The Temple of Echoes burned at dawn.
Smoke curled into the sky like a black banner, visible from every corner of the capital. Its bells rang once—high, then low—before silencing forever. Ash rained upon the palace balconies.
Lysander stood at a high window, hands folded behind his back.
"It's begun," he said.
Elara joined him, his face pale. "The Prophet did this?"
"No," Lysander replied. "He inspired it. That's worse."
Guards scrambled in the courtyards below. Priests wept openly. The Temple of Echoes was one of the oldest structures in the kingdom—a place where the Weave was once first measured and mapped. Its destruction was more than symbolic. It was declaration.
"He's severing ties to history," Lysander murmured. "So he can write a new one."
Elara clenched his fists. "Then we stop him."
"Not yet."
The prince turned. "Why not?"
"Because he hasn't made his greatest mistake."
Elara stared. "Which is?"
"Underestimating you."
That afternoon, proclamations were issued in the prince's name. Emergency reforms. Public mournings. A commitment to preserve the spiritual foundations of the realm. But beneath the noble words was a subtle message: the Prophet had gone too far.
And for the first time, commoners questioned him.
"That's how it begins," Lysander said. "Not with a shout. With a doubt."
But the Prophet did not retreat. Instead, he released a scroll—distributed through back alleys and secret meetings. It claimed that the royal line had been corrupted. That Prince Elara was born of a heretic bloodline. That the Soul Weave itself had deemed him unfit.
"He knows," Elara whispered, reading it.
"No," Lysander said. "He guesses. And guesses wrong."
The prince paced. "What if people believe him?"
"Then we show them truth stronger than faith."
Elara looked up. "How?"
"We reveal the Regent."
A silence stretched between them.
"You said he was untouchable," Elara whispered.
"He is," Lysander replied. "Unless you shatter the illusion."
That night, the first whisper of Valerius's past reached the nobility. A bastard brother to the former king. A man who should never have ruled. A usurper dressed in regent's robes.
The Prophet had started a fire.
But Lysander would decide where it burned.