Chapter 3: The Wall
To the north of the empire, bordering the territory no noble house claims, stands THE WALL.
Two hundred kilometers of jagged stone, weeping granite, and silent towers stretching across the land like an ancient, jagged scar. It separated the northernmost settlements of the empire from the Great Green Forest, a land so vast and primordial that no one knew how far it stretched or what secrets it held in its canopy.
But the empire had understood the dangers of that place. Not now, but generations ago, and built a wall to protect itself, to guard against the inhabitants of that terrible place.
The weather there was cold for most of the year, and when the sun did show its face, it never dared to stay for long - that was the Wall.
No noble house held power in its territory.
And the Wall answered to none.
It was a forgotten appendage of the empire that had no lord, no crest, and no influence.
The men who served there were no soldiers in any sense that the capital would recognize. They were disgraced nobles stripped of their names, criminals offered the choice between the Wall and execution, and mercenaries -the greedy ones who thought they could make it big.
It was, in every sense that mattered to the nobility, a place you went to disappear.
Which was precisely why Duke Gannon did not immediately understand what he had just heard.
For a moment, he wondered if the boy had lost his mind.
His son, the one who had spent the better part of his youth drinking through the family’s wine cellar, brawling with household knights, harassing the maids- HE, the fool, the disgrace of the household, was asking to be sent to the Wall?
He found it very hard to believe.
"The Wall?"
The duke’s voice was calm, but the air in the room seemed to crystallize, growing sharp and frigid. He leaned forward into the pool of amber lamplight.
"What is this new act of yours?"
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’I must be out of my mind.’
Jin knew what kind of place the Wall was. He, who had read the novel multiple times, was aware of why the Wall had been built and of why going there was a terrible idea.
But between disappearing to the Wall and losing the Gannon name entirely, he would take the cold any day.
’The duke’s anger won’t last forever. I just need to endure until things quiet down.’
That was what he told himself. Whether he believed that was a separate question.
What he hadn’t expected was the duke’s response.
He had prepared for white-hot anger, for a dismissal that would ring in his ears, or for a flat command to crawl from his sight. He had been ready to prostrate himself on the stone floor if it came to that, ready to grovel until his forehead bled.
But he hadn’t expected the question.
Not an immediate refusal, saying, You cannot go to the Wall.
Not even - that is not your decision to make.
But a question.
’The door hasn’t closed yet.’
Jin kept his eyes level and his voice steady.
"It is not an act, Father."
He said it simply.
"I am aware of what I have done."
He let those words sit. It was, after all, the question the duke had asked twice and never received an answer to.
"I am aware of the damage I have done to this house. I am aware of what it costs you to stand behind my name. I am aware that keeping me here is a liability that has stopped being worth carrying." He held his father’s gaze. "I am not asking you to forgive me. I am asking you to consider which solution actually serves you."
Something in the duke’s expression shifted, not enough for Jin to notice, but it did.
Jin pressed on.
"The moment I am disowned from the family, it becomes a story. It will spread from the duchy to the capital within a fortnight, things like this always travel fast. People will ask what I did to deserve disownment, and whatever answer spreads, Lady Esther’s name will be part of it."
He paused. "Count Sinclair is a proud man. I don’t believe he wants his daughter’s name carried through the capital as the reason a duke disowned his son - even if the fault is entirely mine."
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence than before.
The duke had not moved. He was watching his son with an expression that was hard to read.
"Send me to the Wall, and I will simply vanish as you and my siblings have always wanted. Count Sinclair would be satisfied, too. You keep the Gannon name clean. And I-" he held the man’s eyes steadily - "receive the punishment I’ve earned."
He hadn’t planned what came next. But it arrived on its own, and he let it.
"And if I die up there, the matter resolves itself entirely."
The room was very quiet after that.
The duke sat with it for a long time. Whatever moved behind his eyes was unreadable.
"Encrid." The duke looked at his son for a moment that stretched long enough to become uncomfortable.
Then he stood.
He was taller than Jin had registered from the floor - broad-shouldered, straight-backed, with the kind of bearing that commanded respect. He walked to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind him, looking out at something Jin couldn’t see.
A long silence stretched between them.
"The Wall," he said finally, quietly, almost to himself. "You understand what it is."
"Yes."
"You understand that if you go, I cannot protect you." He didn’t turn. "The Gannon name means nothing there. Your blood means nothing. Whatever happens to you up there-" He paused. When he turned, his gaze was direct and carried a strange softness Jin hadn’t expected. "It happens to you."
Jin took it all in and let it settle into the weight of what it meant.
"I understand."
Another silence, and it was the last one.
"Leave."
Jin blinked.
"Take what is in your possession." The duke had already turned back to his desk, already reaching for the quill, returning to work as if a decision had simply been made and filed and no longer required his attention. "Be gone by morning."
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