The fire had burned low, but the feast still lingered. The baron's hall was quieter now just a few people who muttered toasts, clink of mugs, and the kids who still played around but they were even quiet now.
Maxwell sat near the edge of it all the table, with a half-empty cup held in his hand, his eyes were lost in the flickering flame. No one really paid him much mind anymore. He liked it that way.
"Strange thing, this land," he muttered, mostly to himself. "It pretends to be asleep. But it's not. No... not Ashen Vale. It remembers."
He took a sip. Gritted his teeth.
"You can feel it, can't you? Beneath the stone, under the roots… something old breathes here. Something we stopped listening to a long time ago."
He glanced around. The others were lost in drink and laughter, or too worn out to care. Good.
"You know, when I was a boy," he continued, voice softer now, "I heard stories, whispers, really about the world before crowns and coin ruled it. Back when men still made pacts with things they didn't understand. Before we got clever. Before we thought we could own the land."
He paused, look at his thumb and rub it along the rim of his cup.
"My mother used to say the land doesn't forget the blood spilled into it. Not after one generation. Not after ten. We think the soil is just dirt. But it's memory, too. It's punishment still waiting to be remembered."
He chuckled bitterly.
"I fought in a place once far from here. Thought I was fighting for order. But it wasn't a war. It was a warning. The land fought back. We just didn't know how to listen."
He looked up, toward the raised seat where the young Baron Kain had earlier stood. Empty now. Maxwell looked at the stool which once had Kain on it.
"Your grandfather..." he muttered, almost a whisper. "He knew. He tried to do right by this land. Tried to talk to it, not just tax it. He was the last of them with a spine and a soul."
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"I remember him. Not well just flashes. A quiet man. But strong in a way boys don't understand until they're older. The kind who walked with the peasants and slept without a guard at the door. Folk feared him... and loved him all the same."
Maxwell's lips curled into a tired smile.
"They called him the Root-Baron. Said the forest listened when he spoke. The Church didn't like that one bit. That's when things began to change. Slowly. Quietly. Like rot in the beams."
Another sip. A longer pause.
"I stayed after they fell. Don't ask me why. Habit, maybe. Or guilt. Or because this place still has something left to say, and someone's gotta be here to hear it."
He looked toward the dark windows. Outside, the night pressed against the glass like a held breath.
"Kain's got that same fire, even if he doesn't know it yet. His blood remembers. Whether he wants it to or not."
Maxwell stood, joints cracking as he straightened.
"I just hope the boy learns fast. The land's done waiting."
And with that, he left the cup by the fire and walked into the night.