How can you be brave about something you never decided? I ponder, while I pick a petal from my son’s face. Careful not to scratch his soft cheek, move his weak neck or bother his rare peace as his young eyes, blue as oceans on softer shores, are rapt by the spectacle that is the Widow’s Walk.

I step on cobbles pave by the blood of husbands lost to Krigland’s search of glory. I walk with woman just as brave as I. Shoulder to shoulder with my people, strolling slowly from the dense traffic. We pass rows of soldiers stood to attention as they witness the fate they condemn their loves to. I feel a tug on my dress, a nudge on my shoulder as we jostle to a halt.

I know my husband’s noble sacrifice is to be commended this year. A personal delivery from a disgruntled apprentice at the House of Veil and Thread. He was unhappy I could not afford the tax on my lovely home on a widower’s pension and had not informed all the correct bureaucracies.

A beautiful red dress to specially commend those widows of men lost in the year’s death tale. It fits perfectly. Well informed enough of my measurements even if they have no clue of my address. I feel another tug at the fabric. I hate crowds.

“We are gathered to tell the tale of a valiant squadron lost in the War at the Wall…”

It drones on as I fuss my baby boy. I know the story. My husband was a good man and even better fighter. He rode out to face the enemy with his most trusted men.

‘He was the shock that allowed the awe of the victory.’

The first words said to me when I was told of his death. The words chiselled on his grave.

I am proud of my husband and his bravery. I can be proud of a man that I resent for breaking his promise. You promised to come home.

I feel a third tug and hear a whisper on the wind, “Lora.”

My head snaps to see a man in plate armour, his helmet at his side and eyes carving through the crowd to watch me. He gives a small nod in the direction he begins to walk.

I am wading through a sea of tears and sympathy before I consider the danger. I meet a wall of armoured shells before I remember my duty to this procession. A celebration of men that died to better the country that built them for war. Not a second thought for those who held nursed their wounds in the light and warm of a fire with love and compassion.

“… they were the shock for the awe of the victory.”

My face is red, skin mingling with the crimson dress. I am not scared or embarrassed. I am angry that love has become a story and not a man I once knew.

I fall in an act of hysteria toward the metal men who usher me into an alley. All help with not care. They want to hear the stories.

“Leave me.” The tears are real as they drip on my boy’s cotton swaddle. His eyes full of concern and confusion. “I just need air. Please.”

They are happy to return to their stations. My husband told me stories of men’s thoughts of woman. Nothing but soft and enduring creatures. How wrong they are.

The figure stands down the alley, flashing another nod and he rounds the corner. I follow and round the corner. He sits on a box, helmet on a barrel next to him, face in shadow.

“I knew your husband.” His calm, cold expression is dark and pensive. “I rode with him.” You should be dead. “He was a good man.”

“So, they say.” He was. He was the best man a wife could ask for. He was born to be a father. He never even knew I was pregnant. May have even died before I found out.

“He did not die one.”

This man wields no weapon beyond his words and yet I am torn by the attack. “What are you saying?” My voice is a leaf in the wind.

“It was no sacrifice. It was not his choice.”

The flood of truth drowns me. The man speaks to his hands as though I may not be there. I feel as though I may not be. This is not for me but for him. He has no reason to lie.

“They spread lies and falsehoods to glorify their tyranny,” he looks at me, eye fierce and teary, “we need to tell the people. They need to know the truth of their husband’s their fathers, sons and brothers. They need to know.” He stands and grabs my shoulders, being careful to avoid my son. He stares at my boy now. Hope and joy infiltrate his furious expression. “We need to stand for truth, even in its bitterness.”

What has happened? I’ve taken five steps from ceremony and started a rebellion with a man more infected by the rot of loss than I or any widow who walked.

“Your husband was ordered to attack an unknown enemy. He was sent to the field with a troop of soldiers, men, friends. He led us into the field on donkeys and mules so our generals could watch from the security of battlements and study the enemy’s power.” His body vibrate with the energy of emotion thundering power to the tight grip on my arms. “They need to know.” He whispers his plea and watches my reaction.

My cold reaction. Steel and silence as I stare at a man broken by battle and betrayed by those he considered his better. I believe his words. He is hurt but not mad. He is right but not just.

“No.”

Fight flees from him. “No?” He’s staring back at his hands.

“No.”

Tears stream on his rugged face. “He spoke of you.” His last gasp of resistance. “Before we rode he spoke of you, his love Lora. He told us this would happen, to not worry about our honour. We would be heroes no matter our demise. In the hearts of those we promised to return, we were heroes before we left the home we would never see with our eyes. He was right. Oh, how right he was and wrong it is.”

“No.” His words are fact written in history but not for all brave enough to walk as widow. “I may welcome your truth. I do not need the lies. They are scorn on my love’s life.” His hope is healed and killed with my final words. “But other live because of their lies.”

I hear his sobs and cries cut by the clop of my boots on the cobbles as I rejoin my people.

This death was no celebration, as all royal deaths have been for far too many generations. This was unjust, scornful; the sentiment shared by the eerie silence of the crowd, dressed in the traditional white or red funeral attire, the royal tailor must have ran out of time.

“A dark day,” the High Council’s speechmaker’s voice boomed through the hush, “a death day. Prince Oden has joined the souls beyond, dragged…”

Fali’s head dropped, blood thundering in his ears, wells of tears became floods with a strong squeeze on the shoulder from his father’s large, trembling hand.

“… by his own hands.”

Gasps and cries erupted from the stillness, red and white figures shifted in conversation like a blood-speckled snow. Shaming remarks shrieked through the din for it was a shameful death, one not befit of a Prince, not for the heir to the Throne of War.

The following proceedings were mired by a mournful nation, robbed of its most prized possession without a cause to turn on, hate, destroy. Krigland always avenged its deaths.

The coffin, adorned with carvings depicting the life held within, as was tradition. Oden’s coffin was bare, how much life can be lived in less than two decades. All that decorated the dark wood was Oden’s few triumphs in tournaments and his valiant efforts in the War at the Wall, the day their grandfather fell, Oden ran messages between the generals. He was only young, although he always seemed the war hero to Fali.

The procession reached the crypt under the Temple of Rudin, entry only permitted to the family and a select few close to them. The cryptkeeper, barely visible deep into the stone corridor lit by dim candles, chiselled away at one of the tombs. Fali held an unhelpful hand under the coffin, carried mostly by his father’s broad shoulders, watched by statues of ancestors, the walls decorated with murals of their honourable lives and their more honourable deaths, their proper deaths. Each statue labelled with a plaque detailing their names and their deaths.

“Terran, First of his name,” Fali’s grandfather’s plaque read, “falls in the War at the Wall, dragged home by his son.”

The seers see all, know all, Fali thought on the words of his father when they laid his grandfather to rest.

Tap, tap, tap. The cryptkeepers chiselling dragged Fali’s attention back to the procession, coming to a halt. The chisel worked the plaque below a far newer sculpture, only darkened slightly by the shadows. Fali recognised the face of his brother, although much older, bearded with a hard, sharp face, not the dashing young man, beloved by by even his harshest enemies.

The cryptkeeper finished his tapping, bowed his head to all present with a pitying, thin lipped expression. With a heavy heave the stone latch, the final resting place below your headstone, opened.

“Ah!” Fali choked on his exclamation, terrified by the amendment on his brother’s gravestone.

“Hung from a noose of his own knotting.”

Had been etched fresh, below an older, now crossed out etching:

“Falls in single combat at the hands of his brother.”

“Fali.” A stern yet comforting address, “come on.”

Fali followed his father’s orders and helped lay his brother to rest, unable to resist glancing at the words.

“Thank you all for helping on this day.” Fali’s mother addressed the procession, “we ask for a few moments before the feast to console our dear boy.”

Salutes, bows and curtsies were performed before they took their leave, the door closed behind them, candlelight glinting in Fali’s wet eyes, only candlelight to illuminate the dark corridor filled with history.

“The seers may make mistakes, especially when concerning siblings so alike.” His mother’s voice sung a beautiful tale of flattery in an attempt to comfort, a song and warm whisper. Fali and his brother were as alike as the stars and the moon, beautiful and often seen together but hardly similar. “In this case, their mistake is bitter-sweet to the family but your brother took his fate by the reigns and spurred it to his will. He did so to protect you from a life of hatred, a sacrifice of his own destiny to protect yours.”

An agreeing grunt and tight embrace, a blanketing hug from his giant frame, was all Fali’s father had to add, before turning and commanding, “stay here. Join us when you are ready.”

They heavy crypt door was opened and closed and was not opened again until the next day.

Fali knew he should not, was always forbidden to, look upon his destiny but today was no day to cower from breaking rules, his brother definitely shared that sentiment. What death is so worth the murder of your own blood? Fali questioned as he rounded the pillar to glance at his fate.

His resemblance stared down on him in pristine stone with a grave expression, a furrowed brow that admonished all which fell under its gaze. An older face, by a few years, weathered by sour looks and distressing thoughts, reflected his own atop a slight and athletic frame, a grand skirmisher this man would be, he will be.

Fali forced his gaze down to read his plaque, doing everything but yank his skull forward with both hands. The inscription of his destiny, seen by the seers, chiselled by the cryptkeeper:

“Falls in single combat, bringing peace to the Throne of War.”

“Prince Fali, Peace Bringer.” Fali started at the cryptkeeper’s naming, was he there all night? “A grand title to die for, one I will be happy to chisel.”

“And my brother? What shall be chiselled for him?”

“Prince Oden, Protector of Brotherhood.”