Chap­ter VII – The tale of Balen opens amid the bit­ing winds of a cold, unfor­giv­ing sea­son, where the snow veils the earth in still­ness and knight­ly hearts burn bright against the chill. The sto­ry begins not with tri­umph, but with Balen’s qui­et resilience—a war­rior cast adrift by sor­row, yet bound to a path that only hon­or could illu­mi­nate. Though bur­dened by the weight of past mis­deeds and a king­dom’s dis­ap­proval, he press­es on, dri­ven by a need to reclaim what was lost and per­haps mend what was bro­ken in him­self and oth­ers.

Balen moves through forests cloaked in shad­ow and mys­tery, where each encounter seems fat­ed, as though guid­ed by unseen forces. Along the way, whis­pers of his for­mer glo­ry fol­low him, car­ried by trav­ellers and the mur­mur­ing trees that line for­got­ten paths. Still, even in soli­tude, his resolve does not waver; every step for­ward is both a defi­ance and an act of penance, shaped by a knight’s unshak­able sense of duty.

It is dur­ing this qui­et pil­grim­age that Balen comes across a soli­tary knight dressed in mourn­ing hues, stand­ing motion­less beneath ancient boughs. This stranger, Gar­nysshe of the Mount, wears grief like armor, his pos­ture noble but weight­ed by sor­row that time could not ease. What begins as a chance meet­ing soon binds the two in shared pur­pose, and with few words exchanged, Balen under­stands that this knight’s sto­ry must be heard and, if pos­si­ble, healed.

Their jour­ney takes them to a remote strong­hold, where Gar­nysshe seeks his beloved, only to find her affec­tion promised to anoth­er. The con­fronta­tion is swift, filled with a fury no sword can tem­per, and in the after­math, the echoes of heart­break leave nei­ther peace nor vic­to­ry. Balen, com­pelled to uphold the val­ues of hon­or, seeks to quell the storm—but some­times right­eous­ness, when too swift, only deep­ens the wound.

As they part ways, Balen con­tin­ues alone and soon arrives at a cross­roads where ancient warn­ings are carved into stone. There, an old woman speaks of a doom yet to come, but her rid­dles offer no clear path, only fur­ther con­fu­sion. Though trou­bled, Balen does not turn back; like many before him, he choos­es action over fear, his loy­al­ty to the code of chival­ry unwa­ver­ing, even as its cost becomes unclear.

His next stop is a cas­tle of haunt­ing beau­ty, its walls cov­ered in ivy and sor­row, where a noble­woman offers him rest—and a test. She speaks in rid­dles of loy­al­ty and betray­al, leav­ing Balen to ques­tion not only his mis­sion but the truth behind every kind­ness offered to him. Dreams dis­turb his rest, filled with images of blood­ied swords and unseen ene­mies, as if fate itself con­spires to unset­tle his spir­it.

It is not long before he faces the cru­elest twist of all. In a des­per­ate fight against an armored stranger, Balen deliv­ers a mor­tal blow, only to dis­cov­er that he has slain his own broth­er, Bal­an. The recog­ni­tion comes too late—the hel­mets already removed, the truth exposed beneath the weight of silence and misjudgment—and grief strikes like light­ning across both their hearts.

The tale does not end with vengeance or tri­umph, but with sor­row­ful reck­on­ing. The two broth­ers, bound by love and undone by cir­cum­stance, share their final breaths in mutu­al apol­o­gy and pain. Their deaths serve as a mourn­ful tes­ta­ment to how even noble hearts can fall prey to fate’s unre­lent­ing cru­el­ty.

This leg­end offers more than just the thrill of com­bat or the nobil­i­ty of chivalry—it presents a deep­er truth. Actions, even when done with noble intent, can lead to dev­as­ta­tion when guid­ed by incom­plete knowl­edge or mis­trust. In Balen’s sto­ry, we wit­ness how hon­or with­out under­stand­ing can become a sword with no tar­get but the self.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, “The Tale of Balen” echoes medieval beliefs sur­round­ing des­tiny, where knights were seen as instru­ments of a divine plan. The sto­ry draws from the same well as oth­er Arthuri­an leg­ends, blend­ing myth with moral strug­gle in a way that cap­ti­vates read­ers cen­turies lat­er. While fic­tion­al, these tales often reflect soci­etal val­ues of the time—loyalty, jus­tice, and the cost of pride—creating not just a fan­ta­sy, but a mir­ror to human nature.

The lega­cy of Balen sur­vives because it warns and inspires all at once. His jour­ney reveals that the pur­suit of right­eous­ness often involves impos­si­ble choic­es, and that some­times, even the most vir­tu­ous path is paved with unin­tend­ed sor­row. In the end, the tale becomes a med­i­ta­tion on what it means to be hon­or­able, and whether true redemp­tion is ever tru­ly with­in reach when our fates are already sealed.