Keiser's first thought was that he really ought to correct the kid's mistake. His lips parted, ready to spit out something sharp like, 'It's Keiser, you barn-dwelling twit,' or maybe something more poetic depending on his mood--he hadn't decided yet.
But the insult died before it reached his tongue.
Because the name wasn't just wrong.
It was familiar.
The world didn't just tilt--it flipped. Like someone had pulled the ground out from under him, folded it in half, and slammed it over his head. Everything swayed. His stomach turned. Something deep in his chest dropped like a stone into a bottomless well.
He turned sharply toward the boy. His voice dropped, low and frigid.
"…What did you just call me?"
The boy's grin vanished instantly, like someone had slapped it off his face. Panic replaced it, seizing every muscle in his skinny frame. He stood straighter on reflex, but couldn't stop the trembling in his arms.
"I--I mean… Your Highness Muzio," the boy stammered, now very interested in the ground. "Your--Your Grace, I-I meant--please don't curse me."
Keiser blinked. Slowly. Once. Twice.
Then he let go of the boy's shoulder like it had burst into flames.
Or worse--horse shit. Flaming horse shit.
He stepped back, his hand twitching, flexing, like it was still trying to scrub the name off his skin.
Muzio.
That word rang through his skull like a funeral bell. Not just familiar now--it belonged to something. Or someone. Or some version that should've stayed buried six feet under in the royal family's collective denial.
Your Highness.
Prince Muzio.
No.
No.
That wasn't him.
He wasn't a prince. He wasn't that prince.
He was Keiser. The Iron-Teethed. The Sword-Eater. The Almost-King.
So why did that name feel like it fit in his ribs?
He turned on his heel without another word and walked out of the stables like the floor behind him had just caught fire. The sunlight outside hit him like a punch--too hot, too bright, too loud. Even the birds sounded judgmental. He squinted, shielding his eyes with a hiss, heart thudding like war drums in his chest.
The world felt tilted. Wrong. Everything was crooked. Like someone had reshuffled reality and forgotten to tell him.
His eyes scanned the barnyard like a man hunting for the last sane thought he had--and then he saw it.
A shallow, grimy trough of stagnant water beside a rotting cartwheel.
Perfect.
Keiser staggered over like a drunk noble at a funeral and dropped to his knees with zero dignity left. His breath came fast as he stared into the water's surface.
And then he stopped breathing altogether.
It wasn't his face.
Not the scarred one. Not the hardened one. Not the man who'd walked through hell and laughed at the devil with blood in his mouth.
No.
Staring back at him was a stranger. A boy.
Young. Too young. Barely older than that sniveling stable brat.
His skin was untouched by blade or fire. His face was slender, almost delicate. Too fine-featured. Too symmetrical. His dark hair was unkempt but clean. His frame was slight, like a stiff wind could blow him back into the castle gates.
But what hit Keiser the hardest--what froze him--were the eyes.
Red.
Aurex red.
The King's unmistakable, unnatural, egotistical eye color.
He lurched back from the trough so fast he nearly fell into it. Mud clung to his knees, but he didn't care. His heartbeat roared in his ears.
That was his face.
Or rather, Muzio's face.
The forgotten prince. The tenth son. The boy they all pretended had never existed.
Born of a king's paramour--so shrouded in rumor no one remembered if she hailed from the sunbaked south… or simply had a tan.
Muzio Auro Valemont
The bastard prince who vanished one day without explanation. No funeral. No mourning. No public statement. Just… gone. Like the palace swallowed him whole and moved on.
A mistake erased.
A shadow in every corridor.
A whisper in every hall.
And now, somehow, impossibly, Keiser was wearing his face.
He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, muttering a string of curses in three languages, including one he'd only learned from a mercenary who tried to kill him once.
How was this happening?
He hadn't just survived.
He hadn't just returned.
He had returned… as Muzio.
The worst-dressed chess piece on the royal board.
A pawn so unimportant, even the bishops pretended he didn't exist.
Keiser ran both hands through his hair and immediately regretted it when he remembered the mud still on his fingers.
His stomach twisted.
This body--this boy--it had no scars. No calluses. No history.
No legend.
And yet, from what that stable boy said… Muzio had been interested in the King's Gambit?
Hopeful?
Keiser barked out a laugh, bitter and too loud. Hopeful? The bastard prince? The royal family's wet smudge of a secret?
What next? The horses are starting their own political parties?
But the humor didn't last long.
If Muzio had entered the Gambit and failed in the opening trials. There would be whispers. Records. Something.
Yet there was nothing. Keiser hadn't even heard the tenth prince's name linked to the Gambit. Or perhaps… he had never entered at all.
Then what had happened to him, to vanish so completely?
And what in the seven hells had Keiser just stepped into?
Keiser had already lived it. Already bled for it. Already died for it.
And yet--
Here he was.
Still breathing.
Both of them--
Keiser and Muzio.
Unless…
His eyes snapped back to the boy who still hovered nearby like a particularly annoying spirit. Not the dangerous kind. The dumb kind.
"Your Highness?" the boy asked again, hesitating like he'd poked a bear and wasn't sure if it was sleeping or just waiting for a reason.
Keiser stared. The boy wasn't wrong. Not about the title. Not even about the face.
Because even caked in stable grime, even running half-mad through the outskirts of a kingdom he'd once bled for, Muzio's body still reeked of royalty. Not from poise or power. But the eyes--Aurex red.
The unmistakable curse of the royal bloodline.
Keiser's voice came out low and sharp.
"Who is the king?"
The boy blinked. "Uh… your father?"
Keiser inhaled so sharply it nearly whistled through his teeth.
His father.
Of course.
Of course it would still be him.
His fingers curled tight. Tighter. Until he felt the warmth of his own blood as his nails split the skin of his palms--but the pain was just another whisper in the wind.
That one answer unraveled everything.
This wasn't after.
This was before.
Before the King's Gambit.
Before the betrayals.
Before the fire.
Before Gideon.
Gideon hadn't claimed the crown yet.
He hadn't made his move.
Hadn't betrayed him.
Not yet.
Keiser's breath stilled.
That meant the board wasn't set. The pieces were still moving.
He could find himself--his old self.
Still a knight. Still loyal. Still a damned fool.
If he could reach him--warn him--maybe… just maybe…
He could stop it.
Because Gideon had never been meant to win. The nobles never wanted him. He wasn't the brightest, wasn't the bloodiest. The court had put their coins on the First Prince--sharp as a scalpel and twice as cold. Or the Sixth Princess, beloved as the Saint.
But Gideon?
He was… gray.
Gray eyes. Gray heart. Gray ambition. A shadow in every room.
He would've been ignored.
If not for Keiser.
Keiser had made him.
He was the sword. The shield. The war hero. The banner the people cheered for.
And in the end--
The pawn sacrificed for the king's final move.
Keiser's lip curled, bitter and humorless.
Poetic, wasn't it?
He glanced again into the water trough.
Muzio stared back.
Too thin.
Too soft.
Too alive.
That wasn't him.
Shouldn't be him.
But it was.
Somehow.
Here he was.
The King's Gambit should have ended already. In fire. In blood. In the echoing clatter of a blade through his ribs.
Instead, he was here, in the skin of a boy who shouldn't have mattered.
The tenth son.
The bastard prince.
The wrong prince.
Muzio.
The child everyone forgot on purpose.
No title.
No allies.
No future.
Yet here he was, dragging that ghost's face around like a cursed mask.
And the irony?
It might just be the best hand he'd ever been dealt.
Because Muzio had something none of the other heirs had.
Obscurity.
Irrelevance.
Freedom.
No one would see him coming.
They never had.
Keiser grinned. It wasn't a nice grin. It wasn't a stable grin. The stable boy took a nervous step back.
Good.
Keiser rose slowly, blood from his palms, water trailing from his boots, and stared at the skyline peeking above the trees.
That gilded palace.
That liar's throne.
That game of blades and broken men.
No more.
He wasn't here to win.
He wasn't here to kneel.
He wasn't even here to play.
He would burn the board.
He would tear down every rigged rule, every bleeding expectation, every cursed crown.
He had no throne to claim.
But he had vengeance to give.
And this time.
It wouldn't be Gideon who made the king.
It would be him.
Keiser.
One boy.
Muzio.
Two lives.
Too many blades aimed at him--and every last one of them sharpened for the heart.
And he would turn every single one back, until the board was nothing but fallen kings.