Uhana had many amazing qualities. She was smart, strong, and, above all, consistent.
We talked for hours. I even forgot to inform my mother that I had made my choice.
Eventually, she found out, mainly because I started ignoring the other candidates altogether.
Of course, after that, my mother officially crowned Uhana queen, and everything was set in motion.
I watched her now as she examined the structural plans and blueprints for the northern campaign.
Her expression was focused, her brow slightly furrowed as her eyes scanned each page in meticulous silence.
She wore a tight black shirt, a short white skirt, black stockings, and high black boots.
Dressed sharply, commanding in posture, she looked every bit the queen we needed.
After some time, she set the plans down on the table between us.
"I see," she said calmly. "It's not all that bad. However, you didn't account for the main problem."
I raised a brow. "Which is?"
She gave me a strange look, then chuckled. "So even the genius prince is forgetful."
She stepped forward and pressed her finger lightly into my chest, wrinkling the fabric of my white shirt.
"Mana," she said.
I cursed. "Damn it. I forgot all about the mana density. It barely affects me, so I didn't even think of it."
She leaned back, sighing. "We should send trained warriors ahead to assess just how much it will affect them."
"And if mana increases the cold…" I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair. "How the hell did I miss that?"
"So what?" I asked. "Do we dismiss the entire project?"
She placed both hands on the table, firm and steady.
"No. First, we should set up a base camp. From there, we erect a large dome of mana around it. Something stable. Something we can expand."
She pointed toward the coast along the western front of the frozen lands.
"Here. We set up here, then push inward."
I frowned, thinking it through. "It would take a skilled mage to erect a dome that size. Unless…"
She smiled knowingly. "How many mana conductors do you have left?"
Anstalionah was a land of harsh winters.
Back during the reign of the old king, he built a device, ancient, divine, etched with runes, that could be mounted on carriages to generate warmth.
It created a controlled bubble of mana, heating the space within.
The flaw? To activate and maintain it required a massive amount of mana.
They called it the mana bomb.
Because when misused, it exploded.
Count Molotov had actually used one to obliterate a portion of the demonic horde during the final siege.
Afterward, the remaining prototypes were sealed in the royal armory.
But with a mana conductor, the output could be controlled. Directed.
A conductor allowed for a steady flow of mana into any target, living or nonliving, capable of healing wounds or reinforcing objects.
In this case, it might just be enough to stabilize a dome large enough to house not only a city... but perhaps an entire kingdom.
I met her gaze. "If we install four conductors in a tetrahedral formation across the outer rim, we could anchor the dome to the leyline paths."
Uhana nodded. "And reinforce the weakest point with a fortress wall. That way, we have both magical and physical defenses."
"We'd need to build in segments. First the camp, then the inner city, and from there, roads to the ore-rich regions."
"And we train mages along the way," she added. "Ones resistant to the cold and familiar with nature magic. I'll handle that personally."
A grin tugged at my lips. "I knew I made the right choice."
She arched a brow. "You're lucky I didn't leave the moment you laughed at me."
I smirked and looked at my palms. "Our kingdom shall deliver itself onto the world, no longer will we suffer humiliation."
She leaned in, staring into my eyes. "Is that really your goal?"
I let out a small chuckle. "No. Even I have ambition beyond. For these to come true, I must leave myself behind."
The skies and the ground. The light and the dark. The sea and the clouds above.
I often thought of those things, not just as symbols, but as boundaries. The borders people never dared to cross.
They live under the sky and upon the earth and think that is enough.
But it never was. To grow was a necessity.
To evolve, inevitable. But that alone couldn't be the answer. It couldn't be the end of the question.
This world was filled with people who lived without vision. Who traded survival for purpose.
Who bowed their heads to whatever power was above them and called it faith.
But there had to be something more. Not just beyond the stars, but beyond the self.
To me, there is something greater than legacy or rule. Something beyond names or nations.
And to reach it, I would have to break the very idea of who I was.
I would have to tear my name from my chest and abandon all sentiment that tied me to what came before.
I couldn't afford to cling to comfort. I couldn't allow myself to be ruled by habit or desire.
If I was to save my kingdom, if I was to preserve this fractured world.
If I was to make the impossible possible… then I had to sever everything that made me weak.
Even if it meant discarding the pieces of my own identity.
How else could I look up at the sky and reject it?
How else could I defy the heavens, not in rebellion, but in quiet refusal?
No. Even that wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to be crowned king.
It wasn't enough to be worshipped as a god.
Both titles were too small for the truth I chased.
Power without clarity was just tyranny. Ascension without understanding was just vanity.
I didn't want to rule from above. I wanted to build from below, reshape the roots of reality until something new could be born.
I couldn't help but laugh.
Uhana looked at me, confused, unable to grasp the direction my thoughts had taken.
But I no longer needed her understanding. I had already seen it.
The path forward would not begin with glory or triumph.
It would begin with a fall.
Because before one can rise beyond the sky, they must first be willing to shatter upon the earth.
I knew that. I accepted it.
What terrified others, the loss of identity, the letting go, I welcomed. I no longer feared falling. I feared stagnation.
A king who rules without transformation is nothing more than a glorified warden, locking his people inside the walls of tradition. That would never be me.
To build a kingdom that could endure the shifting tides of the world, I would need to do more than inherit.
I would need to create. To become the architect of something that had never existed before.
And to create something new, I had to destroy what was expected.
The laws. The customs. The myths we swallowed whole just to make sense of our weakness.
I would dismantle them all.
Not with cruelty. Not with rage. But with precision.
With vision. With the kind of patience that outlives history.
I no longer wanted to be a king that ruled over land, I wanted to command meaning itself.
To bend the very concept of kingdom into something reborn.
A kingdom that does not simply protect, but awakens.
Our people have slept for too long.
They've bowed to storms and buried their dreams in frost.
But I would show them the sky wasn't something to fear.
That even the cold could burn if you knew how to wield it.
That suffering wasn't a prison, it was a forge.
And I would stand in that forge willingly. Let the fire strip away my old self.
Let it leave only what was worthy behind.