The streets were dead at this hour.Moonlight spilled like cold silver over the stones, and my footsteps were the only sound.
No guards.No attendants.Just me — Prince Leonhart — moving through the underbelly of my own capital like a common thief.
It was necessary.If the letter was true, then Evelyne and Albrecht weren't my only threats.And if it was a trap…Well.I'd survived worse.
The Hollow Shrine lay at the edge of the Old Quarter, where the city's bones showed through cracked streets and crumbling walls.Once, it had been a temple to forgotten gods.Now, it was a place even beggars avoided.
Perfect for conspiracies.
I slipped through the rusted gate and into the courtyard.Statues loomed in the dark — headless, weather-worn.The air stank of mildew and old incense.
But I wasn't alone.
A figure stepped from the shadows.Tall. Wrapped in a dark cloak that seemed to drink in the moonlight.No crest. No insignia.
Just the glint of steel at their hip.
"You came," they said.A woman's voice — low and steady.Older than me, but not by much.
"Speak," I said flatly. "You have one chance to make this worth my time."
The figure chuckled. "So like your father."
That stopped me.Ice slid down my spine.
No one spoke of the old king lightly.Especially not strangers.
"Who are you?" I demanded, hand brushing the dagger beneath my cloak.
The woman stepped forward, pulling back her hood.Sharp features. Scars at the corners of her mouth.Eyes like flint.
"My name is Sera Varyn.Once, I served House Leonhart.Until your family abandoned us in the Eastern Rebellions."
Her lips curled. "Now I serve only one cause — the destruction of the rot that festers in your court."
I kept my face still, but inside, my thoughts raced.The Varyns had been wiped out two decades ago.Traitors, they said.But court history was written by survivors.
"And why summon me?" I asked. "You want my help? I thought your cause was to destroy us."
Sera's eyes gleamed. "Not you. Them.The dukes. The lords who grow fat while the common folk starve.The same nobles who would use you and Evelyne like pawns, pitting you against each other until you're both broken."
She stepped closer, voice dropping.
"But you… you could shatter them all.If you have the spine for it."
I laughed, though my pulse quickened."And let me guess — you just happen to have an army ready to march at my command?"
Sera smiled thinly."Not an army.But something better."
She snapped her fingers.
From the shadows, more figures emerged.Half a dozen at least — cloaked, armed.But these weren't mercenaries.
Their movements were too disciplined.Too practiced.
Soldiers. Trained. Hidden.
Sera spoke again, voice like iron scraping stone."The Broken Fang. Exiles, rebels, deserters — all cast out by the noble houses.We've spent years gathering strength in the cracks they forgot to seal."
She pointed a finger at me.
"And now, we offer you a bargain, Prince Leonhart.We will kneel. We will serve.But only if you swear to burn down the old order and build something new."
The wind hissed through the broken shrine, as if the gods themselves held their breath.
"And if I refuse?" I asked quietly.
Sera's smile turned cold."Then we back someone else. Evelyne, perhaps.Or that foreign envoy from the Isles — they've been sniffing around, looking for leverage."
She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the fresh scars on her knuckles."You think this is still a two-player game?It's not.The table is bigger, and the knives are sharper.Choose, prince.Fight with us, or be swept away with the rest."
For a heartbeat, I stood frozen.The weight of the crown I didn't yet wear pressing down on my shoulders.
Albrecht's threats.Evelyne's challenges.And now this — a faction of ghosts offering me the keys to revolution.
It was madness.Suicide.
And yet…
Part of me — the part that had always chafed against the gilded cage of court politics — stirred at the offer.Because if I could play them right, if I could balance Evelyne, the dukes, and this Broken Fang…I could do more than survive.
I could win.Truly win.
I met Sera's gaze, steel against steel.
"I don't kneel to rebels," I said."But I make use of every weapon at my disposal."
I extended my hand."Swear your blades to me — not as equals, but as tools.Serve me, and when the dust clears, there will be a new order.One I rule."
Sera's lips twitched.Not a smile.But close.
She clasped my hand.
"Done."
The pact was sealed.In the hollowed-out corpse of an old shrine, beneath a broken god's gaze,I had just made the first true alliance of my bloody ascent.
Far away, in the palace, Evelyne sat at her window, watching the dark city streets.She didn't know it yet, but the board had just changed.And soon, even she would have to adapt — or be devoured.
Above us all, the midnight bells rang.Their echoes sounded like war drums.