The cheers faded behind walls of polished stone.
Torches burned in crystal sconces, throwing warm light across a chamber that had seen more decisions doom kingdoms than save them. Maps were pinned to gilded boards. Seals rested in drawers like sleeping beasts. Somewhere distant, bells still chimed in Sous's name.
Inside, four men remained.
King Helvos Gab.
Duke Solar Angelus.
The Second Prince—Lucien.
Sous.
The door shut. Sound died.
Helvos removed his ceremonial cloak, his expression settling into the ruler's steel instead of parade warmth.
"Sit," the King ordered.
They did.
Duke Solar did not sit back. He sat forward. Ready. Waiting.
Sous was still catching the last echoes of applause in his veins, the knighthood title heavy on his shoulders. The weight felt right—earned, still brand-new, like a blade taken fresh from the forge.
Prince Lucien watched him thoughtfully. Two years older than Sous, silver-eyed, his polite smile masking a mind that catalogued motives the way a jeweler catalogued flaws in a gem.
Lucien laughed lightly. "Some nobles think wars end when swords rest. They do not understand that the real war begins during celebration."
Sous smiled faintly. "Then I am ready for the harder one."
Helvos's eyes narrowed—approving. He liked men who saw cost where others saw triumph.
"The Red Tide broke more than land. It broke balance," Helvos said. "Territories weakened. Loyalties… loosened. Ambition sharpened."
Solar stepped in.
"And then came two miracles," he said.
Lucien tilted his head knowingly. "He means you, brother of steel—" His gaze turned coldly amused. "—and—"
Sous's fingers tightened.
"Logos Laos."
Helvos did not raise his voice.
"Tell me, Sous. Do you trust him?"
"I respect his competence," Sous replied honestly. "But he can't be trusted."
"Any reason for this assumption?" Lucien asked, curious rather than accusatory.
Sous looked at Solar, who inclined in approval.
"It was a week before I had killed the Sire," Sous said, "that an envoy came to my camp from Laos. He carried a map—eight locations. The one I struck was among them."
"From Laos?" Lucien repeated, interest sharpening. "A barony's map turned chart of destiny?"
Sous nodded. "He marked predicted resting points based on historical Sire movements. Eight places. We struck the right one."
Helvos's knuckles tapped once on the armrest. Not impatience. Calculation.
"And Logos did not inform the Crown," the King murmured.
Sous met his gaze steadily. "He did not inform anyone. Not the Crown. Not nobles. Not even his allies. Only me. Through Desax."
Solar's eyes flickered—a small flash of triumph in being right to trust suspicion. Lucien exhaled softly, already tasting the political calculus.
"So he directed you," Lucien observed.
"Yes," Sous said. "He gave me the arrow. I chose whether to fire it."
"And you trust the arrow?" Lucien's tone was quiet but probing.
"Yes," Sous answered, without hesitation.
"And the archer?" Helvos asked.
"No," Sous admitted. "Even having not met him, I can tell—Logos does not seek approval, praise, or validation."
"Assumptions are dangerous. Are they founded?" Helvos asked.
Sous considered, then spoke of what he'd heard and seen: a boy who engineered fortresses and frames, who fed refugees on work, who steeled a barony without bleeding it dry. A boy who treated miracles like procedures.
"His parents," Sous offered when Helvos asked for motive.
"Explain," Lucien said.
"After Baron Heinz and Baroness Sophia absconded, the boy assumed authority," Sous said. "He never sought them. If family were the thread he chased, we would have found signs."
Solar's lip curled with a thought Sous recognized—power unmoored from lineage was more dangerous, perhaps, than power with a pedigree. Lucien's eyes gleamed with another angle: denial of celebration.
"A fortress that stops the tide and a boy who designs exo-harnesses—no sane man would move on without a toast," Lucien said. "He treats triumph like routine. That lack of registration—of warmth—disturbs me."
Helvos listened, weighing each syllable for what it revealed about character and consequence. The Sun Church, he knew, had already begun to murmur—progress that did not follow old rhythms made priests uneasy; anything out of cadence could be termed an omen.
"Their teachings," the King said carefully, "say progress should rise and fall like the sun. Whatever disrupts that cycle becomes a warning."
His words hung like varnished smoke.
"An omen of disaster," Lucien added softly.
No one laughed.
Solar folded his arms. "He had no mentor, no noble patron. He did not ascend our networks. We cannot predict his moral vector."
"And unpredictable power cannot be left unobserved," Helvos agreed.
Sous spoke with a bluntness that carried the discipline of one used to leading men. "He is dangerous—not for what he has done, but for what he may yet do. A mind that does not register limits is the true threat."
Lucien's lips curved. "And someone who refuses to revel in his victories may refuse to reckon with consequences."
There was a beat, brief and pregnant. Each man in that chamber understood the truth behind the words—talent without temper, influence without obligation, innovation without counsel. Those were currencies kingdoms could not cash without cost.
Helvos's decision was surgical in its calm.
"Baron Logos Laos is to be recognized as an Essential Asset to the Kingdom…and an Unresolvable Threat until proven otherwise."
Praise and warning folded into one pronouncement—an ambivalent leash.
Solar inclined his head. Lucien's smirk was unreadable. Sous remained still, the fire of action not yet cooled.
"We will not move against him," Helvos continued. "We will not celebrate him blindly. We will respect him. We will watch him."
He turned his gaze to Sous, and the weight of command shifted as if the throne itself had pointed a finger.
"You will make contact," the King said. "Speak with him. Walk beside him. Be the bridge and the blade—see whether he walks toward the throne…or toward something else."
Sous bowed slowly.
"I will," he said.
Lucien watched him with quiet interest. "Good," he murmured. "Because if he turns—if he bends toward ruin rather than renewal—you may be the only one capable of stopping him."
The room seemed to breathe as one—torches guttering softly, shadows shifting over ancient maps.
Two prodigies now shared a kingdom. One favored sword and spectacle; the other, maps and machines. Each carried proof of a different future: one written in blood and praise, the other in ledger and lattice.
Helvos rose, cloak settling like a verdict. The council ended with no cheers, no triumph—only the heavy machinery of governance beginning its slow, inevitable turn.
As they departed back into a city still humming with festival, Helvos' words trailed them like a benediction and a threat: watch, respect, and be ready.
Outside, down on the streets of IrasVal, crowds still sang Sous' name. Somewhere in the alleys, priests weighed sermons. At the docks, merchants priced new contracts. And a thin man in gray—one who had smiled at Logos in the square—moved through the shadowed crowds, already carrying news to those who counted opportunities in whispers.
The kingdom would bend in the coming months. Which way it bent—toward order or unraveling—would be a story decided not in the glare of trumpets but in the hushed rooms where kings measure risk and hand it to swords to balance.
Two boys, two trajectories. For all the glory, the true contest had only begun. The world would watch. The world would choose sides.