Arayn stepped onto the snowfield, his boots sinking into the untouched white with each slow stride. The wind brushed past him, but he didn’t flinch. Ahead, a man crouched in the snow, his shoulders shaking. His cries cut through the silence.

  The man's blonde hair covered his face, but Arayn knew who it was. He didn’t need to see the eyes to recognize him.

  The good baron. The man who once smiled gently as he handed bread to villagers. The man who lost control and tore Arayn’s village apart. He had gone mad.

  This man had destroyed his village. Had killed his parents. Everyone. Arayn was the only one who lived through it.

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  He had every right to kill him. However, as the man wept in the snow, crying out for help to no one in particular, something shifted in Arayn. This wasn’t how he imagined it. The scene didn’t smell of justice. It reeked of confusion. The man’s suffering looked real. Too real.

  Arayn called out, “Hey.”

  The man looked up. His face was streaked with tears, his eyes dull with guilt and pain. There was no rage in them. No madness. Just sorrow.

  And in that moment, Arayn remembered Alice’s voice.

  'Try extending your hand to someone in need,' she had once told him.

  He wasn’t a good man. Never claimed to be. But right now, as the snow fell quietly around them, he thought, 'maybe this time, reaching out wasn’t a weakness.'

  He stepped closer and held out his hand. Not out of kindness. Not out of forgiveness. Because once, Alice had done the same for him.

  “Take my hand,” Arayn said. “I’ll help you break free from your suffering.”