Eldric stared at the man he had detested from the very first day he saw his face. Selwin—his mother’s attendant, her obedient shadow, her loyal adopted son—always carried the stench of his mother’s influence with him. Normally, the sight of the man soured Eldric’s mood.

But today, Selwin had come bearing something that made Eldric smile.

He rested a hand on the edge of one of the crates laid out on the table between them. “Tell me again,” Eldric said, voice calm and almost pleasant, “what exactly is inside these crates, Selwin?”

Selwin straightened, glancing between Eldric and the sealed boxes. “These are alchemical substances, my lord,” he said. “Your mother personally acquired these magical potions for the army. They will greatly increase the soldiers’ prowess. Double it, if I must say.”

Eldric raised an eyebrow. “And these are her words?”

“Yes, my lord,” Selwin replied quickly. “Directly from your mother.”

Eldric didn’t respond. Instead, he reached into one of the crates and withdrew a small vial. It was filled with a dark, viscous substance—though calling it filled was generous. There were only drops inside, perhaps three or four at most. Far less than what he had seen in his mother’s private supply.

He knew it was no proper potion. It was foul, addictive, corrupting. But undeniably effective.

He had taken it in small doses, and even that small taste had made his strength surge beyond reason. He had not expected his mother to distribute something like this to ordinary soldiers, not even in desperation.

He turned the vial in his fingers, the liquid clinging to the glass like tar.

“And what,” Eldric asked quietly, “has she chosen to call this?”

Selwin answered without hesitation. “These are hex drops, my lord. Queen Regina has ordered you to give one to each soldier in the army.”

Eldric narrowed his eyes at the vial. “To even the conscripts?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes, my lord,” Selwin replied without hesitation. “If there are hex drops left, Her Majesty said to give them out. With the soldiers powered by it, the war against Thalric will be over in weeks—those were her exact words.”

“How many crates has she sent?” he asked.

“Three dozen, my lord. Each crate contains around a hundred vials. It should be sufficient for a large portion of the army, and Her Majesty said more will arrive soon. But—” Selwin paused briefly, “—she wants the first batches distributed to the Mages. With them strengthened, we will be able to launch a counterattack against Thalric’s forces.”

Eldric leaned back in his chair, nodding slowly. “A counterattack is necessary.”

His gaze drifted to the map spread across another table on the left—creased, marked, stained by too many hands and too little progress. He was sick of looking at it. Sick of the heavy ink circles over fallen forts and the red lines marking lost ground. Sick of the endless reports detailing casualties, retreats, and the steady pressure from his brother’s advance.

The western half of the kingdom had become a bleeding wound. Thalric’s rebellion hadn’t been a whim—It had been planned for a long time, perhaps as long as his mother’s own schemes. His brother had moved with a plan in his mind, taking key strongholds and sweeping up every able man as a conscript to add to the numbers in his army.

Eldric had been thrown into this chaos with a single task: assist Duke Renard Kestrelain in holding Eden City and push Thalric’s forces back from attempting a siege.

And till this point, they hadn’t even managed to clear out a quarter of his forces.

Part of it was because Thalric hadn’t sent scraps. He had sent his main force. And worse, they were commanded by Duke Raktor, the man infamous for his ruthlessness.

Raktor had shattered supply lines, harassed their scouts, and battered the wards endlessly using the kraels—flying beasts the Ducal house of Raktor bred and controlled. Their intelligence on the kraels had been completely wrong. They were far more numerous than any report had suggested. Fast, coordinated, and devastating in aerial assaults.

Every day, Eldric felt more and more caged in Renard Kestrelain’s estate, reduced to listening to casualty reports, siege updates, and the suffocating rhythm of a war going nowhere.

And now his mother wanted him to feed hex drops to soldiers like they were bread rations.

He closed his fingers around the vial again.

The war was decaying faster than he expected, and his mother’s answer was addiction disguised as power.

Maybe the hex drops would change things around. Maybe they would turn the tide. Maybe they would give him what he deserved.

But as Eldric looked down at the vials, he felt something far more personal than strategy stirring in his veins.

His own bottle was long empty. He had drained it dry before even reaching Eden City.

And ever since then… the craving had clawed at him.

Being on the walls, seeing commoners fall to their deaths, watching kraels scatter under lightning and fire—none of it had quieted the burning need inside him. If anything, the thrill of battle had only sharpened it. Even now, holding the vial in his hand, he felt his fingers tremble.

He wanted to pull the stopper. He wanted to drink it. He wanted it to flood him again.

But Selwin was here.

Selwin, who ran straight to his mother with every whisper. Selwin, who watched him like a hound trained to report.

Though, did he truly need to care what his mother thought? He was the King now. Right? He was crowned, recognised and held the highest authority in the kingdom.

Did he still need to bow his neck to her leash?

A voice inside him murmured yes—the old voice, the obedient one, the one raised under his mother’s gaze.

But another voice—louder, sharper—burned through it.

Why should you? Why should you live as her puppet? You are the King. Fucking act like it.

Heat simmered under his skin—anger, resentment, power all tangled together. The thought of his mother controlling even this part of him made that heat flare brighter.

He was done being managed.

“My lord…?” Selwin’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Are you well? You look… angry.”

Eldric exhaled slowly, drawing a thin smile across his lips. “No,” he said. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Selwin still looked uneasy.

Eldric tapped the crate with one finger. “It’s just one thing, Selwin. I will be taking these three crates of hex drops for myself. For personal use.”

Selwin’s eyes widened, panic rising instantly.

“Your Highness, Queen Regina instructed me explicitly not to let you—”

He didn’t finish. Because Eldric popped open the vial in his hand, and drank it in one sharp swallow.

The effect hit immediately.

He felt the rush, the burn and the raw power exploding through his nerves. It felt like water after days in the desert. Like air after drowning. Like something inside him had finally been fed.

Selwin froze, horrified.

Eldric lowered the empty vial, breathing hard as the familiar heat spread through his limbs, through his chest, through the very center of him.

For the first time in days, he felt alive.

His veins burned. His stomach twisted and growled for more—more of that dark heat, more of that power. The voice inside him, the one whispering rebellion, greed, defiance, grew louder, and almost jubilant.

More. Take more. You are the King. Take what is yours.

Eldric reached for another vial. Then a second. Then a third.

He uncorked each one with shaking fingers, drinking them in quick, hungry gulps while Selwin stood frozen, wide-eyed, like he was watching a nightmare unfold in daylight.

Eldric lifted a fourth vial to his lips—

“Your Highness, please!” Selwin lunged forward suddenly, grabbing Eldric’s shoulders with both hands. “Please stop! Do not drink more of it! This substance is foul for a King like you, please—”

Eldric did not hesitate.

He shoved Selwin back and struck him across the face with an open-handed slap that cracked through the room. Selwin stumbled, hit the floor, and Eldric stepped forward and drove a kick into his ribs, sending him crashing into the wall.

Selwin cried out in pain, voice shaking. “Your Highness, please—this is dangerous! You must stop, please—”

Eldric looked down at him and he was flooded with the voice in his head. It felt like all the rage he had felt over the years about this man was waiting to burst out.

Kill him. He touched you. No one touches the King.

He wanted to. The urge pulsed hot and violent. But another thought pushed through—clean, practical, strategic.

Selwin was important to his mother. Killing him now would make complications, and he already had enough of them with the war.

Eldric inhaled once slowly. Then he shouted. “Knights!”

The doors burst open instantly. A dozen Knights stormed in, armor clattering, eyes snapping from Eldric to Selwin’s crumpled form on the floor.

One stepped forward. “Your Highness,” he said and looked straight into his eyes. “did this man do anything to you?”

Eldric nodded calmly, tucking the last empty vial between his fingers.

“He tried to touch me without permission,” Eldric said and tilted his head. “Don’t you think that deserves punishment?”

The Knight’s jaw tightened. “What do you command, your highness?”

Eldric flicked his gaze toward Selwin, who was trembling, blood on his lip and fear in his eyes.

“Lock him up,” Eldric said. “Force him to write a letter to my mother. He is to tell her to send more of these hex drops. Many more. She should have stocked plenty.”

Selwin’s eyes widened in horror.

Eldric continued, voice growing sharp. “Once you have the crates, distribute them throughout the army. Give it to the Mages first. Then the soldiers.”

The Knight bowed. “As you command, Your Highness.”

Two Knights grabbed Selwin as he tried to scramble backward, but he was no match for armored men. He screamed, begged, pleaded, but they dragged him away like a sack of grain.

And Eldric watched him go.

He watched the fear, the humiliation, and the helplessness he had once felt in front of his mother reflected back at him—now beautifully reversed.

It was intoxicating.

He lifted another vial to his lips, drank deeply, and exhaled as the dark fire spread through him again.

Rebelling felt… exquisite.

***

Selenia hovered high above Eden City, letting the winds hold her in place as she stared down at the chaos below. An interesting little scene was unfolding.

It seemed Regina’s precious spawn had finally grown a spine, and was now attempting to rebel against the queen. The sight nearly dragged a laugh out of her, but she kept her lips pressed shut. No reason to attract the gaze of the tower sentries or some overeager Mage.

So she simply watched.

Below, pairs of Knights dragged that rat Selwin across the castle grounds, hauling him like garbage toward the dungeon stairs. Selenia’s eyes narrowed with faint delight. She had always detested the man—his posture, his clinging loyalty and cunning behind his eyes, his trembling devotion to Regina. Seeing him pleading, screaming, trying to dig his heels into the dirt while his voice cracked from begging… it was almost adorable.

If she could have, she would have whispered a command for the Knights to break a few of his bones. Regina cared about him, enough to keep him alive and functional until her plans reached completion. Seeing that loyalty punished would have been a pleasant bonus. Selenia wondered how Regina would react when the news reached her. Fury? Panic? Something else?

Whatever it was, Selenia wanted to watch.

Her gaze shifted as several Knights moved to seize the crates Eldric had claimed—the crates filled with the hex drops she and the others had crafted from the blood of the great lord.

Pathetic things, really.

Just diluted dead mana, stretched thin and mixed with common reagents. A proper Mage could use the substance for a moderate boost and shrug off the side effects. But ordinary mortal soldiers? Their minds weren’t built for it. Their emotions would dull until only the strongest impulses remained. Rage. Greed. Bloodlust.

They would become simple weapons, blades shaped by anger, driven by instinct, ready to swing at anything their masters pointed them toward. And if they weren’t pointed… well.

Anger always demanded an outlet. On a battlefield, that outlet was predictable.

Kill. Burn. Break.

But ordinary mortals weren’t the only ones who would bend under the effects of the hex drops. There was Eldric—Regina’s son, her puppet, her carefully shaped tool.

Selenia almost snorted. Regina had always been a terrible mother. She wasn’t even competent enough to turn her own child into a proper Mage. Eldric was already fractured inside, a shell filled with insecurities and hunger, and now the hex drops were widening every crack. They were crawling into the broken spaces of his mind, twisting them, turning them outward. His little rebellion today was only the start.

Soon, he would do far more interesting things. Especially now that he had crates of the substance at his disposal.

Regina’s grand plan was predictable: take control of Lancephil, purge the kingdom of her enemies, and then wage a holy war to fulfill the great lord’s prophecy. It sounded impressive in words. In execution… It was painful to watch. She and the others had begun seeing it clearly—Regina wasn’t as competent as she believed herself to be.

Selenia had been sent to “aid” her, but she had never been the type to follow orders well. And these circumstances were far too amusing to straighten out. Why ruin perfectly good chaos? Fate could pull things along however it pleased. Selenia wasn’t here to force the river into a shape—she was here to enjoy the flood.

If Regina’s son destroyed himself… then so be it. She would simply watch and savour it.

The civil war was already entertaining enough. One brother was gone—had she arrived earlier, perhaps she would have nudged him toward victory, but she doubted he would have accepted help from someone like her. Another brother pushed forward confidently, but Selenia could see the cracks in that one too. His victory would be nothing more than a temporary illusion. He didn’t have what it took to be king.

She had spoken to countless men like Thalric through the years—ambitious, frightened, desperate tyrants shaped by their greed. And she had watched every one of them rot under the weight of their own flaws. Thalric was no different. He had already left a trail of problems behind him. There was always a blade waiting for a tyrant, always a rebellion brewing behind a crown.

Mortals in Lancephil were already whispering their dissatisfaction. Their homes burned, their livelihoods uprooted, all because a frightened wannabe king wanted to sit on a throne. He would fall soon. Selenia didn’t doubt it.

But out of all the pieces on the board, only one truly interested her.

Her lips curled into a slow smile as she thought about him.

Maleficia had taken note of him long ago, ever since he killed Shakran. Even before that, when the treant they planted mysteriously fell, they had suspected he was the cause. But how did he manage it? That remained a mystery. And Selenia hated unsolved things.

Regina’s failure to kill him only made it better. The mess with Veridia… even better still.

Selenia hadn’t witnessed that duel firsthand, but she had heard enough from the shadows. Enough to know that the boy—Arzan—was far more dangerous than he appeared.

She wanted to see how he would confront the two remaining princes. How he would corner Regina. What tricks he still hadn’t revealed.

And once he climbed high enough—once he stood on the edge of victory, tired and exposed—that was when she planned to sweep in.

A man like him couldn’t be allowed to live.

She would have preferred to turn him into a puppet, truly, but the reports were clear: he despised dead mana. Vehemently. That alone made him an inconvenience Maleficia could never tolerate. No, she couldn’t let him walk away from this war alive.

But until then?

She wanted to see what chaos he could create. She wanted entertainment.

There were so many pieces, so many paths the fate of Lancephil could take. So many potential outcomes. But in the end, Selenia knew only one person would stand above all of it.

Her.

Her smile widened as she swept her gaze over the castle grounds one last time before shooting upward into the open sky.

Her time in Lancephil was going to be memorable. Very memorable.

****

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