The Ring Returns

[SeventhWard]

The Ring Returns

He had cast it away —
not flung away in rage, but placed in the hands of another,
a man who wanted hope more than he did,
a man who still believed in causes, in strategies,
in the thin thread of heroism.
And for a time, he watched from the edges —
without the ring, without the weight,
a man unburdened.
But not free.

Hile Troy failed. Not from cowardice,
but because the ring was never his to bear.
And when all fell silent — when purpose cracked
and hope splintered like glass under foot —
he saw it:

The white gold ring,
rolling,
softly, blindly,
across the broken ground.
It did not call to him.
It simply returned.
As if the Earth itself had remembered
what he had tried to forget.