Chapter 13: What is happening here?
Lucien's words landed like a stone thrown into still water—the ripples immediate, chaotic, spreading to every corner of the chamber.
Shock registered first. Then nervous laughter. Then whispered confusion as ministers and dukes tried to determine whether they'd just been mocked by a prince who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.
Generals went rigid. Courtiers exchanged glances. Some were terrified. Some respectful. Some both at once, their faces contorting through incompatible emotions.
'Why?' Ethelia thought, staring at his back as he stood ahead of her, casual and unbothered on top of a table like it was a throne. 'How can he be this much?'
One line. One metaphor. And he'd stopped a war from being unleashed.
"Oi—" Darian's shout cut through the whispers like a blade through silk. He stood, fists clenched, trying to reassert control through volume. "Get away from her and sit in your proper seat!"
"Lucien." Empress Althaea's voice was soft, carefully modulated, but an undercurrent of annoyance bled through the silk. "Why don't you show some respect to the Emperor?" Her eyes flicked toward Chief Army General Baschain—a brief glance, but loaded with meaning.
Lucien ignored them both completely.
"Father—" He kept his gaze on Ethelia's face, studying her features with the same attention most people reserved for art or scripture. "No one here knows Mabel better than I do. He would outright reject an order for war. He's not the kind of fighter who kills for entertainment."
"Then do you have a better solution, Prince Lucien?" General Baschain asked, his tone carrying challenge beneath courtesy. His own eyes lingered on Althaea before returning to the court.
Instead of answering, Lucien turned and walked toward the Emperor's throne.
The movement was deliberate, unhurried. Every step an assertion.
As he reached the edge of the high platform where the throne sat elevated above the rest of the court, two guards stepped forward with spears crossed, blocking his path.
Lucien grinned at them.
The expression was wrong somehow—too sharp, too knowing, carrying something that looked like amusement but felt like violence barely restrained. Both guards went pale. Their spears wavered, then lowered, and they stepped aside without a word.
"Here it is—" Lucien bowed with the kind of respect he seemed to reserve exclusively for his father. His hands rose above his head, aligned perfectly with the Emperor's reach. "Art of Rebels."
A folded parchment passed from son to father.
Judas leaned forward despite his bent back, trying to see. Darian's jaw clenched. Althaea's carefully neutral expression tightened at the edges. The entire court strained to understand what was happening, their confusion making them visibly uncomfortable.
Emperor Emrik took the note.
And rather than handing it to a butler as protocol demanded, he read it himself—an act so unusual it sent fresh waves of whispers through the assembly.
His golden eyes moved across the page. Once. Twice. His expression shifted through surprise, calculation, something that might have been awe or might have been horror.
'Serenya,' he thought, invoking his dead wife's name like a prayer or a curse. 'This boy is the devil from hell... with the looks of an angel.'
He tore the note in half.
Then handed both pieces to his butler. "Burn it. Now. In front of everyone."
The butler did exactly that, producing a small ceremonial flame and feeding the parchment to it piece by piece until nothing remained but ash.
Pin-drop silence filled the court—a rare thing in a chamber that normally thrummed with constant noise. Today there was an excess of it. A suffocating weight of unanswered questions.
'What was in that note? What is this "Art of Rebels"?'
Every mind in the room circled the same mystery.
"I hereby order—" Emperor Emrik's voice carried absolute authority, the kind that ended debates before they began. "—that we adjust the taxation of State Zyrick to match all other states of the Empire."
Law enforcers immediately began drafting the document. Quills scratched on parchment. The imperial seal would be embossed before the day ended.
Duke Vasant looked like a man watching his own execution.
"Duke Vasant." Emrik's expression softened slightly. "You are forgiven."
Relief crashed over the young duke's face like a wave. His knees nearly gave out.
"But—" The Emperor's tone hardened again. "You will follow my orders instantly and without question. Do you understand?"
"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Duke Vasant bowed so low his forehead touched the floor. "Thank you—" His voice cracked. He was nearly crying.
"I am ordering the organization of a grand banquet for all nobles of State Zyrick." Emrik looked directly at Darian, then at Empress Althaea, then at Judas. "As my child has proposed."
He paused, weighing his next words.
"And I am ordering that my daughter, Princess Thalira, will attend this banquet personally and dine alongside the nobles of Zyrick."
Althaea's mask cracked for just a moment—shock, then calculation, then something darker. Her daughter. Being sent to a state full of rebels and traitors. Being used as... what? A pawn? A symbol? She looked at Emrik with barely concealed fury.
But she said nothing. Could say nothing.
"Your Majesty—" Advisor Markious stood, his voice carrying genuine confusion and frustration. "Why would we show such hospitality instead of using the considerable force at our disposal?" Several ministers nodded in agreement.
'It's hard to hide this,' Emrik thought, struggling with the impossible task of justifying seemingly random orders without revealing the actual strategy. 'How can I make this work without explanation? It seems my son—'
"Advisor Markious." Lucien's voice cut through the Emperor's thoughts. "If we do exactly what Kingdom Kazzara expects us to do, we've already lost."
He turned to address the court, still sitting on that table with perfect casualness.
"When an empire like Aurelith uses overwhelming military force against its own citizens, a tiny kingdom like Kazzara has already won. They've made us look desperate, tyrannical, weak. They've damaged our reputation with the other two empires, with merchants, with every kingdom watching to see how we handle internal dissent." His violet eyes swept the assembly. "War costs more than gold and lives. It costs legitimacy."
'What is happening here?' Ethelia thought, trying to follow logic that felt just beyond her grasp. 'If it's such a small kingdom, why would we need to worry about reputation?'
Her eyes drifted—without permission—to Lucien's broader, shredded torso visible beneath his partially open shirt. The way he moved with such confidence despite breaking every rule of decorum.
She forced her attention back to the politics she barely understood.
"Prince Lucien is correct, Markious." Minister Graham stood, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd managed countless foreign negotiations and delicate diplomatic situations. He looked directly at Judas, then at the annoyed Empress, then fell silent again—having said just enough to shift the balance.
In the back rows, Cian murmured to himself, barely audible: "Lucien is too much."
Admiration. Fear. Pride. Amazement at the sheer audacity.
All of it mixed together in a cocktail he couldn't begin to process.
And at the center of it all, the Serpent Prince sat on a table he had no right to sit on, having stopped a war with words and a burned piece of paper containing a plan no one but the Emperor would ever see.
The court waited.
For explanation. For orders. For whatever would come next.
But Lucien just smiled that dangerous smile and said nothing at all.