Chapter 8- Ignorance... a bliss??

The battlefield had fallen silent. Snowflakes drifted lazily through the air, trying to blanket the horror that had unfolded as if nature herself wished to erase the memory of carnage. But the blood refused to freeze. It steamed with the heat of vengeance, staining the land with crimson shame.

Agnirasva stood alone amidst the remnants of the battle—motionless as if time itself dared not approach him. His golden eyes flickered with a dimming brilliance, the last ember of his divine wrath burning low. Around him, the bodies of the twenty elite vampires lay in still silence, their expressions frozen in terror, their limbs strewn in grotesque angles. The howling wind was the only mourner.

Footsteps crunched against the frost behind him.

A figure emerged through the veil of falling snow. Tall and solemn, cloaked in midnight blue, with silver hair swept back like moonlight carved into flesh. His breath hung heavy in the cold air, not from the chill, but from the weight of what he was seeing.

Kaelith Vaystriel—Kael, the Moon-Bound Prince—stopped a few paces from his half-brother, his sharp grey eyes flickering with restrained anguish.

"You could've spared them," Kael said quietly, his voice low but firm. "They were rebels, yes, but still our people. They made mistakes... but that doesn't mean they didn't deserve a second chance."

Agnirasva didn't turn around. His eyes were still locked on the horizon where snow met smoke.

"I gave them a second chance," he said, his voice distant—like wind blowing through the hollows of an abandoned temple. "They were the ones unwilling to take it."

Kael clenched his jaw, stepping closer. "Isn't that still cruel?"

There was a pause. Agira exhaled softly, his shoulders rising with it.

"Cruelty," he murmured, "is letting them kill innocents for their twisted righteousness. It's closing your eyes while they set fire to villages in the name of their so-called freedom. It's watching children burned alive because their parents followed a different banner."

Kael's fists tightened. "But they were misled. Manipulated by fear. By that false prophet who turned them."

"And knowing half the truth, then acting on it, is still an offence," Agnirasva replied, his voice colder now. "A dagger stabbed in ignorance still kills. Think of all the people they murdered. The ones who begged for mercy. The ones who never raised a hand in war. Think of the families that won't ever see their sons again. Think of the widows, the orphans."

He finally turned toward Kael, his golden eyes glowing like dying stars, but within them—compassion wrestled with judgment.

"When your mind is filled with ignorance," he said slowly, "then the only thing that awaits you... is death."

The words hung like a frostbitten curse in the air.

And then, something shifted.

The winds died.

The snow halted midfall, frozen in time.

A soft radiance began to glow from Agira's skin—not harsh like before, but gentle. Warm. His golden eyes slowly dulled into a tranquil, deep blue. The light of fury fading into the calm of restoration.

A pulse of ethereal energy rippled out from him, a silent wave through the bloodstained air. As it passed over the broken bodies of the fallen vampires, something miraculous happened.

One by one, their bodies stirred.

The shredded flesh reknit itself. Torn limbs reattached. Eyes fluttered open as breath returned to lungs that had long been stilled. The colour returned to pale skin. A soft gasp escaped the lips of the first vampire to rise, disbelief painting his expression.

All of them—every rebel who had fallen—now knelt in the snow, alive.

Not healed completely. Their scars remained. But their lives were returned.

Kael stepped back, stunned. "You... you revived them?"

"I never intended to hurt those who are just and righteous," Agira replied, his voice quiet, but heavy with truth. "But righteousness isn't measured by the strength of your ideals... it's measured by your compassion in action."

He walked slowly among the kneeling rebels, their eyes cast down, trembling—not from fear, but shame. One by one, they lowered their heads, pressing their bloodied hands to the ice, forming the traditional sign of allegiance in ancient Chirosancustomsm.

"I need you to understand something, Kael," Agira continued. "The side you choose to fight for should not be the loudest, or the most powerful... it should be the side that upholds life, even in its weakness. Ignorance may not always be a choice... but if it turns into cruelty toward your kind, then it's no longer innocent."

A hush fell over the field.

Agnirasva stopped before the last of the rebels. The man had once been the loudest voice among them, preaching hatred, spewing venom in the name of a false saviour.

Now, with eyes filled with tears and soul stripped bare, he whispered, "I was wrong..."

Agnirasva didn't answer. He simply reached down and lifted the man to his feet.

"You are still alive," he said. "That means you can make it right."

With a rustle of wind and snow, he turned, his dark cloak brushing the frost behind him. The rebels, now bound by something far stronger than fear—respect—fell into formation behind him. Kael watched them march, watched his brother walk ahead of them like a quiet storm parting clouds.

The Silent Anomaly. The unwanted half-blood. The child of contradiction.

The soul of justice dressed in shadow.

The prince they once scorned...

Now, the one they knelt for.

And somewhere, hidden in the drifting winds, the land whispered a new legend—

"The prince who brought back the fallen—not to serve, but to rise."

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