The air felt heavier.
"Didn’t I say?" he continued smoothly, almost pleasantly, like we were discussing the weather instead of dismantling my entire reality. "He’s turned this kingdom into his chessboard. Everyone dances in the palm of his hand. He pits families against each other. Manipulates affections. Engineers tragedies. And while you’re all busy fighting among yourselves... he positions himself to take control."
He let that settle before adding, softer this ti, "Without anyone noticing."
My fingers curled slowly at my sides. Not in fear. Not even in anger. Well, not yet. It was instinctive. The kind of motion your body makes before your mind fully catches up.
"So you’re telling ," I said, my voice lower now, steadier than it had any right to be, "that my father’s death... wasn’t random."
I could hear how controlled I sounded. Like I was holding sothing back with both hands.
"That your fall wasn’t accidental." he said.
"That Charlotte—" I stopped myself.
I didn’t need to finish. He didn’t need to respond. His silence was louder than anything he could’ve said. It was confirmation without ceremony.
My vision darkened.
Not literally. I didn’t faint or lose consciousness. But the world narrowed, like soone had adjusted the focus of a lens and cut everything unnecessary away. The cell. The walls. Even him. All of it faded to the edges.
So everything that happened to ...
The humiliation.
The loss.
The isolation.
Was it all just... soone’s strategy?
A calculated move in a ga I didn’t even know I was a part of?
For years, I blad fate. Politics. My own missteps. Charlotte. I’d replayed those days over and over, analyzing every decision I’d made like so obsessive scholar dissecting a failed experint.
But this—
This was different.
This suggested intention.
It was deliberate and crafted. It was designed.
My mind resisted at first. It wanted to reject the idea outright. But the more I thought about it, the more it fit together.
I hated that part most of all.
It didn’t take long for doubt to twist into sothing sharper. Doubt curdled into anger, and anger settled into sothing much more dangerous.
If soone had truly orchestrated my downfall...
Then this cage wasn’t the end of my story.
It was just another move on the board.
"Now then, Prince Julius," he said, stepping slightly closer, "would you like revenge against the person who made you fall like this?"
He didn’t say it like a villain offering temptation. He said it like a businessman offering a partnership.
Suddenly, sothing shifted in the air beside . I turned my head, and an entrance—no, more like a distortion in space—appeared right next to the wall. It didn’t tear open dramatically. It simply... was there. As if it had always existed and I had just failed to notice.
"If you step into that," he explained calmly, "you’ll be sent to a headquarters we have here in the kingdom. Go through it, and you’ll be teleported. You’ll be a free man again."
Free.
I looked down at the entrance. It shimred faintly, like heat rising from sunbaked stone. I half-expected so ominous wind or sinister laughter, but there was none.
I slowly reached out and slipped my hand toward it.
It didn’t feel wrong. There was no sudden chill and no invisible force pushing back. If anything, it felt... neutral. Like dipping your fingers into still water.
"Well," I muttered under my breath, "if this kills , at least it’ll be less boring than rotting in here."
And I stepped in.
The sensation wasn’t painful. It was disorienting, like the world had folded and unfolded again in a single breath. When I opened my eyes, I was sowhere completely different.
It looked like a public pub.
Wooden tables. A long counter. Shelves lined with bottles that caught the faint glow of lantern light. The air even carried the subtle scent of alcohol and aged wood. But there wasn’t a single person inside.
"Where have you brought ?" soone spoke sharply.
I turned toward the voice, and froze.
It was Sir Gaspard. One of the academy’s administrators. A man who always carried himself like he’d swallowed a rulebook and decided everyone else should do the sa.
Of all places to see him... this wasn’t one of them.
"What is the Prince doing here?" he demanded, eyes narrowing at .
The man I’d been speaking to appeared behind as if stepping out from my shadow.
"He’s here because he stands to gain sothing against the person we’re up against," he said evenly. "At this point, we need all the help we can get. Isn’t that right, Leona?"
Before I could process that, a woman appeared.
She didn’t walked in. She didn’t even descended dramatically from the ceiling. She simply appeared. One mont there was empty space, the next she was standing there. I didn’t even feel the shift in air. It was unsettling in a quiet way, like realizing soone had been staring at you for a while and you just noticed.
"That’s right," she said smoothly. "Leon is powerful—powerful enough that you might not be able to defeat him at all."
"At all?" I repeated.
Her lips twitched faintly, though it wasn’t quite a smile.
"How so?" I asked, turning back to the man. "And wait... Leon? What do you an?"
The na struck sothing in .
I’d heard it before.
Wait.
Wasn’t that the na of soone weak? Soone unimpressive? A background figure I’d never once considered a threat?
No. That had to be a coincidence. Nas weren’t exactly rare, after all.
"If that’s what you’re thinking," the man said, almost amused, "you’re correct. The person you’re thinking of is exactly who we’re talking about."
My thoughts stalled.
That man? That forgettable, barely noteworthy presence?
He was behind all of this?
Now that I thought about it... hadn’t I heard Charlotte ntion that na before?
Or had she?
My mories felt slippery. Like trying to grab onto sothing subrged in water.
Fragnts resurfaced... like conversations I hadn’t paid attention to or monts I’d brushed aside. And now they refused to stay buried.
"You people..." Sir Gaspard’s voice cut in, tight with irritation. "Who really are you?"
"You don’t need to know too much, Sir Gaspard," the man replied calmly. "Just understand that you need us right now. You already know he’s gathering information about you."
Gaspard’s jaw tightened.
"Whatever dirt you’re hiding," the man continued, "along with your colleagues—the priest and the captain of your elite knights—there’s no way he won’t find it. If he has the Black Witch working for him, investigating on his behalf, then you already know how dangerous he is. Not just his power but his connections as well."
The ntion of the Black Witch changed the air in the room. Even I felt it.
Sir Gaspard clicked his tongue in frustration. It wasn’t loud, but in the silence, it might as well have been a shout.
Whatever he had locked away—whatever skeletons were rattling in his perfectly organized closet—must have been serious enough to make him consider standing in the sa room as and these people without complaining anything.
"For now," the man said, clasping his hands behind his back, "we still need another ally."
He paused.
"An old ally, to be exact."
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