Smoke still clung to my lungs.
Not from fire—
from betrayal.
I didn't remember falling.
Only the weightless moment after steel rang for the last time…
and then darkness.
When I woke, the first thing I reached for was my sword.
Gone.
My body tensed instantly, pain screaming through my ribs as I tried to rise. Stone walls closed in around me—rough, damp, carved deep beneath the earth. A hideout. Old. Forgotten.
"Easy," a familiar voice said from the shadows.
"If you tear your stitches, Merlik will make you bleed just to prove a point."
My hand froze.
Lucian stepped into the dim torchlight.
Alive.
Unscarred.
Unapologetic.
I surged forward despite the pain, fist slamming into his chest. He didn't even stumble.
"You bastard," I growled. "You drag me into hell, vanish, then pull me out like this was your plan all along?"
Lucian caught my wrist effortlessly and twisted—just enough to remind me he could break it.
"If I wanted you dead," he said calmly, "the river would be drinking your blood right now."
I yanked my arm free, breathing hard.
"Then why?" I demanded. "Why save me?"
He turned away.
"Because the Crown doesn't kill what it can use," he said.
"And they want you alive."
The words settled like poison.
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the chamber.
Slow. Uneven.
A figure emerged from the darkness, cloaked, hood pulled low. He leaned heavily on a spear—not as a weapon, but as a crutch.
My heart stopped.
"…Merlik?"
The hood fell back.
His face was thinner. Older. One eye clouded by scar tissue. But it was him.
Alive.
"You look worse than I imagined," he said dryly. "Guess running didn't save you much after all."
My knees almost gave out.
"You died," I whispered. "I saw you fall."
Merlik smiled.
Not kindly.
"I fell," he said. "I just didn't stay down."
Silence stretched between us, thick with years of guilt and ghosts.
Lucian folded his arms. "He survived because the second kingdom took him. He learned what the Crown hides… and what both thrones share."
I looked between them.
"What are you saying?"
Merlik's voice hardened.
"There are two kingdoms," he said. "Two crowns. Two flags waving different colors."
He tapped the spear against the stone.
"One truth."
My blood ran cold.
"The war that killed your mother," Merlik continued, "was never about borders. It was about erasing her bloodline."
Lucian's eyes locked onto mine.
"You," he said quietly, "were never meant to exist."
I clenched my fists.
"So what is this?" I asked. "A reunion? A confession?"
Merlik stepped closer.
"It's a reckoning."
Lucian drew a dagger and slammed it into the table between us.
A map unfurled beneath his hand—cities, rivers, borders… and at the center:
A name burned into the parchment.
High Minister Caelum Vireth.
"The Crown's voice," Lucian said.
"The architect of silence," Merlik added.
"The man who ordered Liora Veyran erased," they said together.
I stared at the name.
Killing him would be easy.
Too easy.
"And after?" I asked. "Two kingdoms don't fall because one man bleeds."
Lucian smiled faintly.
That dangerous, knowing smile.
"No," he said. "They fall when the truth does."
Merlik met my eyes.
"We don't want you to be our weapon," he said.
"We want you to choose."
Lucian stepped back into the shadows.
"Stand with us," he said, "and burn the lies to the ground."
I closed my eyes.
The forge.
The Academy.
The river.
The Crown calling my mother's name a crime.
When I opened them again, my voice was steady.
"I won't assassinate shadows," I said.
"But I'll drag the truth into the light—even if it destroys us all."
Lucian nodded once.
Merlik exhaled slowly.
The alliance was sealed.
Not by trust.
But by blood, scars…
and a shared hatred of the crowns that thought themselves untouchable.
Far above us, the world still believed I was running.
Let them.
This time—
I was coming for the throne.