Rayon sat on the ruined throne.
The once-polished marble beneath him was split down the middle, dust still drifting through the air. His knuckles were bloody, his shirt torn, his eyes dark and hollow—but his smile hadn't faded since the Construct fell.
Every breath filled his chest with fire. Not weakness. Not pain. Power.
The memory of it replayed in his head—the moment the puppet stopped moving, the head falling, the golden-eyed phantom that never existed. He had pulled the strings of something ancient, and it had danced.
Rayon tilted his head back and laughed again, though softer this time. His laughter wasn't just madness—it was release.
"Perfect," he whispered to himself, his fingers flexing as black threads slithered between them. "Not trickery. Not illusion. Control."
Back at the Den
Far from the palace, in the abandoned warehouses that Rayon's group had turned into their base, word spread faster than any runner.
He had walked into the palace alone. And he had come out alive.
The ones who followed him—his Strings—gathered in the main hall. Rough men and women from the gutter, mercenaries with scars across their faces, thieves with hands too quick for their own good. Some leaned against the walls. Others sat on crates. All of them waited for the boy with hollow eyes.
Whispers buzzed like flies:
"They say he fought the Whisperblade and something else. Killed 'em both."
"Alone? You're full of shit."
"I'm telling you, the whole palace shook. Nobles are pissing themselves."
When Rayon finally walked in, dust still clinging to his clothes, silence dropped like a blade.
They looked at him differently now. Not as a boy. Not even as a leader. But as something untouchable.
Rayon scanned the room, his smirk faint but sharp. "You've all heard the noise."
Nobody answered. Nobody needed to.
He raised his hand, strings flickering faintly around his fingers. "The palace tried to break me. Instead, I broke them. That's the difference between me and them—I don't follow laws. I write them."
The crowd stirred. A few fists slammed against crates. A cheer rose—raw, ugly, but loyal.
Rayon sat back on the crate at the center of the hall, his organization buzzing around him. His body ached, but his mind… his mind was clearer than it had ever been.
Perfect Control. Perfect Hypnosis.
Weapons that turned men into puppets, monsters into corpses, fear into faith.
And they were his alone.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, strings dancing lazily across his knuckles like smoke. The sound of his people laughing, bragging, and sharpening their blades filled the hall.
For once, Rayon didn't feel like the rat in the gutter.
He felt like the spider in the web.
And the city, the palace, the world—they were all caught in it.
Rayon closes his eyes, but behind them, he still sees threads everywhere. On the walls. In the air. Attached to everyone.