Kallen's usual demeanor settled back into place as soon as Menelaus was gone.

Acting exaggeratedly disoriented, goofy and compliant, had been his best bet... at least the moment, for not dying.

It kept him underestimated, bought him time, and let him gather information as possible about his situation.

There were other approaches he could have taken, but most were either too risky or wouldn't have given him the same advantage. One particularly reckless option would have been revealing that he was a Crimson.

That would have been a terrible idea.

The attack on his family estate hadn't been by humans, but by other races... at the very least, those three he had killed weren't humans, so it was safe to assume the others weren't humans too.

Although he didn't kill an orc amongst them, that did not mean the Orcs did not also have a hand in it.

And if the Orcs were involved, even tangentially, claiming his lineage could get him killed.

In the supposed case they weren't associated with the war, perhaps not even having a single idea about it, the mere reputation of the Crimson family would make them wary.

A Great Family.

The thought alone might be enough for them to consider... there was no consideration. They just had to kill him, to avoid any future complications.

And if they did consider, deciding to not kill him outright, they might try to hand him over to the Crimsons, which to be fair, was not a good deal for them.

The Crimsons could act irrational and slaughter them on the spot, once they caught a whiff of it, not caring to know if they were the abductors or not. They wouldn't even get the chance to explain themselves.

So if even they had half a brain cell, they would know that the risk to reward ratio, was not worth it, and decide to kill him instead. That way, they got to keep their lives.

Besides, he had no idea where in Xenith he even was. Hell, he wasn't even sure if he was in Xenith at all.

Now, though, he had his answer.

The abnormally harsh temperature. The Orcs... lots of them. The humid air.

There was no doubt about it, he was very far from home.

He was in Andreía—the continent of Orcs.

Of the eleven tectonic plates on Ares where he could have ended up, it just had to be Andreía—arguably the worst place to be if you weren't an Orc.

Beyond the sheer brutality of the Orcs, both among themselves and especially toward others, the climate alone made survival difficult.

Of the ten dominant races of Ares, only four could endure Andreía's relentless heat and suffocating humidity.

Kallen needed to go home. He had to.

A familiar, crushing sense of loss settled over him. His shoulders slumped, his head hung low, and a deep, hollow despondency filled his chest.

The image of the Sacred Grove erupting into a massive mushroom of flames burned deep on his mind, repeating itself again, and again... and again.

He felt lost. Helpless. He felt… like a child.

Countless emotions warred within him; pain, grief, helplessness, fury... a deep, smoldering anger layered itself like molten rock cooling into hardened stone, thickening with each passing second. Yet, no matter how much it grew, it refused to erupt.

And beneath it, buried deep seething hatred, an undeniable thirst for vengeance, and two other emotions that while inconsequential, to Kallen, were definitely the most alarming.

Concern and Relief.

Concern because with Lyra dead, there was no longer a leash on Veronica to keep her silent about him.

It wasn't as if there was animosity between them. On the contrary, their relationship had been good.

She had cared for him, perhaps not as a mother would, but certainly with the warmth of an aunt or guardian. She had loved him in her own way.

But love wasn't the issue. Risk was. Heck even love could cause those who loved you to betray you... for what they thought was your own good.

People were sacrificial creatures. They gave up one thing to secure another; comfort for luxury, rest for extra work so as to get extra pay, morality for personal gain or survival. It was a fundamental truth.

Parents sacrificed their children, sometimes for their children's benefit, sometimes for their own, sometimes for the collective good.

Brothers betrayed brothers.

Families turned on their own.

Veronica might choose to keep her silence. Might.

But Kallen wasn't exactly an optimist.

Hope, he had learned, could be a poison; one he had tasted too many times before.

Hope itself was not necessarily bad. But expecting the worst was a necessity.

That way, when expectations were betrayed, the poison wouldn't hurt as much.

And relief... because he didn't have to kill Lyra himself.

An absolutely sickening, but liberating thought.

Relief because one of the few people who knew enough about him to hold his life in their hands was gone. And he wasn't the one who had to do it.

Relief because he didn't have to make the decision. Didn't have to bear the weight of that hard choice. Didn't have to take the life of the only being he had ever truly loved in both of his lives with his own hands.

Relief because until her very end, she never betrayed him.

And yet, the thought of it all was gut-wrenching.

Even now, he couldn't logically understand why he had told her. Why he had trusted her with something so dangerous. Why he had made such a stupid decision—one that had haunted him every single day since.

There was only one answer. One truth that echoed in his mind every time he thought about it.

"Love made you weak, as much as it did me."

The thoughts flowed, one after another, unstoppable and relentless.

A storm in his mind, dragging him under, drowning him within.

He wanted it all to end.

It was like his very soul was forcing him to confront these feelings, to make him see... see how vile he was.

See the heartless demon inside him.

He wanted it to stop.

He wanted his brain to shut the fuck up.