The prince looked down from his castle at the thousands of people gathered below. The square was packed from gate to well. A part of his heart filled as he saw the banners people had prepared for him. When Thalric lifted his hand, they bowed as one. He felt the weight of the crown on his head. It pressed on his brow, cool and a little sharp at the edges.

His crafters had made this crown for today. New gold, tight-fit, stones that caught the sun and threw it back. It was fine work, but it was not the one he wanted. He wanted the old crown, the one his father had worn for years. He would take that one soon enough. This one would do until then.

He let his hand fall and looked past the roofs and walls. Kaelgrim lay wide and strong, the fort city held the roads like a fist. From here the river ran like a silver blade through the fields. Bridges stood like teeth across it. Warehouses shouldered one another by the river docks. He could feel the shape of what would come, the way a man can feel a storm in his bones before the first drop falls. Starting here, he would build an empire people would speak of for centuries. He did not need to say it. He knew it the way he knew his own name.

Faces below turned up to him. There were kids, too many kids for his liking but he saw others too. Old men, young men, old women, young women breathing, shifting, pressing closer to the steps. They all had one thing in common—that their cheers struck the stone and came back twice as loud. They would help him turn the picture in his mind into a world under his feet.

He raised his hand again. The wave of sound rose. Drums boomed in time with his heart. He settled it with a touch that looked like he was brushing his hair.

A voice to his left pulled at him. He turned his head.

Duke Roan Raktor stood there, straight as a spear despite his years. His hair was iron grey, tied back with a plain leather thong. He wore a small bird pin at his collar, the kestrel of his house.

“They love you, Your Majesty,” Duke Raktor said, not loud, but the words carried. “I’m sure many would sign their names today to join the resistance army.”

Your Majesty. Thalric had longed to hear that since he was a boy with a wooden sword and bruised knuckles. The word warmed his chest like a swallow of strong wine. He did not show it. His face stayed calm. The corners of his mouth did not move.

“As they should,” he said. “They are all my subjects, and my will should be their will.”

The old man nodded once, as if setting a seal. “We have already begun to take down forts and garrisons under us,” Raktor said. “Especially in this region. Small posts change their banners by dawn. Larger ones bend after a short press. With the conscriptions, we will soon have an army to march out.”

“How many are they?”

The old man fell quiet and looked down. He leaned on the stick he always kept in his hand. Once he had been a general in the field—fast with orders, sharper than most men—but age had taken him. His back bent a little. Still, he was the most efficient man in Thalric’s faction and the Duke’s eyes held a steady, old sharpness. He was Thalric’s first supporter, the man who made plans work.

Raktor thought for a moment, fingers tightening on the stick. Then he nodded slowly. “Seven garrisons,” he said. “And two forts besides this one.”

Thalric raised an eyebrow. A frown crossed his face. “Why so few?” he asked. “I thought the army would take every fort in the kingdom.”

Raktor’s mouth made a thin line. He looked toward the square, toward the moving crowd, as if the answer might be written in the people below. “I have told you this,” he said. “Many forts have whole communities built around them. Not everyone will drop what they have and join a resistance, no matter how you speak. People listen to rumors and to their neighbors. They worry about hearth and home.”

He paused and pressed his thumb along the head of the stick. “Some of those forts are useful. They hold borders. They keep raids back. If we strip them all too fast, the kingdom’s edges will fall open. The other princes will use that against us. They will cry for safety and for kingship. They will rally men to their banners.”

Thalric’s anger burned under his skin, hot and quick. He wanted things fast. He wanted to sweep across the land and take every post by dusk. The logic of the Duke, however, settled into him. He breathed out and let the heat go down. Patience was a ruler’s hard lesson. He had to practice it, at least until the wind was at his back.

He turned his face back to Raktor and kept his voice even. “Send a brief to punish anyone who resists the levy,” he said. “Make the example quick and public.” He did not soften the words. “If there are Mages among them, try to recruit them. If they refuse, threaten their Mana hearts. Make them answer.”

Raktor’s eyes flicked at Thalric then away. The old man measured the meaning behind the prince’s voice. He had heard harsher orders in war, but the bite here was real. “And if there are non-humans?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

Thalric’s jaw tightened. The crown shone at his temple. “Show no mercy,” he said. “They do not belong in Lancephil.”

The Duke did not flinch at the venom in Thalric’s words. He only inclined his head and answered. “As you wish. We will make sure they see it is best to follow King Thalric and no one else.”

Thalric nodded and looked down at the crowd again. He lifted his hand and the square answered with a fresh cheer. He watched the faces. So many young men and women stared up at him with bright eyes. Some had mud on their boots. Some had new mittens. A few wore bits of armor that had been passed down. Their faces were open and eager. Hunting with them in Kaelgrim had done more than a title. It had given him something like a name in their mouths. They called him one of their own when the smoke of a campfire curled around them. They trusted him because he had shared blood and cold with them, not because a paper said he was prince.

Now they wanted to work for him. They wanted to sign, to march, to be part of the story he was building. Thalric felt that pull. It filled him with warmth. But he also saw the truth.

On a battlefield, these folk would be brave. They might kill one man, two men. If a few were very good, maybe more. Still, they would die in numbers. Men were needed. Men were good. But men alone were not enough. He wanted more than courage. He wanted something that could break walls and shatter shields. He wanted power that did not tire.

He turned to Raktor. “Have you gotten closer to getting more mana cannons?” he asked. “Or to copying them?”

Raktor’s brow knit. “Replicating them is far harder than we thought,” he said. “The craft is… stubborn. The law of the art, the ore, the rune sequences—many parts refuse imitation and they have failsafes, so they explode if we try to get them apart. But we can buy. A dozen more can be had from nobles who bought them in the last year.”

A dozen. Thalric let the number sit. Dozens more sounded good and bad at once. Good because metal and fire meant lasting force. Bad because he knew who made them and who would have the most number of them.

He thought of Arzan Kellius—the manufacturer. Arzan had the workshops and the original design. Arzan would laugh at a dozen. He would have ten times that number if he wished. The thought pressed like a stone at the base of Thalric’s skull. If Thalric had seen what would happen in the Assembly from the start, he would have moved differently. He would have bought, begged, stolen—anything to keep those cannons.

Regret warmed him.

He had hoped to copy them. Or at least to buy them straight from the maker. If Arzan Kellius had not stood between him and the world he wanted, Thalric could have paid a coin that would have made his brothers curse and beg. He had imagined rows of metal beasts that did not tire, that did not need bread. He had imagined them answering only to his hand.

Now he stood with a handful of devices that fought like Mages but weren’t enough. He could feel the future bending toward machines. The next wars would be won by iron and runes as much as by men and banners.

He gripped the stone railing until his fingers hurt. The rough cuts bit his palm.

“We need more of those,” he said. “The coming war will be more about machines than men, Duke Raktor. War has changed in recent years.”

Raktor did not blink. He had seen many wars. He had seen men blown into shapes that no healer could put back together. “War has always been about Mages fighting in the lead while the common soldiers take ground,” the Duke said. “We must not forget that, Your Majesty.”

Thalric looked straight at him. “You were at the Assembly,” he said. “You heard the lower nobles speak of their armies crushed. Arzan Kellius has tricks. He builds Knights that stand against Mages. He fights as a man who has swallowed the art itself. He will be a stronger foe than any of my brothers. He will not wait for us at the border. He will strike in the open. We must find a way to kill him before we march on the Sylvan Enclave. That is our only chance.”

Raktor went quiet. He closed his lips and turned the words over like a man turning a gem in his hand. The square below sang and cheered without knowing the shapes of their lives were being weighed above them. Finally the Duke nodded. His face held a hard line. “I will make sure Arzan is dead before our armies meet,” he said.

Thalric let that land. He did not answer with thanks. He only said, “Do that.”

He let his gaze move once more across Kaelgrim. The river flashed like a knife.

“We have much to do,” he said, turning away from the crowd.

***

Kai hunched over the battleboard, staring down at the wooden pieces spread out. He breathed slowly. The room smelled of cold tea and oiled wood and his nostrils filled with their scent. Light from the tall window cut the board in half. With everything happening in the kingdom, playing helped calm his head. Usually he would have already won by now.

Killian wasn’t much of an opponent anymore. The man always looked like he wanted to leave and go train. Duke Blackwood had been beaten by him before, and Francis wasn’t free enough to sit here long. So Kai had brought a different opponent to Veralt. Princess Amara had come back with him.

And now, her pieces were shredding his. Her knights hunted down his footsoldiers like hounds. Her king stood firm in the middle of the board from the first move and never let him push it. It felt like she had guessed each plan before he even thought of it. When he paused, she would grin like a fox, as if daring him to move and give her an edge.

Kai pushed a mage forward, trying to break through a line of her knights. He hoped the spell would scatter them. He hoped. But she still looked at her with a daring, bright smile. One of her mages slid across the squares and struck his piece dead. The board thinned: his pieces fell one by one. He was down to a single knight, its paint chipped where his fingers had worried it.

He sighed and lifted his hand. “I concede,” he said in just above a whisper. He set his palm flat on the table and let the knight sit there alone. He glanced at Amara. She only smiled, pleased and unrepentant.

“You know,” he added, a wry edge in his tone, “Duke Blackwood would not like you if you did the same thing to him.”

Amara leaned back in her chair, the corners of her mouth curling as her eyes lingered on the defeated board. “Do you like losing to me?” she asked, her tone teasing but her gaze sharp, watching him closely.

Kai let out a dry laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t like losing to anyone,” he admitted, “but I never realized you were so good at battleboard. Is that why you asked me to play it?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, still smiling. “But I thought you would win in it too. Honestly, I just saw you running around in meetings, busy with so many things. I thought you’d like a game to… relax.”

“Well,” Kai said, exhaling as he leaned against the chair, “actually I did need a break.”

It was true. Even if he was well into the fourth circle now, his body wasn’t something he could push endlessly. He wasn’t at the level of those Archmages who went months without pause. His bones still ached, his mind still grew tired. And worse, he was still reeling from the battle with Magus Veridia. The wounds of that fight weren’t just on his body, but buried deep in his heart.

That was one of the main reasons he had returned to Veralt as soon as the Assembly ended. He couldn’t afford to linger in Hermil, not with the tide of assassinations that would surely follow. He had been right too. Even here in Veralt, the Watchers had already uncovered spies and assassins sneaking around the estate, their eyes far too sharp and their steps far too careful to be harmless. Each of them had been silenced quickly.

But it was a reminder: running for the throne meant painting a target on his chest. Enemies would keep coming, especially the three princes. And above all of them stood Regina—his greatest nemesis. If he had remained in Hermil for long, he had no doubt one of those attempts would have gotten through eventually. Maybe not to him, but to Amara. That was something he would never risk.

He had even asked King Sullivan to leave Hermil and come with him, secretly. The old king had refused, of course. He would not abandon his garden, his quiet refuge. Kai had pressed, but the man only smiled and shook his head.

At least Hermil was calm now. The city was still licking its wounds from the terrorist attack. Nothing major stirred there since.

Kai glanced across the board again, then at Amara. She still had that smile, bright and almost mischievous, as if she was daring him to play another round. For the first time in weeks, he felt the weight on his shoulders ease just a little.

But it all felt too quiet—unnaturally so. The kind of quiet that came before a storm. Kai could almost sense the pressure in the air, waiting to break.

A snap of fingers pulled him back. Amara leaned over the board, smiling faintly. “Lost you there,” she teased.

Kai blinked, dragging himself out of his thoughts. “Sorry,” he said, rubbing his temple. “I was just… lost in thought. There’s a lot happening, and I know I’ll be at the centre of it soon.”

“I understand. I didn’t expect you to contest for the throne, nor Thalric to be the one to start the civil war. But…” she tilted her head, meeting his gaze firmly, “I believe you’ll do a far better job than my brothers.”

Kai couldn’t help but sigh loudly, but even then, the tension in his shoulders didn’t cease. “Only if your brothers leave the kingdom in a good state. Both of them are biding their time before reacting to Thalric, but something should happen soon.”

“Yes,” Amara agreed quietly. “There will be. But you’re not standing alone anymore. You have your own faction now. Even here, I’ve seen lines of people from all over the Sylvan Enclave wanting to join your army.”

Kai nodded at that. He opened his mouth, ready to remind her that his support was still shaky at best—that loyalty built in haste often cracked under fire—but before he could speak, the door opened.

Claire stepped inside. She had returned to Veralt only a week ago from the Ashari, and already she had slipped back into her duties as head maid with the same sharpness as before. Her eyes moved between Kai and Amara, then fell briefly to the board where his lone knight still stood out against Amara’s full ranks.

“Forgive the disturbance, Lord Arzan,” she said with a respectful bow. “But another report from the Watchers has arrived, alongside replies from the nobles.”

Kai straightened at once, his body moving before his mind. “Are Francis and Killian in the meeting room already?”

“They are,” Claire confirmed. “With the others.”

Kai turned to Amara, who gave him a small nod. “We can play another game later,” she said with a gentle smile.

“For sure,” Kai replied, managing a faint smile before he rose and followed Claire out. Curiosity bubbled in his chest, threading with tension. News from the Watchers and the nobles meant something had shifted, and during times this restless, even small shifts could mean storms.

***

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