You Already Won

Digging.

She had gathered all the bodies onto a cart.

The smaller ones were wrapped in cloth. Some still clutched toys. Some were still warm.

The others—she made float.

Ryun wrapped around them like a silent wind, lifting them gently, reverently. They hovered behind her, a procession of death carried by will alone.

Digging.

Ashantiana looked almost haunting.

One woman.

A trail of the dead behind her.

The rising suns behind that.

Like a tale whispered to children to keep them inside after dusk—a warrior with blank eyes, blood-streaked armor, and silent purpose, pushing a wheelbarrow full of carefully wrapped little bodies, while more floated behind her like ghosts.

Digging.

Digging.

She didn't remember when Ser Dolen had come to help.

He said nothing. Neither did she.

He dug.

She dug.

Her arms trembled. Her eyes wouldn't blink. They started to sting.

Good.

Let them sting.

She needed to feel something.

Digging.

Digging.

The graves started large.

Then smaller.

And smaller.

Each one a name she didn't know. A laugh she barely remembered. A soul she failed to protect.

Digging.

Digging.

Digging.

And then—

She stood before the last two.

Gieventi Xoclug.

Selcentra Zarget.

The woman who raised generations.

The sister who never stopped trying to save them.

She looked down at them, wrapped and ready, still as marble statues.

In Dorferan culture, there were rites—rituals for washing the hands of the dead, prayers to echo into the beyond, holy threads for the soul's journey.

But it didn't matter.

No one was left to chant.

No one would care.

So she would make her own.

She laid them side by side beneath a willow tree.

"The gold shouldn't touch them."

Gold was a disease.

No.

They would not lie in gold.

They would lie in ashes.

A fire.

She lit one.

A small one, at first.

Then a flame to honor the two heroes.

The wood cracked. The wind carried the smoke away.

She watched them burn—until they were dust.

No tears.

No prayers.

Just ash and wind.

The suns were rising now. Three orbs climbing over the grey horizon.

It should've been beautiful.

It was the kind of sunrise poets etched into history.

But to her?

It looked grey.

Like the rest of the world.

She stood alone.

Eyes stinging.

Hands cracked.

Armor soaked and silent.

A hand settled gently on her shoulder.

Rough, calloused. Heavy with age but steady with purpose.

He said nothing at first.

Then, quietly, "Come with me."

Ashantiana didn't move. Her feet were rooted. Her hands hung at her sides, ash still trailing from her fingers like she hadn't let go of the fire.

So he didn't pull.

He simply stayed there, his hand resting, his presence unwavering.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

And when she didn't resist, he slowly guided her forward.

One step at a time.

It should've taken seconds.

But it took fifteen minutes.

Every step was a battle.

Not against pain.

Not against injury.

But against everything else. The weight in her limbs. The numbness in her chest. The emptiness behind her eyes.

If she faltered, they stopped.

If she tensed more than three times, he was ready to stop completely.

But she never made it to three.

The closest she got was two.

And then, somehow, they reached it.

A low rise.

A clearing beyond the burn site.

Where other survivors—warriors, civilians, old soldiers—had gathered.

Not many.

But enough.

Some were digging graves.

Some were lighting fires.

Some just stood with shovels in their hands and nothing in their eyes.

Ashantiana stared.

And Ser Dolen's jaw clenched.

"They turned us into cowards." His voice was bitter. Taut with restrained fury.

"Cowards."

He looked out at the digging, at the broken movements of proud people reduced to funeral rites and silence.

"All of us. Scrambling to die quietly. To take our own before they could."

His voice trembled, not with grief—but with rage.

"They call themselves Supreme Beings. Supreme Families. What a joke. What a mockery of the word. Those are the true cowards."

Ashantiana didn't respond.

Her eyes stayed forward.

But Dolen kept going.

"Too scared to face a world that didn't kneel. Too drunk on power to notice they're not gods—they're parasites. And this—" he swept a hand toward the rows of graves, the smoke trailing into the morning sky—"this is their legacy. Not glory. Not balance. Slaughter. Erasure."

His voice dropped to a growl.

"They weren't born to rule. They were born afraid. That's why they kill us. That's why they hunt anything that refuses to become like them."

Ashantiana's breath hitched.

Just once.

A flicker.

But still, she said nothing.

Ser Dolen sighed. Not in resignation—but in disgust.

"They'll write poems about them. Odes. Paint murals on planets they've never touched. And none of them will mention this."

He looked at her.

At the ash on her armor. The hollowness in her stare. The weight still clinging to her shoulders like a second body.

She sighed.

Then set her shoulders, and walked toward the next grave.

The rest of the day was spent in silence and dust—burying the dead, one after another. No names. No markers. Just quiet earth and tired hands.

And then… burying those who buried the dead.

Old warriors who had spent their final strength helping others. Elders who dug with brittle fingers until their bodies gave out. A mother who sang a lullaby with her last breath while placing her child beneath the soil.

No one said it aloud.

But if the kingdom—once a proud, flame-wreathed jewel of resistance—was like this, then it meant everything else was truly gone.

The three suns hung high in the afternoon sky, casting a warm, meaningless glow over the broken land, the survivors gathered together.

There weren't many.

Just a handful. Maybe two dozen. The rest stayed in the kingdom, pointlessly doing tasks to keep their mindsets on other things.

They sat in the shade of a broken chapel, or leaned against the roots of the willow tree.

The last few.

The ones who stayed behind not because they thought they could win… but because there was nothing else to do.

Some still talked, voices soft, dry, wandering into nonsense. A few still dared to suggest escape routes, wild theories about secret doors or forgotten summoning paths.

But no one shut them down.

They simply let the words fall and drift like ash.

Even they didn't believe what they were saying.

Hopeless.

Ashantiana chuckled, just once, under her breath.

It wasn't joy. It wasn't madness. It was something deeper.

"What do you do," she said aloud, "when you already lost?"

Ser Dolen glanced at her, but didn't answer.

There was nothing to gain.

Nothing to strive for.

No next war. No vengeance arc. No rallying cry.

Purpose had been crushed. Flattened.

Maybe there was amusement.

Maybe this was excellent entertainment.

She tilted her head back and stared at the sky.

Of course it was.

It had to be entertaining—for someone.

Whoever was watching.

The Supreme Families. The outlanders. The lesser gods.

She and her people were the punchline of a grand cosmic joke.

Her lip curled. "We're just the losing faction this time."

On the surface, it almost made sense. She'd won plenty before. She wasn't cruel, but the losing side always suffered. That was war.

They cried, begged, bled—and she marched on.

Now it was her turn.

Her people's turn.

Karmic balance, right?

But the longer she stared, the colder it felt.

No.

It wasn't the same.

Not in the grand scheme.

In battle, someone wins. Someone loses. But both sides are playing the same game.

The terms are cruel—but they're shared.

What happened here wasn't battle.

This wasn't war.

This was a stage. A script. An engineered collapse.

A world fed into an arena of gods and monsters, just to see what would break first: the walls or the people.

She didn't get outmaneuvered.

She got chosen.

And that was the difference.

One side of history is written in blood.

The other in amusement.

And her world had been handed over to entertainment.

That was the joke.

Not that they lost.

But that no one else thought they mattered enough to win.

Ser Dolen sat beside her, his armor creaking as he lowered himself. His breathing was heavy—not from exhaustion, but from age that never quite left the bones.

They sat in silence for a time. The sound of the wind brushing over graves filled the air like a whisper no one wanted to translate.

He glanced at her.

"Any plans?" he asked, voice like gravel and dusk.

She didn't look at him. Just stared ahead, at the endless sunlit horizon.

"Kill as many competitors as I can."

Dolen smiled. Not a joyful one—just the grim curl of someone who understood.

"If I were younger, I'd join you."

"You're still welcome to try."

He chuckled. "Nah. I've buried enough of my body in this land. What's left belongs here. Besides…"

He looked at the shallow trenches and smoke curling from ash piles.

"…someone has to remember."

Ashantiana tilted her head slightly. "The old lady said the same thing. About winning by stalling. That even small choices matter."

Dolen nodded slowly. "Gieventi wasn't wrong. Living one more hour, one more day… It's not nothing. Not in a world that wants you to fall quietly."

They sat together as the light faded behind the clouds, the warmth never quite reaching their skin.

After a pause, he asked:

"Let's say you did have the power. The way these gods do.

He turned his head toward her.

"How would you mess with the game?"

Ashantiana didn't blink.

She didn't even think.

"I'd burn it all down."

Dolen's eyes flickered. "All of it?"

"Yes."

Her voice was flat. Heavy.

"I'd tear down the towers. The gilded cities. The nations that watched and called it fate. If this land's dying, I'd rather be the one to kill it myself. At least then… it'd mean something."

Dolen didn't speak.

He just stared at her.

For a long time.

Then he gave a quiet nod—not approval. Not judgment.

Just acknowledgment.

Ser Dolen stood.

His knees cracked, and his shoulders groaned, but he rose tall—taller than he had in years. The three suns had begun to dip low, three halos kissing the land.

He walked away from Ashantiana, his back straight, his boots crunching softly over dried earth and memory. The remaining survivors—those last two dozen—watched him approach.

Worn men. Scarred women. Young warriors with nothing left but cracked blades and hollow eyes.

And he spoke.

"We've reached the end."

His voice wasn't loud.

But it carried.

"Not the end the gods wrote for us. Not the one those Supreme Families designed. No, this one's ours."

He glanced toward the ash piles. Toward the makeshift graves. Toward the silence that now sat like smoke between them all.

"They turned us into cowards. Into ghosts. Into background characters in someone else's tragedy."

He turned slightly, meeting each gaze.

"But we can make a mark. A final spit in their face."

There was a pause.

Some straightened. Others frowned, confused.

Dolen's eyes burned.

"I'm talking about a ritual. A Ryun rite long buried. Long forbidden."

Murmurs rippled through the group.

He raised his hand, silencing them.

"One where many give up their lives… to fuel one. Not with blood. But with meaning. With their will. Their souls."

He turned back toward Ashantiana.

"To give her what she needs. What she deserves."

Ashantiana stood slowly. "What?! Dolen—"

"You carry us already," he said, voice softer now. "Let us carry you."

Faces shifted. Confusion. Fear. Protest.

"Why?" one muttered. "What's the point?"

Dolen looked around.

"Because we're already dead. And if we're gonna go, let us go by making gods afraid again."

Some turned away.

But Dolen stepped forward.

"Will you wander into dust, waiting to be forgotten by gods who cheered while we burned?"

He looked each of them in the eye.

"Or will you be the reason they shiver in their sleep for centuries?"

No one moved.

So he kept going.

"We are Dorferan. Born of stone. Raised by flame. We don't die begging. We don't die still."

He looked to Ashantiana, who stood frozen, horror mixed with awe.

"We die burning, so that our memory becomes a curse they can't wash off."

One woman stood.

Then another.

Then two more.

They stepped forward, each placing a hand to the ground, a palm to their chest.

One by one, they nodded.

Ashantiana took a step back. "No. Stop. This isn't right. I never—"

Dolen shook his head.

"It's not about what you want anymore."

He smiled.

"It's about what we choose."