Eiden's fingers drummed against the mahogany desk as his gaze rested on the sparse page titled.
"The Crown."
The King's secrets were elusive, not for their absence, but because they were buried beneath layers of carefully constructed puppets.
Ministers who took the fall, nobles who laundered his sins in exchange for power, and foreign merchants who willingly turned a blind eye to smuggled goods.
Eiden had already carved through half of those layers, exposing cracks beneath the kingdom's golden facade.
But it wasn't enough. He needed a noose. Something undeniable. Something the King couldn't bribe, silence, or erase.
Leaning back, Eiden closed his eyes, letting the tangled web of information settle into clarity.
The King had debts—buried deep beneath falsified ledgers and rewritten contracts.
He had allies who specialized in making those debts disappear, but debts, no matter how cleverly hidden, always left stains. And stains could be traced.
Eiden reached for his quill and, with deliberate strokes, scribbled a name across the parchment: Gareth Voleyn.
A moneylender notorious in the underworld for laundering gold into legitimate investments.
If anyone knew where the King's erased debts had gone, it would be Voleyn.
A smirk touched Eiden's lips. "Gareth owes me a favor.." he murmured, his eyes gleaming with quiet satisfaction. "He'll talk."
The King prided himself on his image of invulnerability and Eiden had a motivate to carve a weakness into him.
But tonight was not the time for reckless moves.
Tonight was for positioning his pieces, tightening strings, and setting the board for war. With a soft click, he slid the notebook back into the safe, locking it shut as if sealing a personal vow.
He stood, smoothing down the front of his waistcoat, his reflection briefly catching in the glass of the cabinet.
The polite smile remained, the casual posture unwavering, a noble so perfectly crafted that no one ever looked deeper.
Eiden Castemire, the kingdom's loyal ally.
Eiden Castemire, the kingdom's most patient enemy.
Tomorrow, the threads would tighten around Duke Hazem. Unlike the King, Hazem was predictable.
His sins were loud, flaunted, his greed a bottomless pit. He would crack the moment his luxuries were threatened.
As for Lady Delphine, her artistry as a seamstress was unmatched, her influence subtle but far-reaching. Delphine was not an adversary.
She was an ally waiting to be acknowledged, her loyalty bound not by coin but by respect for her craft.
Tomorrow, he would pay her a visit, not only to commission Anore's wardrobe but to ensure her voice would echo within the noble courts.
Every thread had its use.
His gaze drifted toward the hallway, to the room where Anore rested.
Anore's arrival had not been part of his calculations, yet perhaps it was the disruption he needed.
A boy like that—fragile, discarded—was a mirror to every sin society swept beneath it's velvet carpets. Eiden intended to make them look, whether they wanted to or not.
The safe clicked shut with a metallic finality, swallowing secrets into its cold depths. Eiden exhaled slowly, his fingers brushing over the safe's frame before turning away.
He crossed the study, his footsteps silent against the polished floor as he stepped onto the balcony.
The night air met him like a cold balm, sharp against the tension that lingered beneath his skin.
The moon loomed heavy above Castemire Estate, its glow veiled in a thin mist that blurred the edges of the world.
Stars scattered across the night sky, distant and indifferent, silent witnesses to the quiet wars spun beneath them.
Eiden's hands tightened on the stone railing, knuckles whitening as he stared out at the sleeping kingdom.
The city below lay ignorant, blind to the machinations that would soon tear its illusions apart.
—
Anore's breath caught sharply.
The walls around him seemed to tilt, the air thickening as a familiar weight pressed down on his chest. In his dream, he was back in that alley, the cold biting into his bare feet as he sprinted after her.
His mother's silhouette drifted further ahead, her steps graceful, yet she remained maddeningly out of reach.
"Mother!" His voice cracked, desperate, his legs straining as he chased after her. "Don't go—don't leave me!"
No matter how fast he ran, the distance between them never closed.
The air grew heavier, dense like molasses, as shadows slithered around his ankles, coiling upward with suffocating strength.
Hands erupted from the darkness, seizing his wrists, his throat, his chest, anchoring him in place.
"Why did you give birth to me?" The question tore from his throat, raw and bitter. "Why did you give me this face? Why couldn't you protect me? You were supposed to protect me!"
The shadows laughed, a cold, mocking echo that tightened their grip.
He thrashed, struggled, but the more he fought, the deeper they pulled him under.
"I'm suffering… I don't know how to help myself… Mother, please—please come back!" His screams fractured into hoarse gasps as he reached for her, his fingertips brushing the air where she had stood.
His mother turned to him, her lips moving, but no sound reached his ears. Her words were swallowed by the void, their meaning lost as the world blurred and twisted.
"Help me… please… help me—"
His body convulsed, jerking upright as a strangled breath tore free.
—
Anore awoke, lungs heaving as though the air itself rejected him.
He gasped, clawing for breath, but the suffocation clung to his skin, pressing against his ribs with merciless force.
The room spun, the ceiling warping, bending as though mocking his disorientation.
His hands trembled, his gaze snapping down to them.
Blood!
His palms were drenched in crimson, slick and glistening under the faint moonlight seeping through the window.
The blood stained his fingers, pooling in the creases of his skin, except—it wasn't there.
It wasn't real, his head was telling him it wasn't real. But it felt real.
He scrubbed his hands against his chest, as if he could erase the stains, but the blood remained, seeping deeper into his mind.
His breath grew shallower, quicker, until each inhale felt like knives dragging against his throat.
His vision narrowed, tunneled, as the walls began to close in.
They pulsed with a sickening rhythm, as though the room itself was alive, suffocating him with every beat.
There were no chains around his wrists. No iron shackles binding his ankles.
But he could feel them.
Their weight pressed against his skin, invisible but relentless, digging into the scars left behind.
He could almost hear them, the soft, mocking clink of chains that no longer existed but never truly left him.