Kneel! The Fallen Hero Has Returned!

“After tonight, kill him. The cripple is useless now.”

Ronan Vale froze outside the door, his hand resting on the handle, and every muscle in his body went stiff.

For three years he had swallowed pain that would have driven an ordinary man mad, and he had done it with one thought keeping him alive. He had been walking toward this door to tell the woman he loved that he was finally whole again.

Barely an hour earlier, he had been lying on the cracked floor of his tiny room, drenched in sweat and biting down on a rag so his screams wouldn't wake the house.

The Abyss Core inside his chest had been boiling like molten iron, and every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. He had felt the same agony every night for three years, so he waited for the darkness to take him again.

Then the burning stopped.

Ronan blinked, his lips trembling, because the silence in his body was so strange that it scared him more than the pain ever had.

A warm, steady pulse spread from his chest down through his ribs, his spine, and his legs… the legs that had been dead weight since the day the core shattered.

"Move," he rasped, staring down at his feet. "C-come on. Please, just move."

His toes curled.

Ronan's breath hitched, and he slapped a trembling hand over his mouth to hold back a sob. He gripped the edge of his bed, pushed with everything he had, and for the first time in three years he rose onto his own two feet.

The first person he wanted to tell was Seren.

She had been his fiancée for six years, and when everyone else had called him garbage, she had stayed. Or so he had believed. He had ignored her cold glances and her short answers, telling himself she was tired and that his illness had worn her down.

He grabbed his cane out of habit, then stared at it, and then tossed it aside with a grin he couldn't hold back.

He walked down the dim hallway of the Whitmore guest wing, the closer he got to her room, the faster his heart pounded.

Then he heard her voice through the door.

"After tonight, kill him. The cripple is useless now."

That was where his hand had stopped on the handle. The warmth in his chest turned to ice so fast that his fingers went numb, and he leaned closer, convinced his ears were lying to him.

"Seren, darling, you're sure about this?" A man's voice came through the phone, as it was on speaker. "He's still your fiancé, after all."

Ronan's eyes widened, because he knew that voice. Damon Cross, the heir of the Cross family, had visited the Whitmore estate a dozen times this year, always smiling and always offering Ronan polite, hollow pity.

Seren clicked her tongue, and her voice dripped with disgust. "Don't say that word to me again. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to push that wheelchair into a banquet hall?"

"I can imagine," Damon chuckled. "Everyone staring, whispering, laughing."

"Three years, Damon!" Her voice rose sharply, "Three years of feeding him, bathing him, and smiling at people who pitied me, all for a man who can't even stand up!"

Ronan's lips parted, but no sound came out. Bathing him? She had never touched him once. The servants had done everything, and Seren had barely visited his room more than twice a month.

"Don't be so harsh," Damon teased. "He was a hero once."

"A hero?" Seren scoffed, "Heroes get statues and respect and power. He got a ruined body and a bad reputation, and the whole city treats him like a stain on the floor."

"So you want him gone."

"Yes!" she snapped. "My father keeps saying we owe him for what he did, but I owe him nothing. I wasted my best years waiting for a corpse to die slowly."

Ronan's hand tightened on the handle. The dark gold light flickered under his skin, and he forced himself to breathe because he feared the door would explode if he lost control.

"And the arrangements?" Seren asked, her voice suddenly calm.

"Handled," Damon replied. "My men will take care of it after the banquet tomorrow, and it'll look like an accident. An old injury finally killing him. Nobody will ask questions about a cripple."

"Good." Seren let out a satisfied sigh. "Then there's nothing left between us, is there?"

"Nothing at all, my love."

She laughed and he stood there with his mouth open and his chest heaving.

"S-Seren," he whispered, so quietly that no one could hear. "Why?" His voice shook, and he hated how weak it sounded.

"Once he's dead," Seren said sweetly, "nobody will stand between us."

Ronan pulled his hand off the handle as if it had burned him.

He backed away from the door one slow step at a time, his legs trembling. Tears had gathered in his eyes, and he blinked hard, refusing to let them fall for a woman who had just called him a corpse.

"Don't," he muttered, pressing the back of his shaking hand against his mouth. "Don't you dare cry for her. Not one tear, Ronan."

A servant passed by at the far end, glanced at him, and froze when she saw him standing without his cane.

"M-Master Ronan?" she stammered, her eyes wide. "You're standing? Y-you can walk?"

Ronan turned his head toward her slowly, and the girl flinched. His eyes had gone dark and calm, and she took a nervous step back without knowing why.

"Keep quiet about it," he said softly.

"Y-yes, Master Ronan! Of course!"

She bowed hurriedly and rushed away, her footsteps echoing down the hall. Ronan watched her go, then turned back toward Seren's door, where he could still hear the faint sound of her happy laughter.

He had planned to burst in and share his joy with her. He had planned to take her hands, tell her the nightmare was over, and promise they would finally start the life they had dreamed about.

What a fool he had been.

Ronan's lips curled slowly..The good news he had been so eager to share was a gift, but Seren didn't deserve it.

He would keep it hidden, let her believe the cripple was still helpless, and let her walk happily toward the ruin she had been building for herself.

He looked down at his glowing hands and let out a cold laugh.

"So you want me dead? Good. Time to know who dies first.”