Reitz walked the barracks before dawn, murder simmering in his eyes.
Men snapped to attention as he passed.
The captains fell in beside him—Fulmen garrison officers in quilted coats and mail, Blackfyre sergeants with soot still caught in their beard-braids, city-watch lieutenants who'd spent the kidnapping sprinting rooftops and alleys. They were his chain, and they looked like men awaiting sentence.
Aerwyna's Riverrunners did not walk at Reitz's shoulder. They stood at the yard's edge in fish-jaw helms, a quiet line of steel—present to witness, not to be commanded.
Each captain expected to be stripped of rank, demoted, reassigned to shovel shit in the stables until their hands bled.
Instead Reitz asked questions.
"How many of you heard chanting and still closed distance?"
A man swallowed. "My lord—"
Reitz didn't let him fill the air with excuses.
"How many of you waited for a Field reading that never came?"
Another captain shifted, eyes flicking to the Riverrunners like they might intervene. They did not. Their faces were blank stone.
Reitz's gaze moved from man to man like a knife sliding along ribs, measuring where it could enter.
"You fought," he said softly. "You did what you were trained to do."
No one breathed.
His quiet was not mercy.
"You fought what you thought she was," Reitz continued. "And you died because you couldn't get a read."
He stopped at the center of the yard, where the still clung in the cracks of stone from earlier drilling.
"In Fulmen," he said, "we have the doctrine: Identify and respond. That doctrine has made us survive the marches. But it gives us plenty of openings when the threat is internal."
"Men—and brothers at arms. This is the truth of the Aufsteigfrieden. This is the truth you will bleed for."
Silence swept the yard. Every eye was on Reitz.
"The law that binds the Empire. The truth of the blood of the covenant. We may not rally forces, but we draw daggers in order to stave the day—the Aufstiegsrecht. Thus heirs are massacred in their sleep. Cloaks darken the night."
"For the longest time we have been facing arcanists," Reitz spat the word, "bandits and raiders. But the time has now come. My heir is born, and those forces see a sword in their way. They want the Blackfyre standard to fall. And now we know not who is at our throats."
A few men shifted at that—boots scuffing frost, mail whispering. Someone in the back muttered a curse like a prayer. The captains held still, faces tight, as if any movement would be counted as guilt.
Reitz let the discomfort sit and sour.
"What we do know," he went on, "is that it is the Empire's own sons that are after our homes, and our way of living. Now a sad day—but an inevitable day—has come. We must now point our swords at our own."
"This means you must understand the ways an imperial noble fights: how he chants, how he thinks, how he reacts—how his mana condenses, and the timing of a higher-tier circle spell."
"I know you are not acquainted with higher-tier spells," he said, voice flat. "But what you are acquainted with is the pattern."
"And to know how to fight a high-tier mage, you must actually fight one."
He turned, eyes sweeping the ranks—measuring, weighing.
"I will chant," Reitz said, "Ready your blades, your shield, and your spell."
That drew a ripple through the ranks. Even the captains straightened.
[The Brightness of ten thousand stars...]
"Shields!" a captain barked, his voice cracking slightly.
Steel rasped as men pulled out swords and raised shields. Buckles snapped as they adjusted their straps quickly. The soldiers moved closer together, forming groups instinctively. They had drilled before, but this wasn't a drill. Panic crept in anyway.
A Blackfyre sergeant slammed the butt of his axe on the stone ground. "Form up! Form up!" he shouted.
The lines turned into clumsy cells. Two men dropped to one knee with their shields forward. A third man stood behind them with a spear angled over their shoulders. Another pair moved left, trying to cover a gap so no opening was left.
On the other side of the yard, a city-watch lieutenant stepped in front of his squad and barked, "Cover your eyes! Don't stare at it!" He sounded like he was trying to shout at something far bigger than himself.
Someone started to counter-chant. The words were short and ugly, meant to dampen a spell, not to cast something grand. But his voice shook, and the syllables tripped over each other as he spoke too quickly.
A Knight with Earth affinity slammed his palm down. [Earth Wall]. A ridge of stone pushed up from the frost, jagged and uneven. It wasn't tall—only waist-high—but it was something that could block line of sight.
Reitz watched all of it with intensity.
He watched the way they reacted. He watched the pattern appear naturally: who moved immediately, who waited for an order, who froze and looked around as if expecting someone to tell them what spell it was.
The shimmer above Reitz thickened as the invocation continued. The air felt different. Some men could feel it even if they didn't understand it. It felt like the yard was being pressured from above.
For a moment, everything was tense and still.
Reitz raised two fingers.
The chant stopped.
It didn't fade out. It ended instantly, like someone had cut a rope.
The pressure vanished. The heat that had started to gather in the air disappeared. The frost stopped steaming. The pale shimmer above him snapped back into nothing.
The soldiers didn't relax right away. They stayed braced with shields raised, staring ahead, waiting for the delayed impact that never came. A spear tip trembled so hard it clicked against a shield rim. Someone swallowed loudly in the silence.
Reitz let them stay like that for a few seconds.
Then he spoke.
"Good," Reitz said. The word landed hard, like a judgment.
He stepped off the platform and walked slowly in front of the ranks, looking at faces as he moved.
"Some of you moved on command," he said. "Some of you moved when you heard the chant. Some of you moved when you felt the yard change."
His eyes settled on a young soldier who still hadn't lowered his shield. The boy stared at the ground like it had betrayed him.
"And some of you did not move at all," Reitz said, his voice quieter.
The boy's face went pale.
Reitz kept his tone even.
"That chant was not the spell," he said. "It was the invocation. It's the warning part. It's the part your enemy can't hide when he's about to do something big."
He tapped two fingers against his breastplate, once, twice.
"When invocation starts, the Field shifts. Heat gathers. Air changes. Ground tightens. You have a window—ten breaths, sometimes less."
He turned his head slightly toward the captains, but he still addressed everyone.
"If you wait for a reading," Reitz said, "you die."
A few men lowered their shields slightly, embarrassed. Some looked down as if they were being scolded in front of everyone.
Reitz scanned them again.
"You did better than you think," he said. "But you still did worse than you need to."
He stopped near the Earth wall and knocked on it with his knuckles. The stone gave a dull sound.
"This is the right idea," he said. "Break line of sight. Break density. Make the spell hit something that isn't your body."
He looked at the Knight who had cast it.
"But you put it straight in front," Reitz said. "You blocked one direction. You left your flank open. A real caster would hit the side."
The Knight stiffened, jaw tight, like he was taking the criticism personally.
Reitz kept going anyway.
"Next time you build to move," he said. "You build angles. You build funnels. You build cover that lets you shift position. You don't build a monument."
Reitz lifted his hand slightly and pointed toward the man who had tried to counter-chant.
"And you," Reitz said. "Counter-chanting."
The man went rigid.
"You wasted breath," Reitz said. "If you don't know the spell, you don't counter it. You disrupt the chanter. You break cadence. You put steel in his throat."
Reitz held up two fingers again.
"Because here is the lesson," he said. "You won't always have me here deciding to stop."
He lowered his hand.
"This morning was charity," Reitz said.
His voice dropped colder.
Now we drill, delayed and chantless.
Ezra watched pieces of it from a window seat, leaning on the sill with his chin in his hands.
The city was still scorched.
The block where he'd screamed MAMA was covered in white tarps and workers, the crater slowly being eaten by scaffolding. People moved around it as if it were an open grave they didn't want to acknowledge.
In the courtyard below, men moved through new patterns, their boots marking out the Empire's first clumsy steps toward surviving people like his mother… and people like Catalyna.
For the first time since he'd arrived in this world, Aerwyna wasn't hovering.
It had taken time.
They'd rooted out the spies—at least the ones they could see.
And Ezra had proven he wasn't just an infant who needed to be wrapped in cloth and hidden in the castle.
If not for him—and for Evan—Aerwyna knew, she would be a frozen statue in a broken street and her son would be halfway to who-knows-where.
So she made a decision that shocked half the keep.
She gave him a room.
Not a nursery in the old sense—no more cradle tucked into the corner of the master chambers—but a refurbished guest suite in the inner keep. The bed was smaller than the room deserved, the shelves larger.
The masons had grumbled when they got the redesign brief.
"A baby's room," the steward told them, rubbing his temples. "But remove the wall hangings and put in built-in bookcases along the north side. Here, here, and here. And a desk."
"A desk?" one mason repeated flatly.
"Yes," the steward said, sounding tired. "And a… a recessed groove for ink. So that… so that the ink pots don't slide."
The masons exchanged looks.
By the time they finished, word had already spread through the castle:
The lordling's "nursery" had more shelves than toys, and a custom ink dock.
Of course, the servants said in the kitchens, of course it did. He'd been seen with quills already. They said he shouted orders like a grown man during the abduction. They said he'd guided arrows. They said he'd run up walls.
They said a lot of things.
The only person allowed past the door without Aerwyna's explicit permission was Sir Evan.
Which, to the maids, was the strangest part of all.
"The milk mother's replacement is a Knight," someone whispered over stew. "Sworn Shield now, they say. She gave him lashes and a promotion in the same sentence."
They shook their heads, half afraid, half impressed.
Evan stood by the window like a ceremonial statue, trying very hard not to look unnerved.
It had been three days since Aerwyna had lashed him in the Castle Courtyard and then, in the same breath, bound his fate to Ezra's. His back still ached when he moved wrong, but the pain was nothing compared to the quiet terror of being alone with the child.
In battle, when adrenaline was high, it had been easier to accept Ezra's commands and analysis.
Afterwards—when the smoke cleared and the city no longer burned—reality had set in: Evan sworn to guard a six-month-old whose questions sounded like a scholar's, whose eyes sometimes carried Reitz's gaze, and who had guided his arrows, not like a tactician but a fortune teller.
"Evan," Ezra said without any of the formalities.
He was sprawled on the carpet with a book open in front of him. He was now using his mana all the time. His maneuverability an and precision were uncanny. Seeing a baby move like he did was unsettling to say the least.
And it wasn't just about the movement. Evan observed how Ezra had commanded himself, and how he used is mana. He tried very hard to understand how he was actually able to stand like he did. There was something about how this infant reinforced his body that was otherworldly, Evan couldn't just put a finger on it.
"Yes, Milord," Evan replied automatically.
He kept his gaze fixed firmly somewhere above Ezra's head. He had discovered that direct eye contact made the hair on his arms stand up.
"You told me your primary element is Water, right?"
"Yes, Milord."
"You used Earth more in the fight," Ezra went on. "Rock Bullets. No Flood Cannon. Why?"
Evan cleared his throat.
"Earth is more… practical, Milord," he said. "For Knights, that is. My talent in Water is only just below 3rd circle, but my core is not large. I can cast Flood Cannon—twice, at most, before I am spent."
His jaw tightened slightly, as if admitting limitation was an offense.
"[Earth Wall] and [Rock Gauntlet] are difficult for me. My Earth affinity is weak. I only trained [Rock Bullet] because it is efficient."
"Efficient how?" Ezra's right eyebrow raised.
While Evan soaked in the oddity of it all. There was something about the matter that made his hair stand on end. It wasn't just because
"Disruptive," Evan answered, slipping into instruction as he might with a squire. "A low-circle spell, quick to cast, cheap to maintain. A single well-placed [Rock Bullet] can break a charge, stagger a caster, or open a guard. After that, it is steel and speed."
He paused, then added, careful:
"Knights rely on their bodies, not just their cores. If we burn all our mana on one or two impressive spells, we become useless on a battlefield with dozens of enemies."
Ezra nodded slowly.
So they did have the right idea.
Low circle doesn't mean low value. It's all about cost per effect.
"And Wind?" Ezra asked. "I haven't seen anyone use it. If your primary element is Wind, can you still use Earth?"
"Not easily, Milord," Evan said. "This is Fulmen. We are far south in the Imperium. Aeromancers are more common in the north, near the highlands and the coasts. Here, among the nobility, we have Hydromancers, Pyromancers, and Terramancers. That is the tradition."
Ezra frowned.
"Why?" he asked. "Is it just geography? Location? Climate?"
"Actually…" Evan hesitated and scratched his head. "I do not know, Milord. That is how it has always been, as far as I was taught."
Ezra put in a mental note.
Maybe climate affects affinity ratios.
Or maybe it's just political—House lines breeding for certain elements?
He turned a page with careful fingers, scanning the dense script. The book was a simple history of Fulmen's early days, but even here—between the dry recounting of treaties and skirmishes—there were hints of resource disputes.
"Magic crystals and cores," Ezra said suddenly, eyes still on the page. He was writ "Tell me what you know."
Evan relaxed a fraction. This, at least, was familiar ground.
"They're mined from certain caves," he said. "Not every mana-rich vein creates them. Some do. Some don't. The ones that do…"
"They're worth killing over."
"Your father was… is… adamant about the mines the Rex Imperia awarded him," Evan continued. "There are five Nobles who have claims in that region. They all proposed joint mining contracts. Share rights. Shared profit. Lord Reitz refused. Those crystals and cores are worth a pretty penny. I am not privy to the numbers, but I know they are high."
Ezra's mind jumped immediately to Catalyna. To the canyon ambush. To the way both the attempt on Reitz and the attempt on his own life had been timed.
"So they had motive," he murmured. "At least for the first attempt."
Evan swallowed.
"Yes, Milord," he said quietly. "When we first heard of the assassination attempt, the mines were the first suspicion."
Ezra smiled faintly.
"See? You do know things Mother doesn't tell me."
Evan went rigid.
He hadn't meant to phrase it that way. The moment the words left the boy's mouth, Ezra's face flushed red down to his collarbones.
In that instant, the veteran Knight, found himself more afraid of a petite woman in furs than of any spell.
"I—"
His tongue tied itself in knots.
Ezra blinked.
"Are you overheating?" he asked seriously. "Your skin just turned red. Is that a side effect of mana overuse? Or is it shame? Is shame a magical condition?"
Evan almost choked.
He stared straight ahead, ears burning, and resolved never to speak loosely about anything Aerwyna had not explicitly approved.
There were some punishments even a Sworn Shield did not wish to repeat.
Ezra watched him flounder, then let it go.
He had a different question.
"What about Arcanists?" he asked. "Everyone keeps mentioning them. What are they, exactly?"
Evan's blush—barely fading—deepened alarmingly.
"Milord…" he managed.
And then stopped.
He hadn't been told not to speak of mines. That had been his mistake.
But Arcanists… that was different.
Aerwyna had explicitly forbidden any explanation until Ezra was older.
Evan's mind flashed with images of the Castle Courtyard, the lash biting skin, Aerwyna's disappointed stare.
He chose cowardice.
"I… don't know enough to say," he said stiffly. "It would be improper for me to explain half-truths, Milord."
Ezra squinted at him.
Liar, he thought, at least he was loyal.
He could press or he could note the reaction, file it under sensitive topics, and save it for later.
He chose silence instead.
The castle grew busier as the Day of Introduction approached.
Servants ran themselves ragged, baking and roasting and stewing. Casks of wine rolled in. Musicians and entertainers were hired. Banners were mended and rehung.
The Day of Introduction wasn't a birthday party.
It was a declaration.
In the Rex Imperium, it was not enough to sire children. You had to present one who might actually hold your seat when you were gone.
A Day of Introduction was an announcement to the world:
This one has a chance. This one is worth watching.
Not every son or daughter received one.
To stand in the Castle Courtyard before vassals and rivals and say this child is a potential heir was a double-edged swor. It marked Ezra as someone under his father's protection… and someone worth aiming at.
It was both deterrent and invitation.
The right of ascent made it worse.
In fifteen years, any sworn vassal who believed themselves more worthy could invoke the ancient edict and challenge for the domain. The higher Ezra rose, the more dangerous he became to anyone who dreamed of Fulmen under their banner.
On the days leading up to the ceremony, Ezra saw them less and less. Reitz vanished into councils with captains, reshuffling units, calculating how many men he could pull from border patrols without inviting disaster. Aerwyna split her time between overseeing security and writing careful letters to neighboring Nobles, sealed and sent via carrier hawks.
Invitations.
A Day of Introduction required them. It was both courtesy and test—who came, who sent gifts, who ignored the summons entirely.
One letter went farther than the others.
A slim scroll on heavy paper, bound with black wax bearing the Blackfyre sigil, carried by a rider straight toward the capital.
Rex Imperia.
By law and tradition, every lord who declared a child for Introduction sent formal invitation up the chain. For most Houses, that meant two letters: one to their liege lord, and one to the Emperor. The liege normally read it and come visit in most cases but the Emperor and Primarchs almost never did. In the capital, a clerk cracked the seal, copied the particulars into the Rolls, and filed the original away. One for custom, and one for the archives.
The Rex Imperia never came.
He ruled an empire.
He did not ride out personally every time some provincial family held a feast and paraded a child.
Letters would be sent politely acknowledging the heir and congratulating the family, stamped and sealed, with the emperors signet. From time to time, for Houses that mattered—old lines, strategically placed domains, an Envoy would be sent
A banner.
A representative.
Someone to drink wine, deliver a formal blessing, and carry back a report.
An Envoy of the Rex was, by itself, an honor that could anchor a House's reputation for a decade.
Reitz didn't expect either, fallen from grace. But protocol was protocol and letters needed to be sent.
The Day of Introduction dawned clear and bright.
By midmorning, the Castle Courtyard was a living painting. Nobles from across Fulmen stood in clusters under the banners of their Houses. Silks curtains flashed color against stone. Servants wove through the crowd with trays; musicians filled the air with strings and flutes.
Ezra, dressed in formal miniature robes that made him look like a stuffed turkey, at least in his opinion. Aerwyna didn't think so. He sat on Aerwyna's hip as she moved through the receiving line. What little hair he had, had been combed flat; his cheeks had been scrubbed.
Reitz stood at her side,scars and all—wearing ceremonial black with the ease of someone who preferred armor but knew how to play his part.
"Smile," Aerwyna murmured to Ezra between greetings, lips barely moving. "But not too much."
I am a baby, Ezra thought, I should wailing and flailing.
She pinched his side very gently.
For the moment, it felt almost… normal. Dangerous normal. Ezra watched the other nobles' faces, cataloguing who looked resentful, who looked bored, who looked hungry in the wrong way.
Then the trumpet sounded.
Not the brassy, slightly out-of-time blare of the local heralds.
A clear, piercing note from the outer gate, held just a shade too long, with the weight of drilled discipline behind it.
Conversation stuttered.
Heads turned.
"Another guest?" one minor Noble murmured.
"We're already all here," his neighbor answered, frowning.
A second trumpet followed, then a third.
This means something different. Ezra mused. Dignitaries like the envoys from Theladon Synodus received only two.
A great procession unfolded. Colors similar to the House Colors of Blackfyre were seen.
Banners unfurled.
His small fingers tightened in Aerwyna's sleeve.
Reitz's head snapped toward the gate.
"Who else was invited?" Aerwyna asked under her breath.
"That should be about it," said Reitz in a confused tone.
They didn't move from the dais, but Ezra felt the subtle shift in the guard formations. Lines tightened.
Sunlight poured through the widening gap, silhouetting the approaching procession in white.
First came riders.
A wedge of cavalry in crimson cloaks, armor polished to a mirror sheen, advanced at a measured pace. Their breastplates bore the same sigil, repeated over and over: two lions, back to back, both exhaling stylized streams of flame toward a single blaze between them.
Murmurs rippled through the Castle Courtyard.
"Those colors…"
"That crest…"
"Regaladeus," someone breathed. "The Twin Fires."
House Regaladeus.
The Imperial House.
"They sent an Envoy," another Noble whispered, half awe, half envy. "To Fulmen…"
Even that would have been unprecedented. An Envoy with the Rex's own heraldry was a statement.
No normal envoy would have produced this amount of fanfare. This procession was something different entirely. It could mean that some one of the same blood of the Imperial line, maybe a branch family. That was already a statement.
We are watching this child.
Ezra felt Aerwyna's arm tighten around him.
Her eyes never left the gate.
Behind the cavalry rolled a carriage.
It was heavy and functional, in dark oak banded with steel and strapings of gold, and something else shiny that didn't fit any metal Ezra had seen. It was large enough to hold a small family in comfort. Four colossal steeds pulled it—black from mane to hoof, their harness traced in understated silver.
The soldiers in red fanned out to either side as the carriage drew to a halt before the dais.
Every person in the Castle Courtyard stood a little straighter.
Reitz's jaw clenched.
"Envoy," Aerwyna murmured. "It has to be an Envoy."
It had to be.
No one believed otherwise.
Not really.
The carriage door swung open with a soft click.
A figure stepped out.
He wore a dark, fitted coat, an embroidered doublet that had his house colors and sigil on his shoulders. His hair auburn hair shone and his crimson pupils, observing everyone around.
Guards formed and split into a two ranks. He paused on the carriage step, letting the nobles see the sigil: as single lion in the center, with two flames, one black one red.
No herald announced him.
He didn't need one.
The breath went out of the Castle Courtyard in a collective, soundless exhale.
The man was not an Envoy.
The Rex Imperia himself had arrived.