I am Custodian born and bred—and I know better than anyone what that kingdom truly is. It's a place where wealth begets more wealth, and poverty is a life sentence you can never escape. If you're rich, you become richer; if you're poor, you have no right to climb higher—you live as poor and die as poor.
That kingdom is more like a den for thugs than a proper nation. Illegal activities run rampant through every corner of it—smuggling, gambling, slave trading, all carried out in plain sight. The king is a tyrant, and the nobles who follow him are no better. They enforce a system built on greed and fear, and you cannot go against it—not if you want to keep your head. Those who dare to speak out end up swinging from gallows, their names dragged through the mud until they're remembered as sinners rather than martyrs.
I met a few lords there who tried to do what was right—men who believed in justice, who wanted to lift up the poor and bring order to the chaos. But each one of them met the same end. They were accused of treason, of conspiring against the crown, of crimes they never committed. Their lands were seized, their families stripped of everything, and they died with ropes around their necks while the crowds—brainwashed by royal propaganda—cheered.
I remember one in particular: Lord Marcus Thorne. He'd been a high-ranking military advisor who used his position to sneak food and supplies into the slums where I grew up. I was fourteen when I saw him for the first time, handing out loaves of bread to children who hadn't eaten in days. He looked nothing like the other nobles—no fine silks, no arrogant sneer. Just a tired man with kind eyes and heavy shoulders.
A year later, he was arrested. The charges said he'd been selling military secrets to enemy kingdoms, but everyone in the slums knew the truth—he'd been caught trying to expose how the royal treasury was being emptied to fund the king's endless wars. They hanged him in the main square, and I stood in the crowd with my fists clenched so tight my nails drew blood.
That day, I learned that in Custodian, righteousness was a crime punishable by death.
As Prince Vonce leads me through the main hall toward the council chamber, I can't help but compare this place to what I know of home. In Callibean, even the least favored prince has a roof over his head and food on his plate. Gardens grow with flowers instead of weeds, and the law is meant to protect rather than oppress.
We enter the council chamber to find the king and other high-ranking nobles already gathered around a large table covered in maps. King Theron of Callibean is an older man with graying hair and a stern expression—though there's a hint of weariness in his eyes that reminds me of Lord Marcus.
"Vernom," he says, barely glancing up from the map before him. "Glad you could join us. We were just discussing Custodian's recent movements."
I look at the map—Custodian's territory marked in red, stretching like a stain across the northern lands. Their armies are positioned along the border with Callibean now, just waiting for the order to advance.
"Their king has already sent word demanding we cede our western provinces," Prince Vonce says, pointing to a section of the map. "He claims they belong to Custodian by ancient right."
"Ancient right is just an excuse for theft," one of the nobles snaps. "We should gather our armies and meet them head-on."
"War would cost us thousands of lives and drain our treasury dry," another argues. "We should negotiate—offer them tribute in exchange for peace."
As they argue back and forth, I feel my hands clench into fists. I know what will happen if Callibean chooses either path—if they fight, they'll win eventually but lose countless people in the process. If they negotiate, Custodian will only take more and more until there's nothing left.
I know because I've seen it happen to Bastil Kingdom. I've fought in those battles, watched good men die for a cause that was never theirs to begin with.
This war won't end with Callibean—not by a long shot. Before they turn their eyes to this kingdom, Custodian will wage war on at least three more nations. I remember one pivotal event from my past life: the war halted only when the king of Custodian was assassinated. But his death brought no peace—his son, even more cruel and tyrannical than his father, took the crown and unleashed even more bloodshed across the continent.
If I step forward to help Callibean, what will become of my life—and the lives of countless others? Can I truly save more people than I put at risk? Wars take everything from everyone: they steal someone's child, claim someone's husband, shatter the dreams of young men who joined the army hoping for a better life. The cost is the same on both sides—but Custodian, heartless as it is, has never seen people as equals. To them, everyone is a pawn to be used and discarded, especially the soldiers sent to die on distant battlefields.
I think of my own past—of the boys I fought alongside, most of them younger than Cael, who believed the king's lies about glory and honor. I think of how they fell one by one, their bodies left to rot in foreign soil because there was no one to bring them home.
The arguments around the table grow louder, but I barely hear them. My mind races with possibilities—ways to slow Custodian's advance, to weaken their hold on their people, to give those who suffer under their rule a glimpse of something better.
King Theron finally slams his fist on the table, silencing the room. "Enough! We cannot keep arguing like this while our enemy prepares to strike. Does anyone here have a plan that doesn't end in either surrender or slaughter?"
All eyes turn to me. I take a deep breath, feeling the weight of my past and the hope for tomorrow pressing down on my shoulders.
"I do," I say, my voice steady and clear. "But it will require us to think differently about what it means to win a war."