In the heart of the lower rings, the flames burned bright.
Not from rebellion.
But from execution.
The square was packed. Hundreds gathered — peasants, merchants, even minor nobles — their faces pale in the harsh morning light. They whispered among themselves, fear soaking the air like a foul perfume.
At the center stood the scaffold. And upon it, five men knelt, bound and gagged.
Above them, Evelyne's enforcer — a tall woman in crimson armor, her face hidden behind a silver mask — raised a scroll and let her voice boom across the silence.
"By decree of the Sanctioned Enforcement Wing… these traitors are found guilty of sedition, conspiracy, and collusion with known criminal elements. Their sentence: death."
The crowd shuddered.
Because these were no ordinary criminals.
These were respected merchants, a minor lord's cousin, and even a former city official.
Their only crime?
Rumors.
Whispers that they had met with someone in the shadows. Someone stirring unrest.
Evelyne, watching from her veiled balcony above the square, let the chill wind whip her cloak around her. Her face was impassive, but her eyes flicked to the faces below.
She saw it clearly.
Fear.
It rippled through them like a disease.
The masked woman gave the signal.
Blades fell.
Heads rolled.
Blood painted the stones.
A child screamed. Somewhere, a woman fainted.
And Evelyne smiled thinly.
This was how power was maintained.
Not with subtlety alone, but with spectacle. With fear that gnawed at the bones of every citizen.
Let them see what happens when they so much as breathe Leonhart's name.
Let them whisper that she was merciless.
Let them tremble.
Behind her, her spymaster, a wiry man called Verrick, cleared his throat. "The message is sent, my lady. But… there are risks. Too much blood, too soon, and they may turn to him for salvation. The people love their monsters when they fear their rulers too much."
Evelyne's eyes did not leave the square.
"Let them love him. Let them flock to his shadow."
She turned, her cloak snapping like a banner.
"The higher they rise, Verrick… the harder they fall."
Across the city, in the damp, torch-lit tunnels beneath Varlock Keep, Leonhart faced his own gathering.
The Widow Fang entered without fanfare.
She was shorter than expected — a woman with iron-gray hair, her face lined but sharp as a knife. Tattoos coiled up her neck, remnants of an assassin clan long thought dead.
Her eyes, though, were alive. Hungry.
"You called, Leonhart Varlock," she rasped. "Speak your offer."
Leonhart smiled, stepping down from his makeshift throne — a cracked stone chair set atop an old altar. The flickering torchlight made his shadow stretch long across the walls.
"I offer you freedom, Fang," he said softly. "No more hiding. No more scraps in the gutters. I will give your forgotten assassins a place in the sun again. All I ask—"
He stepped closer until their faces were inches apart.
"—is loyalty. Absolute. Unquestioning."
Widow Fang studied him, her eyes narrowed. "You speak like a king, boy. But kings fall. I've buried three in my time."
Leonhart's smile widened.
"Then you'll appreciate that I don't intend to be a king. Kings answer to thrones. Thrones answer to history. I intend to become something else."
His voice dropped lower.
"Something they can't write away."
Fang chuckled — a dry, rattling sound. "Ambition. I like that. But words are wind. Prove you're worth my blades."
Leonhart's hand moved in a flash, grabbing the knife from her belt — so fast even Fang's eyes widened — and drove it into the wooden table between them.
The steel quivered.
The room fell silent.
He leaned in, voice a dark promise.
"Bring me Verrick. Alive. I want Evelyne's spymaster to see what true fear feels like before he dies."
Fang's grin split her weathered face.
"Now that's a commission worthy of the Widow Fang."
She snatched the knife and melted into the shadows.
Leonhart straightened, turning to Donmar and the gathered men.
"Tonight, we bleed them," he declared. "Not on the battlefield. Not in the square. But in their hearts. In their quiet moments."
His eyes glittered.
"They made me a villain. Let me show them how well I wear the mask."
Cheers rose — low, fierce, and hungry.
Far above, in the dark city where fear now reigned, unseen hands began moving.
The serpent tightened her coils.
The wolf bared his teeth.
And somewhere deep in the marrow of the empire, fate trembled.