The Senate burned.
Flames licked the marble pillars like hungry serpents, devouring centuries of power and pride. The gilded statues of old kings melted into twisted shadows as the city outside howled with chaos. The night sky over Velis was red — not from sunset, but from the empire bleeding out.
Lyon stood amid the inferno, his blade heavy with ash and blood. Around him, the once-mighty chamber lay in ruin — senators dead or fled, the banners of the Syndicate torn and trampled. The final echoes of gunfire faded into the crackle of burning parchment and broken vows.
He breathed hard. Every exhale felt like fire.
Behind him, Kael limped through the shattered doors, one arm clutching his side. His coat was torn, his face streaked with soot, but his eyes still burned with that same dangerous light.
"It's over," Kael rasped, looking at the smoking hall.Lyon shook his head slowly. "No. This was only the façade."
He turned toward the great mural behind the speaker's podium — a fresco of the founding kings. Beneath the soot, faint golden lettering glimmered: "Crown for Order, Blood for Peace."
Lyon's gaze hardened."Tell me, Kael… when the crown itself is forged from blood, can peace ever be real?"
Kael didn't answer. He just looked at the floor — where among the fallen bodies, a senator's signet ring still gleamed, soaked in crimson.
Outside, the city's bells tolled — not for celebration, but for mourning. The Syndicate's agents had seized the treasury, the military was split, and the civilian districts were tearing themselves apart.
Every faction that survived the siege was now claiming legitimacy.And Lyon knew — this was exactly what the unseen architects wanted.
Hours later, dawn began to break through the smoke.The streets of Velis were quiet, eerily so. Lyon stood on the high terrace of the burned Senate, watching the sunrise bleed gold over the ruins. His hands were still stained red.
Kael approached, carrying a small pouch wrapped in black cloth. "Found this beneath the vaults," he said.
Lyon unwrapped it — a single coin, etched with twin crowns on one side, and a serpent devouring itself on the other. The Blood-Gold Coin. The mark of the real power behind everything — The Consortium.
He stared at it for a long moment. Then closed his hand.
"So this is what they killed for," he murmured. "And what they'll kill again to protect."
Kael's voice was low. "You're not thinking of—""I am," Lyon cut in, his tone quiet but sharp. "The Senate was never the throne. The throne sits somewhere deeper. Maybe under the markets. Maybe under the blood."
Kael smirked faintly. "Then what's next, Captain?"Lyon turned toward the smoldering city. His coat fluttered in the rising wind, scattering ashes like gray snow.
"We rebuild what they burned," he said. "But not for them."
Later that night, in the shadows of the ruined streets, figures gathered — merchants, mercenaries, exiles, and those who had once called themselves Syndicate. They knelt before Lyon, not as a general or a noble, but as something new — something forged from fire and betrayal.
"The crown is broken," Lyon said, his voice carrying through the alley like the edge of a blade. "But from its ashes, we rise. No kings. No Senate. Only the oath of blood and freedom."
Kael stepped forward, drawing his dagger, and pressed the blade to his palm. "Then let it begin," he said, cutting deep.
Lyon followed, letting his blood fall onto the old marble steps.Others did the same — one by one, their crimson drops mixing with soot and rain, marking the birth of a new order.
The wind howled through the ruins like a whispering promise.
And somewhere far across the sea, in a vault filled with gold and shadows, an unseen hand flipped a coin — the Blood-Gold Coin — watching it spin endlessly between crown and serpent.
The coin landed.Its echo rippled through the world.