The King's Gambit: The Bastard Son Returns

In a kingdom where the crown is not passed down by blood, even a prince must earn it—and even a peasant can claim it. Keiser was a knight—one of the first commoners ever to reach the final trial of the King’s Gambit, a brutal series of trial devised by the king himself to determine his successor. Born nobles trained their entire lives for this ruthless competition, yet Keiser, armed only with grit, loyalty, and unyielding strength, defied all expectations. At his side stood Prince Gideon Aury Valemont, the king’s fourth son, who appeared to have renounced his claim in favor of supporting Keiser. For every wound Keiser sustained, Gideon offered strategy. For every shadow that stalked him, Gideon provided light. Or so Keiser believed. At the final trial—the test of trust—the devastating truth was revealed. Keiser had been a mere pawn. Gideon had used him as a shield, a decoy to draw out assassins and political threats, while secretly weaving his own path to the throne. The final trial demanded that a candidate’s chosen ally make the ultimate sacrifice—or betray them and seize the crown. Gideon chose the crown. Kneeling—bloodied, broken, impaled by the very sword that was once his salvation—the dragon he had spared in his youth—Keiser remained upright only by the steel buried in his chest. Smoke still curled from his seared flesh, sigils burned into his skin by the hands of those he once called allies. And as the pain dulled into numb silence, he looked up... To behold Gideon, now crowned— a serpent draped in royal silk, enthroned by treachery and gilded lies. In his fading moments, Keiser realized the King’s Gambit was never about valor or justice. It was a game of shadows, a masquerade for nobles to wager on which of the king’s children could deceive best. But death was not the end. Keiser awakens in the body of Muzio Auro Valemont, the king’s exiled tenth son—a bastard long thought dead. It is one year before the Gambit begins. Three months before Muzio’s “death.” With a body too weak to wield a blade, magic too wild to control, and a name no one respects, Keiser must now train, scheme, and survive— not as the knight who flew too close to the sun, but as the bastard son of the king, destined to become the shadow of the moon. He no longer seeks the crown. He seeks to destroy all who dare to wear it.