"One does not become a monster by nature. One becomes one when the world rips away all that was human."
Three days. That was all that remained before the final.
Three days, and the Academy would be frozen in a single moment, a single match.
A confrontation everyone awaited: Caelen versus Elwin. The Shadow versus the Dream. The silent strategist against the sleeping player.
But for Caelen, the enemy was not Elwin.
The enemy... wore a crown.
He walked alone in the northern gardens, where students never came. Where stone cracked under moss, where the trees seemed to watch.
The wind passed through the branches without making a sound.
And he... remembered.
Not like a dream.
Not like a sweet memory.
But like the dizziness that returns when you reopen a poorly healed wound.
Images. Blurry, at first. Then sharp. Too sharp.
A throne of black iron.
A cage hanging from the ceiling.
A mask bolted to his face.
And him, Ashen, or what was left of him then, screaming into the void, while the court laughed.
— "Make him dance! Let the Fool dance again!"
The king, seated, a glass of wine in hand, smiled with a tired air. As if it were all a boring play whose ending he already knew.
And when Ashen collapsed, exhausted, the chains pulled him up so he could continue.
— "The show doesn't end until I've laughed."
A cold pain pierced his chest.
He stopped, knelt against an old stone wall.
His hands trembled.
Not from the cold.
But because this time, the memory didn't go away.
It stayed.
And it burned.
In Umbra Tower, the news dropped like a bomb.
Venhal, usually impassive, opened her eyes upon hearing the official message broadcast throughout the Academy:
"His Majesty King Maelrath will personally attend the final of the Tournament of Minds. He wishes to see with his own eyes the future strategist of the nation."
Silence fell upon the students.
Some smiled, proud to be noticed by the king.
Others curled up, afraid of playing before someone said to be able to read one's soul with a glance.
Venhal, however, understood immediately.
She stood up abruptly.
— Where is Caelen?!
She found him in the garden.
Sitting, alone, eyes fixed on a black rose that never bloomed.
He hadn't heard her footsteps.
— You knew? he murmured before she even arrived.
— No. The announcement dropped five minutes ago.
— I felt it. This morning... the wind had changed.
She sat beside him.
— It's him, isn't it?
— It's him, he said.
— The one who... changed you?
He closed his eyes.
— No. The one who destroyed me.
A long silence.
Then he spoke again:
— He won't recognize me. I have a new name. A new face. A new life.
— But you recognize him.
— Every night.
She wanted to place a hand on his shoulder. She stopped.
— Then why not face him here? On the Plateau?
He finally turned his head toward her.
— Because on the Plateau... I am free.
That evening, in his room, Caelen opened his personal grimoire.
Not to read.
But to write.
Each page contained a played game, real or fictional.
But tonight, he wrote something else.
He wrote his name.
ASHEN.
Then he erased it.
And rewrote:
CAELEN SARETH.
— I am no longer the one he broke.
I am the one who got back up.
Meanwhile, the Academy stirred.
The banners were changed. The gilding polished. The staircases enchanted so they wouldn't creak.
The king's presence paralyzed everything.
Impeccable uniforms were distributed. Seats assigned by caste.
The Plateau was cleaned every morning.
Some students, panicked, dropped out of classes.
Others made bets.
But one name kept coming up, whispered like a riddle:
— Caelen.
He still hadn't shown his zone.
Some said he didn't have one.
Others said that if he revealed it, it would swallow the entire Plateau.
In the forbidden library's basement, Caelen searched the old archives one last time.
He stumbled upon an old book: The Silver Follies, chronicles of the reign of Maelrath the Bloody.
And there, among the yellowed pages:
"One of the king's favorite entertainments, in the year 921, was the education of the Fool, a child offered by a now-vanished noble house. He was broken, humiliated, then dressed in gold and iron. His voice was taken, but his laugh was forced. He died by falling from a balcony, according to official rumors."
Ashen... had never truly existed.
He was only a toy.
A puppet for a king's laughter.
But today...
He was the last player on the Plateau.
The day before the final, Elwin came to see him.
Without warning. Without a sound.
— Aren't you afraid? asked Caelen, sitting on the edge of a balcony.
— Yes. But not of you.
— Then of what?
— That your past will catch up with you before I get the chance to beat you.
Caelen smiled faintly.
— Do you really want to win?
— No. I want to see you play without chains.
They looked at each other for a moment.
Then Elwin held out his hand.
— Let the Plateau judge us.
Caelen shook it.
— And let the king watch closely.
Because this time...
he's the one who will fall.