As Viktor strode through the opulent corridor, the rhythmic echo of his footsteps was mirrored perfectly by the hollow tread of the servants trailing behind him—a soulless procession of a grand machine. He came to a sudden halt before a towering, gold-rimmed mirror in the center of the Great Hall. The reflection staring back was not that of a seventeen-year-old boy, but a stranger whose features were buried behind the mask of brutal tradition, his gaze turned into eternal permafrost. The heavy, black velvet mantle upon his shoulders felt leaden, as if it were drinking in the collective sins of the entire empire.
"Commence the ceremony," he commanded. His voice was low, yet it drifted through the furthest corners of the hall like a blade of glacial air. There was no tremor of excitement, no flicker of joy—only the resonance of a sentence that must be carried out.
At that precise moment, the blare of trumpets erupted beneath the soaring vaults of the palace. The sound was so violent it shook centuries of dust from the rafters, sending it swirling into the light. The brass roar carried across every crevice of the Solis Valley, vibrating through the very bones of Lir, who remained huddled in the mud-slicked streets below.
[Solis Valley — Lir's Desolate Hovel]
Lir burst into his damp, cramped hovel, the walls cracked by age and cold, and slammed the door shut. The air inside was thick with the scent of stagnant moisture and the bitter tang of old woodsmoke. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged, frantic bird trying to shatter its own wings to taste freedom.
With trembling fingers, he pulled the silk from beneath his tunic. Despite the crust of mud, the gold threads of the handkerchief shimmered in the dim lamplight, glowing with an eerie, almost sentient luminescence.
"Lir, what have you done?" Dax rushed through the door, his voice strangled by a panic that bordered on a whimper. His eyes bulged as they locked onto the silk. "You should have cast it away! If a search is ordered, this scrap of fabric will be the noose around all our necks! You've brought Death himself into this house!"
Lir was deaf to his words. His entire being was fixated on the crest embroidered in the corner: a jagged sword, and from its edge, a single, exquisite tear-shaped emerald.
"Dax, look..." Lir held the fabric closer to the flickering candlelight. His voice shook with a newfound realization. "There is blood on this. But it's not today's mud—it's an old, rusted stain, woven into the very fibers. This cloth is a witness to an ancient agony."
Dax fell silent, the air in the room suddenly turning heavy. At that heartbeat, a thunderous roar shook the earth and sky—the cannons announcing the official ascension of the new High Lord. The vibration rattled the fragile walls of the hovel. But in Lir's mind, only one question spiraled: if the High Lord was as heartless and hollow as they said, why did he carry a relic of eternal grief? Was the tyrant, too, merely another victim of this terrible chain?