The morning after the king's private talk with Cassian, the High Council gathered in the Hall of Echoes.
It was not a grand chamber, but a long, narrow room of dark stone and high windows, where the voices of the past seemed to linger in the corners. Twelve seats lined the table: six for the great noble houses, three for the high clerics, two for the merchant lords, and one for the commoner — a token, a symbol, a man whose presence was meant to prove that Vaelis was not ruled by blood alone.
Today, the air was thick with unspoken tension.
The king sat at the head, his face calm, but his fingers tapping once, twice, against the arm of his chair. To his right, the Grand Vizier, Lord Kaelen Dorne, watched the room like a hawk, his sharp eyes missing nothing. To his left, Cassian sat in his usual place — not too close to the king, not too far, the perfect distance for a trusted advisor who did not yet claim power.
The topic was the famine in the south.
"Three villages have burned," said Lord Varn of House Mireth, the merchant lord. "Not by bandits. By the people themselves. They set fire to their own homes, their own granaries, rather than let the tax collectors take what little they had."
A murmur ran through the council. One of the clerics crossed himself. The commoner, a thin man named Toren (no relation to the guard captain), clenched his fists but said nothing.
"The people are starving," said Lady Solen, head of the scholar-priests. "They do not rebel out of greed. They rebel out of hunger. If we crush them without relief, we will not restore order. We will only create more graves."
Lord Dorne leaned forward, his voice calm but edged. "Graves are cheaper than chaos. If we show weakness now, every noble with a grudge, every merchant with a debt, every beggar with a stone will rise. We must make an example."
"And what example do you propose?" asked Lord Varn. "Another massacre? Another village turned to ash?"
Dorne did not flinch. "I propose that we send the army to restore order, that we execute the ringleaders, and that we publicly declare that rebellion will be met with fire and steel. After that, we can discuss relief."
The king said nothing. He looked at Cassian.
Cassian, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.
"Lord Dorne is right that order must be restored," he said, his voice smooth, reasonable. "But Lady Solen is also right that hunger is the root of this fire. If we only punish, we treat the symptom. If we only feed, we invite more rebellion. The wise course is not to choose between order and mercy, but to make them appear the same."
The room stilled.
"What do you mean?" asked the king.
Cassian folded his hands on the table. "We send the army, yes. We restore order. But we do not burn the villages. We rebuild them."
A ripple of surprise.
"Rebuild them?" said Lord Varn. "With what gold? The treasury is already strained."
Cassian smiled slightly. "Not with the treasury's gold. With the gold of those who profited from the famine."
He turned to Lord Varn. "Your warehouses in the south are full. You have been selling grain at triple the price, while the people starve. That is not trade. That is predation."
Varn's face darkened. "I am a merchant, not a charity. I took the risk. I should reap the reward."
"And now," Cassian said, "you will reap the cost of being seen as a monster. The people do not hate the king. They hate the men who grow fat while they starve. If we punish you, we can say: the king is just. He punishes greed. He feeds the hungry. And he restores order."
He paused, then added, "You will not lose everything. Only enough to make the people believe the king is their protector, not their enemy."
The council was silent.
Lord Dorne studied Cassian, his expression unreadable. He saw the trap: Cassian had not just proposed a policy. He had turned Varn into a sacrifice, a scapegoat whose suffering would buy the king's legitimacy.
And Cassian had done it with a smile.
The king finally spoke. "Lord Varn, your cooperation in this matter will be remembered as an act of loyalty to the crown."
Varn's jaw tightened, but he bowed his head. "As Your Majesty commands."
Cassian leaned back, satisfied.
The king had not just accepted his plan.
He had accepted the idea that cruelty, when wrapped in the language of justice, could be called wisdom.
***
Later that day, in the royal gardens, Princess Elira walked alone, her mind heavy with what she had overheard.
She had not been allowed in the council chamber, but servants talked, and she had pieced together the truth: the king was going to send the army south, to crush the starving villages. And Cassian had been the one to shape the decision.
She found him near the old oak, reading a book on ancient law.
"Cassian," she said, her voice tight.
He looked up, his expression softening instantly. "Elira. You look troubled."
She did not sit. "They're going to send the army. To kill our own people."
Cassian closed the book and stood. "They are going to restore order. There is a difference."
"There is no difference when the people are starving!" she snapped. "They're not rebels. They're desperate."
Cassian stepped closer, his voice low, calm. "I know that. And so do you. But the king cannot rule on what is right. He must rule on what is possible. If he does nothing, the famine spreads. If he shows weakness, the nobles will see an opening. If he is too harsh, the people will hate him."
He paused, then said, "The only way to save them is to make the king appear both strong and just. That is what I tried to do."
Elira looked at him, searching his face. "You made Lord Varn pay. You made him feed them."
"I made him *appear* to feed them," Cassian corrected. "The gold will come from his coffers, but the people will believe it comes from the king. The army will restore order, but the people will believe it is to protect them, not to crush them."
She shook her head. "That's manipulation. That's lies."
Cassian did not deny it. "Yes. It is. But what is the alternative? A king who is too kind is soon replaced. A king who is too cruel is soon overthrown. The only king who lasts is the one who makes people believe he is both."
He reached out, gently took her hand. "You want to save them. So do I. But saving them is not about purity. It is about power. About control. About making the world believe in a story that keeps them alive."
Elira felt her anger waver. She wanted to hate him, but he was not cruel. He was not indifferent. He was… calculating. Cold, but not heartless.
"You always make it sound so reasonable," she whispered.
Cassian smiled, just a little. "Because it is. The world is not ruled by ideals. It is ruled by what people believe. And the wise man is not the one who shouts the truth. He is the one who shapes the lie so perfectly that it becomes the truth."
She pulled her hand away, but not harshly. "I don't know if I can live in a world like that."
Cassian's smile did not fade. "You already do. The only question is whether you will be its victim… or its master."
***
That evening, in the training yard, Prince Kaelen sparred again, this time with a younger noble, a boy from House Dorne.
The match was brutal. Kaelen fought with a kind of desperate fury, his strikes heavy, his movements reckless. He won, but only by knocking his opponent to the ground and pressing a blade to his throat.
The yard fell silent.
Kaelen looked around, breathing hard, his face flushed with triumph and shame.
Then he saw Cassian standing at the edge, watching.
After the others dispersed, Kaelen walked over, wiping sweat from his brow.
"I went too far," he admitted.
Cassian nodded. "You did. But not because you are cruel. Because you are afraid."
Kaelen frowned. "Afraid of what?"
"Of being forgotten. Of being weak. Of being nothing."
Kaelen looked down. "Maybe."
Cassian stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Fear is not your enemy. It is your teacher. It tells you what you value. And once you know what you value, you can control it."
He placed a hand on Kaelen's shoulder. "You want to matter. That is good. But mattering is not about winning every fight. It is about making others believe you are the one they need."
Kaelen looked up. "How?"
"By being the one who understands them," Cassian said. "By being the one who listens. By being the one who always seems to know what to do. Not by being the strongest, but by being the most necessary."
He smiled. "And when they believe that, they will follow you. Not because you forced them. Because they chose to."
Kaelen felt a strange warmth spread through his chest. For the first time, he did not feel like a spare prince. He felt like a future king.
"Will you teach me?" he asked again.
Cassian's smile deepened. "Of course. But remember: the first lesson is not how to win. It is how to make others believe they are winning, while you are the one who truly controls the game."
***
Later that night, in his chambers, Cassian stood before the mirror again.
He removed his coat, then his shirt, and studied his reflection.
Not his face.
His body.
Across his chest, faint but visible, were old scars — thin, precise lines, like the marks of a blade or a whip. A reminder of a childhood he never spoke of, of a fire that had taken his parents and left him with nothing but a mind too sharp for his own good.
He touched one of the scars, then let his hand fall.
He did not feel pain.
He did not feel grief.
He only felt the weight of a name.
*Lord Cassian Vael.*
A noble title. A mask. A role.
And beneath it, something older, colder.
Something that did not belong to this world.
Something that had been born to wear it.
He turned from the mirror and walked to his desk.
There, on a sheet of parchment, he began to write.
> *"The first lie is always the kindest.
> The first betrayal is always the most beautiful.
> And the first truth is always the one that no one wants to hear:
> that the world is not ruled by kings, but by the men who teach kings how to lie."*
He stopped, then added one final line, in smaller, sharper letters:
> *"Let them believe in kindness.
> Let them believe in love.
> Let them believe in me.
> For as long as they believe, they are mine."*
He set the pen down.
And in the silence of the room, he smiled.
Not the warm, gentle smile of the Golden Prince.
But the cold, knowing smile of the man who would one day be the only truth in Vaelis.