin, but he pivoted on his heels.

The Royalist, advancing with a sword, lunged, his blade aimed for Rollant’s gut.

Rollant sidestepped, parried with a sharp clang of steel, and twisted his wrist to rip the blade from his opponent’s grasp.

The Royalist’s sword clattered to the ground, and Rollant drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending him sprawling.

He wasn’t there to kill them if he could avoid it, but restraint was becoming more challenging to maintain with every musket ball fired his way.

“Lay down your arms!” Rollant bellowed, his voice cutting through the chaos. He advanced on the reloader, sword drawn, his footsteps deliberate and heavy against the cobblestones. “I do not wish to kill you!”

“Traitor!” the man spat, his voice trembling with fear. The snap of the musket and the click of the flint striking steel jolted Rollant to the street as the musket ball whizzed past his head.

Another shout rang out from the smoke. Three more Royalists emerged, charging with bayonets fixed.

Rollant had no time to think. The first attacker thrust his bayonet toward Rollant’s chest, but the immortal knight pivoted, grabbed the barrel of the musket, and drove his sword into the attacker’s thigh.

The man screamed, collapsing onto the blood-soaked street as Rollant wrenched his blade free to block a bayonet thrust aimed for his head.

The reloader had scrambled to his feet and was fumbling for his pistol. Rollant charged before the man could fire, closing the distance in a blur. His blade came down in a clean arc, removing the threat. He grabbed the man by the collar and slammed him against the stone wall.

The soldier gasped, his eyes wide with terror as Rollant’s blade hovered at his throat. “Go home,” Rollant growled, his voice low and menacing.

The man nodded and tore loose. Rollant surveyed the smoky scene; the royalists lay in pain but were alive.

He turned to go, but a sharp, burning pain exploded on his side.

Another royalist, whom he hadn’t seen in the haze, had swung his sword, slicing Rollant on his side and across the chest. His blood soaked his coat, staining the blue.

The blade came back down in the kill strike, but Rollant parried, gripping his wound from the vibration of steel hitting steel.

He staggered backward, his knees nearly buckling, as his attacker advanced.

Cannon blasts sounded near, and debris flew at them, knocking both men down.

Rollant groaned and forced himself to stand, still gripping his open wound. But the attacker was up first and growled as he pulled a pistol, “Die Republic scum.”

But Rollant was not about to lose this fight, not from a royalist; he heaved his body with force conjured from a knight’s battlefield and hit the attacker full-on in the chest. The pistol clattered on the cobblestone as Rollant fell atop the royalist. The others were standing again and started approaching to aid their fellow royalist.

Rollant sent a fierce uppercut to the man beneath him, knocking him unconscious before rolling to the pistol. The pain in his side was unrelenting. He should have felt the burn of healing, but it hadn’t come.

There was only one shot and three royalists. His sword was more than an arm’s reach away. He sat back against a building, gripping his side as his body screamed in agony. He glanced at his chest. The bloody gash was still open and unhealed.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he yelled out and lowered his pistol, but hate lived in their eyes.

Another grapeshot hurdled through the air following the thunder of a cannon blast. The shockwave sent debris and smoke in all directions, killing two of the royalists. The third disappeared into the chaos.

Rollant’s chest heaved with shallow gasps as he pressed his hand to his side, expecting the familiar warmth of the wound stitching itself shut.

But the pain remained—a searing, unrelenting agony that spread with each breath.

There was no tingling rush, no fleeting burn, only pain. Real, raw, deep, human pain.

He gasped, his breath shaking. The blood didn’t slow, didn’t dry—it pooled beneath him, dark and thick. His vision blurred, his strength ebbed. For the first time in centuries, he was not a man suspended between life and death. He felt . . . fragile. Mortal.

The realization hit harder than all the deaths he had endured.

“I can die,” he whispered.

He winced. “I am . . . dying.”

What had bound him to this life had deserted him in his need.

He had prayed for this moment for centuries. But not now. Not when he had élise.

He clawed at the cobblestone, desperate to return to her. He forced himself to rise, each step agonizing, each breath a battle.

He screamed in agony as he crawled out of the battle but collapsed on Rue de Faubourg Saint-Antoine. His hands trembled, and his body shook, but his mind fixated on his one objective: élise. Return to élise. He had to tell her goodbye.

He fought again to rise, but the world tilted. He took a halting step forward, then another, before his legs gave out beneath him. He collapsed to the cobblestones. His vision darkened as he gripped his wound tighter. A hand fell heavy on his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” a soft voice asked.

Rollant peered up to see what officer had caught him deserting, but instead, he recognized the father of the boy he’d saved.

“Charonne,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

The man pulled him up and helped him into a deserted cart with his children. He and his wife pulled them along. Rollant’s boot heels dragged on the cobblestone as he looked up at the boy and the little girl. The boy held his wrapped foot, and the girl stared in a state of vacant numbness.