Chapter 12: The Architect of Ashes
The smoke of the grand banquet still clung to the stone walls of the capital, a bitter incense for a dying era.
A new king sat upon the throne, but the gold of his crown offered no warmth. Across the Theocracy of Lurtra, the first sparks of a wildfire were catching. In the shadowed corners of the city and the sun-bleached slave routes of the provinces, the whispers had turned into war cries. Slaves, once broken by the lash, now looked at their chains and saw weapons. Demi-humans, long treated as mere livestock, emerged from the forests with steel in their hands and fire in their eyes.
Lurtra was not merely changing; it was being torn open. Slowly, steadily, the borders of the kingdom began to tremble under the weight of a rebirth paid for in blood.
Inside the castle kitchen, the atmosphere was jarringly domestic. The morning sun streamed through the windows, illuminating the swirling steam of pancakes and the gentle clink of china.
Leornars sat reclined in a wooden chair, a cup of tea held delicately in his hand. He was engrossed in a thick, glossy magazine, his face a mask of casual indifference.
Stacian, her apron dusted with flour, set a steaming plate in the center of the table. Across from Leornars, Zaryter and his little sister sat huddled together, eating with a desperate, innocent hunger.
Zaryter paused, his fork hovering in the air. He looked at the boy who had dismantled a monarchy as if he were just another diner. "Lord... how did you know this would happen? All of it. The timing, the riots... everything."
Leornars didn't look up from his page. "I didn't."
The words were so quiet they were almost swallowed by the crackle of the stove. Zaryter's fork clattered against his plate.
"You... you didn't?!" The boy's voice rose in a pitch of pure disbelief.
Leornars took a measured sip of his tea, closing his eyes as the warmth hit his throat. "I had hundreds of ideas for a revolution," he said, finally closing the magazine. "The variables were infinite. I didn't know where to begin... so I simply started moving and forced the world to react."
As the morning light shifted, Leornars began to deconstruct the last three weeks. It was a confession that sounded less like a story and more like a post-mortem.
He spoke of the first quest with Julius and his daughter. He detailed the strange anomaly of demi-human villages that slavers curiously avoided, and how he had used those rumors in smoky taverns to map the kingdom's weaknesses. He described the "pawn" that was Prince Edward—a boy blinded by his own ambition—and the trembling, pathetic shadow that was the King of Durmount.
He spoke of the key hidden beneath a rotting mattress, the secret room it unlocked, and the forbidden documents within that acted as a blueprint for the kingdom's downfall. Every move had been a stone thrown into a pond, calculated to create a specific ripple.
By the time he finished, Zaryter's mouth hung open. "You... you did all that in three weeks?"
"Correct," Leornars replied, his tone as dry as bone. "The only true waste of time was tracking down the descendants of the founding father and his retainers. That cost me an entire week of hunting through mud and shadows."
Stacian leaned against the counter, her eyes fixed on Leornars with a troubled intensity. "Then I have to ask... when you fought the Black Acers... you looked like you were in pain. Real pain. More than a man like you should show."
The air in the kitchen grew cold. Leornars set his cup down with a sharp clack. His expression didn't just darken; it became a void.
"Their leader, Lloyd, possessed an artifact of the old world," Leornars said, his crimson eyes narrowing. "It was designed to toy with the neural pathways—to force the mind to relive its most jagged agonies. It nearly overwhelmed me. Even the 'Heartless' skill was screaming under the strain."
He leaned back, his gaze piercing the wall as if looking through time. "So I did the only thing I could. I devoured it. I took my past, my scars, and every scream I've ever held back, and I made them fuel."
The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
"And when Lloyd hit me with that forty-five thousand degree explosion at point-blank... it was enough to short-circuit my neural chip. But I still killed him. The artifact was a gift from the Chancellor, under orders from the King. A second attempt on my life." He leaned forward, his voice turning into a serrated edge. "So I killed them both. I manipulated the Prince to slay his own father. I erased the royal line and left Julius the throne. He was the only one left with enough fear to be useful."
He lifted his tea again, drinking with a terrifying serenity.
The door creaked open, and Zhylyena stepped into the light. "You wonder why Lurtra has no mages to stop the riots?" she said softly. "The late king used them as collateral years ago to pay off his mounting debts to foreign banks. A kingdom of gold, stripped of its soul."
Leornars let out a low, dark chuckle. "No mages... how fortunate for us. If there had been even a handful of truly skilled sorcerers, this might have actually been troublesome."
Stacian folded her arms, her brow furrowed. "Then the first order of business is the constitution. We can't leave a power vacuum. We can't allow another Julius to be so easily replaced by a blade in the dark."
"Ah... you mean like King Selamedra of Durmount?" Leornars asked.
"Precisely."
Zaryter shifted in his seat, looking between them. "But... changing a century-old constitution? Isn't that taking things too far? The people... they might fear us."
Leornars stood up, the crimson light in his irises flickering like a dying star. The domestic warmth of the kitchen seemed to vanish, replaced by the cold, iron weight of his presence.
"No, Zaryter. It isn't too far."
"A new age? What do you mean?"
Leornars smirked—a sharp, dangerous expression that promised no mercy.
"The age of revolution."
The words rolled through the room like a thunderclap. For a fleeting second, the shadows in the corners of the kitchen seemed to stretch and grow, bowing to the boy who had turned a kingdom into his own personal graveyard.