"Father, it's me! Nox!" he shouted, dodging swiftly to the side and crashing into a nearby table. "Father, look at me!"
He made another evasive move, but his father didn't listen. The young warrior retreated into the dining room, where he had left his sword. He quickly drew it from its sheath, blocking another of his father's strikes at the last second.
"Father, I'm Nox!" But his father didn't respond.
Nox fled through the corridor. Several times, his father nearly reached him with his sword. It seemed as if he didn't even hear Nox. 'What do I do now?' he asked himself.
He was already outside, in the open. 'This is my only hope. I must reach the stables and ride away.' He tried to escape, but his father was too fast. Karn was a very experienced warrior, much stronger than Nox. He had taught him everything about swordsmanship. How could he possibly overpower him?
While Karn attempted deadly strikes, Nox tried to defend himself in a way that wouldn't harm his father, which made the situation even more difficult.
Then, Nox finally understood. This coldness in Karn's eyes...
Too vacant. Too unnatural.
Nox inhaled sharply, eyes widening. He gasped, stunned by the sudden, terrifying thought. 'This isn't him.'
The moment of hesitation cost him. The blade sliced across his upper arm, a shallow but burning cut. He staggered back, pain blooming through his shoulder.
No... this wasn't his father, not in mind, not in will. Someone else was pulling the strings. Someone with a Green Mark.
Their blades clashed again, steel ringing out across the courtyard like a desperate bell toll. Nox stumbled back, boots scraping through the gravel, barely managing to deflect a downward strike that would've split his shoulder. Karn pressed forward without hesitation, his face a mask of blank purpose, 'absence', thought Nox. His sword cut through the air with precise, practiced violence. There was no hesitation in his strikes. Only muscle memory, as though the man Nox loved had been gone, his movements were driven by something else.
Every time Nox tried to create space, Karn closed the gap in a blink. There was no opportunity to speak, no room to plead. One misstep, one mistimed parry, and it would be over. Nox felt his legs beginning to shake, not just from fatigue, but from dread. His father's style was relentless, efficient. It was the style he had been taught. Now he faced it turned fully against him.
Twice more their swords locked. Sparks flew as Nox twisted his blade free and ducked low under a horizontal slash. He tried to disarm rather than harm, aiming quick strikes at his father's wrist and hilt, but Karn countered them effortlessly. The older warrior adapted to every move.
A sharp jolt of pain shot through Nox's shoulder as Karn's pommel smashed against it, numbing his sword arm. He staggered, nearly dropping his weapon. Karn didn't follow up immediately; he simply stood there, chest heaving, his eyes still clouded by the same eerie emptiness.
"Please," Nox whispered, breathless. "Please come back."
But the next strike came without pause, a diagonal slash that Nox barely dodged. Dirt sprayed as he rolled to the side, heart pounding in his ears. There was no sign of hesitation in Karn. No flicker of recognition. Only force, mechanical, and unstoppable.
Nox continued to defend himself; Karn's strikes were very precise, making it a challenging task. Several times, Nox tried to use Torven's technique, as all his other moves, his father knew too well, he had taught them to him. But with no luck.
'Where on earth is Abram?' Nox thought and shouted "Abram!", calling his brother but no one answered. In Nox's heart, a fear arose that his brother had been attacked just like him, that he hadn't made it out alive. But he didn't have much time to ponder; he had to parry his father's next strike.
In the next exchange, Nox's sword grazed Karn's shirt, tearing it and exposing his chest.
The three-quarters moon that Karn wore so proudly on his chest had been reduced to nearly nothing. 'Oh Gods...' Nox thought. He quickly realized that his father had somehow used up almost everything he had, his entire power, and that he didn't have much time left...
His heart pounded in his chest. He had to find a way out of this situation. But what could he do, alone against such a strong opponent? He gritted his teeth and parried each attack, but he knew it wouldn't last long. He began to feel his ankle ache and his arm stiffen from holding the sword.
'Just a little longer, just a little longer,' he encouraged himself in his thoughts. But in vain. After the next few exchanges, Karn swung and struck Nox's sword so hard that it flew from his hands. 'This is the end,' Nox thought. 'He's going to kill me.' He closed his eyes so he wouldn't remember who was delivering the final blow. He didn't want to see it was his father.
But as soon as he did, he heard a powerful voice shouting from his direction:
"Nox! Command him to stop!"
It was Torven.
Nox somehow, at the last moment, shifted on the ground enough that his father, instead of piercing his neck, struck the sword into the ground with great force. That was enough, it gave Nox a few seconds to slip away.
Torven was approaching on his white mare, still far away, shouting to Nox:
"Focus! You must tell him to stop attacking you!"
Nox didn't completely comprehend what Torven meant, what he was supposed to do. Nevertheless, he did as Torven told him. He focused his gaze on his father's face, looked deeply into his eyes, always so joyful, now completely empty. He threw himself at him with his whole body and shouted, "Stop!"
He saw in Karn's eyes a small flame flicker.
His father said, "Nox... I'm sorry... " Then, he was again under the control of the warrior with the Green Mark again. Karn pushed him with all his strength, and Nox landed with a crash on the ground.
Nox said again, "Father, stop, I beg you!" And just like a second ago, his father again seemed to break free from the mind controller's grip for a moment. He could feel a shift, a subtle pressure in the space between them, as if a thread had caught. And Nox could pull on that thread, somehow bending Karn's will to his.
"Nox... Your brother... You need to promise me..."
Again, it lasted only a moment. But that small moment was enough for Nox to take his sword. He already saw that his father's eyes were becoming clouded again, and once more he quickly ordered him to stop.
"Father, I beg you, stop. I don't want to fight you."
Karn regained consciousness and, with terribly sad eyes and a pleading look, said, "Kill me. Quickly. Hurry."
It looked as if Karn was fighting some invisible battle within himself.
A part of Nox's soul broke in that moment, quietly, irreparably. The weight of everything they had shared: the early mornings training in the yard, his father's quiet nods of approval, the rare bursts of laughter, rushed through his mind like wind through open doors. For a heartbeat, he hesitated.
Tears blurred his vision. His hands trembled around the hilt. Then gently, he raised the sword with both hands and pressed it through his father's chest, through the man who had taught him how to fight, how to stand, how to be.
As the blade slid into Karn's heart, killing him on the spot, Nox felt the weight of it settle not just in his father's chest, but also in his own, heavy and impossible to undo.
Nox screamed. A deep, broken sound ripped from his chest, the kind that came from pain too great for words. It echoed through the entire estate. Nox fell to his knees beside his father's body, his breath ragged, his vision blurred with tears. He had known his father was dying, had seen it in his eyes, in the slight fading strength behind each strike. But to be the one to end it, to drive the sword into the man who had raised him, taught him, loved him, that was a wound of a different kind.
As his scream faded, his shoulders shook as silent tears fell. In that moment, everything felt lost. Everything felt in vain.