The Office of the President was not a room; it was an altar to power.
Kael Ravenshade stood before the massive double doors of polished obsidian, leaning heavily on his silver-handled cane. His leg was genuinely aching today—a phantom pain from a spear wound he had taken in a previous life, or perhaps just the strain of maintaining the charade.
"The President will see you now, Lord Ravenshade," the secretary said. She didn't look up from her desk. She was efficient, cold, and entirely uninterested in the fragile boy standing before her.
Kael nodded his thanks and pushed the door open. It was heavy, requiring a visible effort that made his shoulder tremble.
Performance, he reminded himself. Always a performance.
He stepped inside.
The room was vast, dominated by a floor-to-ceiling window behind the desk that framed the entirety of Oakhaven. From this height, the city looked like a clockwork toy. The white marble of the Upper District gleamed in the center, and the gray smear of the Lower District circled it like a bruise.
President Magnus Silverwindcrest sat behind a desk carved from the heartwood of an Elder Tree. He was writing, his pen scratching aggressively across parchment. He didn't look up as Kael entered. He let the silence stretch, a classic power move designed to make the visitor feel small.
Kael played his part. He shuffled forward, the tap-tap-tap of his cane echoing in the cavernous space. He stopped five paces from the desk and waited, head bowed, shoulders slumped.
"Kael," Magnus said finally, setting the pen down. He looked up, his blue eyes sharp and assessing. "You look... better. The air of the waking world suits you."
"Thank you, Mr. President," Kael rasped. "My father insisted I come. He said... he said I should thank you personally for the support you gave our House during my slumber."
Magnus leaned back, steepling his fingers. "Rowan is a good man. Loyal. Loyalty is a currency more valuable than gold in this city, Kael. Never forget that."
"I won't, sir."
"Sit," Magnus gestured to a low velvet chair.
Kael sat. The chair was designed to be uncomfortable, sinking low so that whoever sat in it had to look up at the President. Kael noted the psychological architecture with a detached, professional appreciation. Magnus was a warlord in a diplomat's coat.
"So," Magnus said, his voice dropping to a warm, conversational baritone. "You are awake. You are engaged to my daughter. And I hear rumors that you took a carriage ride to the Lower District yesterday. A strange detour for a recovering invalid."
Kael didn't flinch. He had expected the spies.
"I was curious," Kael said, widening his eyes to project innocence. "I saw... reports. On my father's desk. I wanted to see the people we protect."
Magnus's smile didn't waver, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop. "And? What did you see?"
Kael gripped his cane. He let a tremor run through his hands.
"I saw hungry people, sir," Kael whispered. "I saw a child eating mud. I saw guards beating women. It... it terrified me."
Magnus chuckled softly. He stood up and walked to the window, turning his back on Kael.
"Terror is a natural reaction to ugliness, Kael. The Lower District is an ugly place. It is a chaotic, untamed garden. If you let the weeds grow, they choke the roses."
"But they are starving," Kael pressed, infusing his voice with a naive desperation. "Father says... Father says they pay less tax. He says that's why they get less food. But the ledgers... the ledgers show surplus. Why can't we feed them?"
Magnus turned around. The warmth was gone from his face. He looked at Kael with the cold, dispassionate gaze of a surgeon looking at a tumor.
"Because, Kael," Magnus said, walking slowly toward the chair until he loomed over the boy. "If you feed a rat, it breeds. If you feed a thousand rats, they breed a million. And then? Then they eat the grain meant for the soldiers. They eat the grain meant for the mages. And when the Noxlurs come—and they will come—the walls fall because the defenders are starving."
Kael stared up at him, feigning shock. "You... you starve them on purpose?"
"I manage resources," Magnus corrected him, his voice hard as iron. "It is the Law of Weight. A ship can only carry so much cargo. If you overload it with useless ballast, it sinks, and everyone drowns. The Upper District is the crew. The Lower District is the ballast."
He leaned down, placing his hands on the arms of Kael's chair, trapping him.
"You think me cruel," Magnus stated. "You look at me with those big, sad eyes, and you think I am a monster. But I am the reason you slept safely for seven years. I am the reason the Barrier holds. The Mana Barrier burns ten thousand crystals a day. Who pays for that? The Nobles. The Merchants. The Elite."
"But the labor..." Kael stammered. "The poor work the mines. They dig the crystals."
"Muscle is cheap," Magnus spat. "Minds are expensive. Leaders are rare."
Magnus straightened up, smoothing his white coat. He walked back to his desk, dismissing the moral argument as if it were a child's tantrum.
"We tax the poor 60% of their production not because we need the coin, Kael. We do it to keep them hungry. A hungry man thinks only of his next meal. He does not think of rebellion. He does not think of politics. He works, he eats, he sleeps. That is order."
Kael sat frozen.
Inside his mind, the War God was screaming. This is not governance. This is a farm. He is breeding cattle.
It was worse than simple corruption. Simple corruption was just greed—a skimming of the top. This was systemic, philosophical evil. Magnus believed he was the Savior. He believed that crushing 80% of the population was the moral price for saving the 20% who "mattered."
"Does... does my father know?" Kael asked, his voice barely audible.
Magnus laughed. It was a genuine, pitying sound.
"Rowan?" Magnus shook his head. "Rowan is a good dog. He fetches the stick. He doesn't ask where the stick comes from. I tell him it is necessary. I tell him it is temporary. And he believes me because he needs to believe me. If he saw the truth... it would break him."
Magnus looked at Kael intently.
"You are smarter than him, aren't you? I see it in your eyes. You have your mother's intuition."
Kael's heart skipped a beat at the mention of his mother. He kept his face blank.
"I don't know what you mean, sir. I am just... confused."
"Good," Magnus said. "Stay confused. Confusion is safe. Clarity... clarity gets people killed."
Magnus picked up his pen again. The audience was over.
"Go home, Kael. Marry my daughter. Enjoy the silk sheets and the imported wine. Let me carry the weight of the sin. That is my gift to you. Do not wander across the river again. The mud stains, and it is very hard to wash out."
Kael stood up. It took him three tries, his legs shaking violently.
"Thank you... Mr. President," Kael mumbled. "For explaining."
"I did not explain," Magnus said without looking up. "I commanded. Close the door on your way out."
Kael hobbled to the door. He leaned on the cane, dragging his left foot. He looked like a broken thing, a boy crushed by the weight of the great man's wisdom.
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the heavy obsidian doors shut.
Click.
The moment the latch engaged, Kael's posture changed.
He didn't straighten up—there were guards in the hall—but his eyes changed. The naive fear evaporated, replaced by a cold, glittering abyss.
He walked down the long, opulent corridor, passing portraits of past Presidents, past heroes.
He thinks he is a Shepherd, Kael thought, the rage burning cold and precise in his chest. He thinks the people are sheep to be sheared and eaten.
Kael gripped the silver handle of his cane so hard the metal groaned softly.
Magnus was right about one thing. Clarity was dangerous.
Because now Kael had clarity.
He wasn't fighting a corrupt tax code. He wasn't fighting a misunderstanding. He was fighting a philosophy that had built a city on a foundation of bones.
Rowan couldn't be saved from this truth. Rowan was part of the machinery, a cog greased by his own blindness.
He keeps them hungry so they won't rebel, Kael repeated Magnus's words in his mind. He thinks hunger breaks the spirit.
Kael reached the exit of the palace. The bright sunlight hit his face, blinding and white.
He remembered the boy in the mud, eating the bread through a broken jaw. He remembered the mother taking the beating.
Magnus was wrong. Hunger didn't just break spirits.
Hunger sharpened teeth.
Kael walked down the marble steps toward his waiting carriage. He looked at the sprawling city below.
"You are wrong, Magnus," Kael whispered, a smile touching his lips that would have terrified the President if he had seen it. "You haven't built a fortress. You've built a bomb."
He climbed into the carriage.
"Home, My Lord?" Old Garret asked.
"No," Kael said, resting his cane across his knees. "Take me to the Industrial Sector. I need to buy some fertilizer."
"Fertilizer, sir? For the gardens?"
"Something like that," Kael said. "I'm going to help the weeds grow."