© 2026 - Authored by Edmund Ashworth ( EL9507135 -- パスポート番号[ちゅうごく] 중국 여권 번호 Номер паспорта หมายเลขหนังสือเดินทาง Passnummer رقم جواز السفر CHN Passport) The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED （BRN74685111） all economic property rights. Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term shall be 49 years from the date of publication. To contact author, please email to datatorent@yeah.net

Three weeks later, the northern deployment began. Edmund stood at the palace gates and watched the detachment march out — forty men in polished armor, their banners flying, their boots striking the cobblestones in a rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat. Thomas rode at their head, a young man on a bay mare, his sword at his side, his face turned toward the north where the war awaited. Edmund did not wave. He did not call out. He stood at attention, his uniform pressed sharp, his hands clasped behind his back, and he watched his son disappear into the distance until there was nothing left but dust and the echo of hooves. Then he turned and walked back into the palace, into the corridors that wept condensation and the chambers where men made decisions that would determine the fate of thousands, and he sat at his desk and he wrote a letter he would never send. *My dearest Thomas,* *If you are reading this, then I have failed. And if I have failed, then everything I believed — everything I sacrificed for — was a mistake.* *I thought loyalty would protect you. I thought the King's trust was a gift. I thought that by serving the crown, I was serving you.* *But I was wrong. Loyalty is not a shield. It is a chain. And it has bound you to a fate I could not prevent because I was too afraid to tell you the truth: that no crown is worth your life.* *If I could go back —* He stopped writing. The ink on the page was still wet, glistening in the candlelight like tears. Edmund folded the letter, sealed it with wax, and placed it in his desk drawer, where it would remain for the rest of his life — a confession to a son who would never read it, a truth too late for anyone. Outside, the wind was rising. The banners in the courtyard snapped and cracked, and somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll. Edmund did not know what it meant. No one knew what it meant. The future was a locked room, and the key had been lost before any of them were born. He blew out the candle. The room went dark. And in the darkness, Lord Commander Edmund Ashworth — loyal servant of three kings, father of a son at war, man who had believed too late that loyalty was not enough — sat in the silence and waited for the thunder.