The rest of the lunch unfolded with dazzling conversation. Karina spoke at length about her upcoming journey to the Stellaris Magus Conservatory in Aldora—her private seat invitation, her new alchemical theories, and her recent research into mana-vein cross-pollination in fractured leyline zones.
Charles, of course, didn't miss a beat. He met every technical statement with teasing precision, slipping between wit and intellect so effortlessly it was hard to tell which weapon he was wielding harder.
Every time she tried to assert dominance through intellect, he volleyed back with some maddeningly correct observation—or worse, a joke so clever it made even Alina choke on her tea.
He wasn't just a noble pretending to understand her field.
He was the field's next nightmare.
"By the way," Charles said as dessert arrived, "when I visit Aldora next year, let's explore feasibility together. SIGMA AeterPharmaceuticals needs field anchors for export licenses. Aldora would make a fine expansion front."
Karina blinked, her fork midair. "You think that far ahead?"
Charles raised his wine with a lazy smile. "I play far ahead."
Wendy, standing nearby, muttered, "That's one way to say he's insufferable," but she was smiling.
When the time came for Karina to leave, Charles stood, stepping forward with the kind of measured grace that said, I'm about to complicate your life, but politely.
"One more thing."
Karina paused, suspicion flashing in her tightened eyes.
"I plan to expand SIGMA AeterPharmaceuticals into Aldora next year. I'll need a liaison—someone brilliant, respected, and familiar with the local alchemical structure. My goal is to make SIGMA indispensable to Aldora's infrastructure."
Her brows lifted. "You're offering me a position?"
Charles's smirk deepened. "No. I'm offering you a legacy."
Karina's lips parted, then curved upward in that dangerously slow way that usually preceded catastrophic decisions.
Her pulse quickened as she recognized the offer for what it was: a chance to wield real power and shape the future. "I'll think about it," she said, voice smooth but tight.
"Send me your specs, and I'll determine whether I'll be your crown jewel… or your most lucrative regret."
"Oh, please," Charles replied with a dismissive wave. "You'll be both."
After the Wine, After the War
The sun had begun its slow descent behind the glass-paneled ceiling of the Silver Concord Hall, casting molten streaks of gold and crimson across the obsidian floors. The negotiation scrolls had been sealed. Wine glasses were half-emptied. Plates wiped clean with the precision of satisfied ambition.
Charles leaned back, swirling the last of his Crimson Nocturne as Karina went uncharacteristically silent across from him.
Which meant she was thinking.
Which meant he'd won.
"Regret already?" he teased, tilting his glass toward her.
Karina's eyes flicked up, unimpressed. "You're exhausting, you know that?"
"That's what makes me so hard to replace."
She tilted her head, pretending to study him. "I didn't say I wanted to."
From the corner, Wendy snorted. Rob coughed to disguise his laugh.
Alina, clearly not paid enough for this level of emotional chaos, hesitated. "I'll... go prepare the ledger delivery." She bowed and escaped like a woman fleeing a collapsing building.
Wendy followed her out, muttering something about "preventing accidental engagements via contract clause."
Charles stood slowly, stretching just enough to hint at well-trained muscle beneath the relaxed noble's robe. Karina didn't look away.
"I should warn you," she said. "A deal like today makes waves. The kind that draws sharks. And kings."
"Good," Charles murmured. "I've been sharpening my teeth."
Karina's laughter, sharp and bright, trailed after her as she walked away. It rang with warning as much as warmth.
"I'll be watching."
"I know," he replied softly.
At the threshold, she paused. Without turning, she added, "Next time, don't bring gifts. Bring questions. I like puzzles."
The doors closed behind her.
Moments later, Wendy reappeared, arms folded, eyebrow raised. "She likes you."
"I'm irresistible," Charles said, sipping his wine.
"She also might try to seduce you into a contract that sells your soul for profit."
"I'd make her add a royalty clause first."
Wendy exhaled through a laugh. "You're both insane."
Rob returned with a stack of enchanted ledgers. "She's thorough. Staff logs, enchantment blueprints, property keys. All signed."
"Good," Charles said, his tone shifting from playful to calculating.
"We start renovations tomorrow. SIGMA—activate Shadow Contingency. Sweep every inch of the hotel. Geo's team handles security runes in the tunnels."
[Confirmed. Surveillance layer online by midnight.]
Wendy gave him a sidelong look. "Paranoid much?"
"Prepared," Charles corrected. "The moment they hear I own the Lotus Isles, they'll think I'm exposed again."
Remembering Himself
He walked toward the balcony, the city glowing below in violet and gold. "Let them come. Let them try to cut down a tree that's already grown into the sky."
Wendy approached and stood beside him, quiet for a breath.
"You've changed," she said softly. "Since your coma. Since... all of it."
Charles stared at her quizzically.
Wendy's voice softened, carrying that mix of warmth and ache that only comes from years of watching someone change beyond recognition.
"First, you changed after they retrieved you, almost dead from the Zephyr Woods," she said quietly.
"You left that day with Lady Amelia, full of life. You were excited about the academy, talking about building a future, chasing your dreams. That was the last time I saw him—the version of you who smiled without caution."
Her eyes lingered on his face, searching for traces of that boy she once knew.
"When you woke up after your first coma, everything about you shifted. It was like the world had carved something out of you and left something colder in its place. And now—after this second one—those changes didn't just deepen. They evolved."
Charles leaned back slightly, his tone even, but the question carried weight.
"So tell me, Wendy. Which version of me do you prefer? The naive, idealistic Charlemagne who thought the world could be fixed with kindness and mercy? Or the monster standing before you now?"
The question caught her off guard. She hesitated, eyes flicking to the floor for a moment before meeting his again.
"I like them both," she said finally, her voice steady.
"I miss the old Charlemagne—the one who saw light everywhere, even when the world didn't deserve it. But…"
She took a breath. "If we're talking about survival, about protecting what matters… I prefer the man you've become."
Charles's smile faded into something thinner, quieter.
"No," he murmured, half to himself. "You miss the boy who felt. The man standing here only remembers how."
Wendy looked at him, part sad for losing a younger brother, and proud at the same time of gaining a new lord worth dying for.
Charles's smile turned faint. "No, Wendy. I didn't change."
He looked down, hand resting on the hilt of his blade.
"I just remembered who I am..."
Then he continued, "But I can no longer go back to how I used to be. Not with everything I've been through. Not with everything I now know."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was charged. Electric. Like the moment before a lightning storm tore through the sky.
His gaze drifted to the city skyline beyond the manor's polished glass balcony. Velmora shimmered in gold and violet under the setting sun—so full of opulence, so full of lies.
"I spent almost sixteen years as a shadow in my own story," Charles murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.
"A puppet heir. A sickly joke. A boy everyone pitied or ignored."
His eyes narrowed.
"And they thought I would stay that way."
Wendy said nothing. She knew. She had seen what most had missed. What still burned behind his sapphire eyes was something deeper than rage or pride.
Conviction.
"They fed me poison within the walls of my own home." He continued, "They expected me to die quietly," a bitter laugh slipping from his lips.
"Even the man trusted to heal me… Harold Gayle, the family physician. My caretaker. My executioner."
His hand clenched into a tight fist, knuckles white, anger pulsing up his wrist.
"They think I'm just playing noble now—throwing money, spinning charm, seducing investors. But this isn't about wealth. It's about justice. My purpose is to expose those who betrayed me and to reclaim everything they took. It's about rewriting the script they buried me in."
He turned to Wendy, and for a moment—just a moment—the full storm of his spirit was bare.
"I'm not building an empire to show them I lived."
His voice dropped lower.
"I'm building it so I can bury them in it."
Wendy's breath audibly caught as his words settled between them.
"I remember who I am," Charles said again, more to himself than anyone. "Not the weakling they raised. Not the heir they mocked. Not the pawn they tried to poison."
He looked back out to Velmora.
"I am Charlemagne Ziglar. And I am the storm they prayed would never come."
For a moment, the wind rose, brushing past his silver hair like the world itself paused to listen.
Then, as if on cue, thunder cracked distantly behind the clouds.
When Love is A Luxury
Wendy stood silent beside him for a moment longer, eyes cast out over the horizon as if watching the same ghosts dance behind his words.
Then, quietly—perhaps too quietly—she asked,
"How about Lady Micah Sorelle?"
Charles didn't respond right away.
"You look perfect together in every way," she went on, her voice laced with something unspoken.
"Both of you—brilliant, terrifying when provoked, fearless in business. Powerful cultivators with impossible standards. And yet… principled. Loyal."
She paused, then added with a small smirk, "Not to mention infinitely more interesting than your former fiancée."
That earned a faint exhale from Charles. Not quite a laugh—but close.
Wendy turned to study him directly now, her tone soft but firm.
"She was clearly hurt the last time you parted. She looked at you like you were the only person she couldn't afford to lose. What is she to you?"
Charles stayed still, his hand rigid on the obsidian rail. His face barely shifted, but something dark surfaced in his eyes—raw and unguarded.
"Micah…" he murmured, more to himself than to Wendy. "She's..."
He trailed off, the storm in his eyes dimming for just a heartbeat. His jaw tightened as he turned away, the silence between words pressing down like the aftermath of thunder.
Whatever he didn't say hung there—heavy, unrelenting—as he let the weight of it settle across his shoulders, fitting like armor he'd worn too long to ever take off.
"She's fire disguised as grace," he finally said.
"Micah is a hurricane pretending to be a diplomat. She stood by me when no one else did. Not because she had to, but because it was right."
"And that," he added, eyes hardening again, "is rarer than any magical relic I've ever unearthed."
"So, you love her?" Wendy asked bluntly.
He smiled faintly. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
He turned back to the skyline, jaw set like carved stone.
"Because I don't get to love anyone right now. Because love's a luxury I can't afford," he said quietly, his every move dedicated to survival and vengeance, not peace.
"Not while I'm sharpening blades for war. Not while there are still traitors breathing under my roof. Not while I'm dragging the Ziglar name out of the grave they buried it in."
His voice had dropped lower now, roughened by something that wasn't anger but exhaustion.
"She deserves peace," he went on quietly.
"She deserves a partner who isn't haunted by vengeance. Someone who doesn't bleed into every plan he makes."
Wendy's brow furrowed in disagreement. "You think she doesn't carry ghosts? She bleeds too, you know."
"I know," he said, almost too softly to hear. "That's what makes it worse."
The words hung between them, heavy and human. Charles exhaled slowly, the sound more like surrender than calm, and for a moment neither of them spoke. The air between them seemed to hum with everything he hadn't said—grief, guilt, and the kind of memories that never stop cutting.
Then came the confession...
"I kissed her once…violently," he admitted. "In the suite, last night before everything spiraled."
Wendy blinked, surprised by his honesty.
"And I wanted more."
A silence stretched—fraught, pulsing with everything neither dared voice.
"But I couldn't," Charles finished, softer now. "Not when I knew the blood was coming. Not when I knew I might not wake up."
Wendy's voice was barely a whisper. "And now?"
He glanced sideways, silver-blue eyes tired but alive. "Now? I owe her the truth. Someday, if I survive this, if the world still stands after everything I've set in motion…"
He paused.
"Then maybe I'll find out what we could've been."
Wendy looked at him—really looked—and for the first time, she didn't see the prodigy, the schemer, or the man who could command empires with a glance.
She saw someone tired.
A young man carrying more weight than anyone should, holding himself together with willpower, sarcasm, and the ghosts of promises he'd never kept. There were too many scars hidden under that calm, too many masks layered over the pieces that still bled.
She didn't speak. Instead, she reached out and rested a hand on his arm, steady, quiet, grounding.
Like she used to do with the younger Charlemagne whenever he came home beaten from the training ground.
He didn't flinch. Didn't joke. Didn't move away.
For that single heartbeat, the air between them softened. The storm inside him stilled—just enough to remind them both that beneath the iron and ambition, even monsters remembered how to feel.