"Lupin, huh?" Yogh muttered. "From what I hear, he hasn't arrived yet. Don't rush it. There will be guards."
"But we're not short-handed," Xavier said, voice tight. "Everyone's in place. I want this kingdom on its knees… for Regard."
Yogh looked at the boy a little longer than necessary.
This poor kid.
"All right," he said quietly. "Be careful. Lupin should arrive soon. Going early isn't wrong, but think before you move."
When Yogh turned around, the boy was already gone.
The carriage stood empty.
Only the shadows lingered, stretched wrong against the wheels, as if they had remembered him.
Elsewhere.
Inside the castle, far from the noise of preparation, a blond boy trained alone in an empty chamber.
Steel cut the air.
Again.
And again.
Each swing carried intent, not technique. Light gathered around him not because he commanded it, but because he expected it to answer. It always had.
I'm going to be king.
There's no room for weakness.
His breathing deepened. Sweat slid down his neck.
I'm tired… just a moment to rest. But tonight matters. Everyone will be watching.
He paused, rubbing his eyes.
…Did that shadow move?
Mathis frowned, scanning the corners of the room.
No. Just exhaustion.
"I'll head to my room," he said, forcing calm into his voice.
He didn't see the shadow stretch thin along the wall, slipping where the light failed to reach.
It moved toward the guest chambers.
"Isn't that Lupin guy arriving soon?" one squire whispered.
"Yeah. Heard he just passed the gates."
"Can't believe we're guarding a merchant."
"The Duke's nervous. Something about a bad feeling. Ever since his kid started drawing attention."
"Well," the other muttered, adjusting his grip, "more ging for us."
They didn't notice the darkness thinning between the doors.
Xavier slipped inside without sound, his body yielding to shadow as if it had always belonged there.
He flattened himself beneath a cabinet, pulling the darkness over his limbs, his breath, his presence.
Found it.
He waited.
"OPEN THE GATES! SIR LUPIN HAS ARRIVED!"
Laughter followed.
"Ho ho… what an entrance," a smooth voice said. "Is the Duke himself greeting a simple merchant?"
A tall man stepped through, immaculate in every detail. Top hat straight. Monocle gleaming. Suit untouched by dust or sweat.
Lupin.
A man who had risen from nothing and learned how to stand among nobles without bowing.
"Lupin," the Duke said warmly, "don't pretend humility now. Call me Hennery. Come, I'll show you to your chambers."
"Oh, I couldn't trouble you," Lupin replied with a practiced smile. "People might talk."
"Hahaha! Let them."
They walked together, guards flanking them.
Behind them followed Regard, smiling as he always did.
"Our relationship with the Falsies is cracking," the Duke said as they walked. "If it breaks, it won't be ideals that start the war. It'll be greed."
Lupin listened, eyes sharp.
"The king," the Duke continued, lowering his voice, "isn't fit to command what's coming."
"So," Lupin said, "what do you want from me?"
"Coin. Influence. Merchants willing to move east. New land. New wealth. Enough to keep everyone satisfied."
"And my reward?"
"If mines are found, they're yours. Rights, deeds, distribution. Even nobles won't interfere."
Lupin stopped.
"Deal."
They laughed.
"I'll see you at the ball," the Duke said. "Regard, with me."
"And not a word of this."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
You heard that, Evangel?
Her answer arrived without sound.
"Of course."
Later, Lupin sat alone in his chambers.
"Bring me a drink," he called.
The knife screamed through the air.
Lupin twisted just in time, monocle slipping as his heart surged. Panic bloomed. He drew breath to scream. The guards were right outside—
The shadows rose.
They wrapped around his mouth, pressing silence into his lungs.
His eyes went wide.
The darkness moved.
Not cast.
Not summoned.
Alive.
Pain followed.
Cold steel slid into his back.
"It's just how it is," a boy whispered close to his ear. "I didn't want to do this… but I don't get choices."
Lupin collapsed.
Blood soaked into the carpet. His monocle cracked, reflecting lantern light in fractured pieces.
Xavier pulled his blade free, hands steady.
The shadows peeled away from him slowly, like something satisfied.
No screams.
No alarms.
Only the quiet weight of consequence.
Xavier stared at the body.
He didn't kill for pleasure.
He killed because killing was the only shape his life had ever been allowed to take.
The rings on his fingers pulsed faintly, not with command, but recognition.
"…It's just fate," he whispered.
Far away, Evangel knelt in a darkened chamber. Candles burned black around her. Not spells. Not rituals.
Control.
Through fractured perception and borrowed senses, she watched.
"It is done," Xavier's voice reached her.
Her lips curved slightly.
The board was moving.
Evangel's lips curved, just barely.
"Good," she said. "Then the Duke's designs are already rotting. Tonight, we take the children. Break the house at its bloodline, and the nobles will learn fear tastes better than pride."
Regard's voice followed, low and steady. "Time's thin. Guards are everywhere. If we're cornered, I'll have to tear the structure itself apart."
"Then do it," Evangel replied, sharp as glass. "That's why you took what you took. You didn't steal it to feel noble. Open the castle. Make it remember pain."
Yogh hesitated before speaking. When he did, his voice was quieter.
"And the boy? Mathis. People say he shines. Say the world bends for him."
Evangel's smile widened, though no one could see it.
"Then let meaning choose," she said. "One child forged by expectation. One by abandonment. If they meet, the kingdom won't survive unchanged."
Her eyes opened.
Black. Reflecting nothing.
"Go," she said. "My blades. Collapse the future."
In his chamber, Mathis sat surrounded by parchment and silk. Invitations. Titles. Symbols of a night meant to prove something.
He should have been excited.
Instead, his chest felt tight.
He remembered the shadow from earlier. Not cast. Not flickering. Watching.
Mathis placed his palm flat against the table. The light around him sharpened, not summoned but condensed, as if the room itself leaned closer to his certainty.
The world clarified.
For a breath, he saw it.
A trace along the wall. A thinning where presence had passed.
Then it was gone.
Mathis exhaled slowly.
"If I'm going to be king," he murmured, "I won't pretend not to see."
His fingers curled.
"Tonight," he said to no one, "I prove I belong here."
In the courtyard below, Regard dragged a whetstone along Evo's edge.
The blade did not glow.
It listened.
Every scrape pulled a hum from the metal, a quiet agreement between weapon and wielder. Regard thought of the vault. Of the lines carved into his memory. Of how the ground itself would answer him if he asked the right way.
Nothing divine.
Nothing gifted.
Only things taken.
His eyes shifted to the shadows nearby.
Xavier crouched there, motionless. Crimson eyes unfocused, as if he were staring into a place no one else could see.
Regard felt it again.
That unease.
The rings hadn't been claimed.
They had chosen.
And that frightened him more than Evangel ever had.
The bells rang.
Carriages rolled through the gates. Silk and jewels flooded the halls. Laughter rose beneath chandeliers heavy with gold.
Music swelled. Wine poured. The kingdom dressed itself in denial.
But beneath the marble and candlelight, three currents moved.
Evangel, kneeling far away, her will stretched so thin it had begun to replace her.
Xavier, a boy shaped by survival, rings whispering meaning he had not yet earned.
Mathis, the heir, his certainty hardening into something sharp enough to cut back.
And between them, Regard.
The night had only just begun.
The kingdom was already cracking.