The Second Life of a Discarded Heiress

Chapter 407

The next day, Hastings gathered all his soldiers together and played a video on the big screen-a montage of their training days from enlistment to the present. Every highlight and hardship, every laugh and every tear, every memory that shaped them flashed before their eyes.

As they watched, the room filled with laughter and sobs alike. Some doubled over, clutching their sides at old jokes, while others buried their faces in their hands, overcome by emotion. Hastings glanced around at his men, seeing not the hollow, grief-stricken shells they'd become, but the friends and brothers he'd always known. He felt a sting in his eyes and quickly turned away, swiping at the corners with his sleeve. Then, without warning, he spun back and called out in a voice that rang through the hall:

"Brothers! Do you remember what we dreamed of when we first put on this uniform?"

The soldiers nodded, honest and unwavering.

"Captain, I remember. I wanted to protect my home, my country."

"I wanted to honor my brother, to serve in his stead after he was killed in action."

"I grew up with nothing and no one. If the regiment hadn't pulled me out of that hellhole, I'd be dead or worse. The army saved me. I live for my country, and if I die, my soul belongs to it, too. I swear to protect it with my last breath."

"We don't have grand ambitions. We just want to give everything we have for our country."

"I'll always be proud to call myself a Vermillion Vanguard."

the redness in

fine men," he said quietly,

voice, steady and commanding:

shoulders, and

of the Vermillion

my blood is my honor. I vow to be loyal unto death, to my country and to

before he finished, the soldiers joined in, their voices unison, strong enough to shake the rafters. In that moment, every pair of eyes burned with

company had been reborn. The men who had been listless and lost

feeling a wave of nostalgia crash over her. She remembered taking that very oath herself, every word and every pause etched into her heart. Hearing it again, her blood roared in her

her mind, she might never have

knew that if her country ever called, if the

In an instant, they rushed over, voices tumbling over one another, faces alight

"Instructor Carmichael, you're back!"

came to see

much. We nearly cried ourselves sick when you