The solar, which had felt like a brief refuge earlier, now seemed to hum with tension, like a server room right before a crash. Alexius's head throbbed, a dull pulse behind his eyes from the back-to-back meetings with Lord Titus and Baroness Varro. Valerius, with his greasy ambition, wanted to swallow Leo whole. Thorne, with his rigid traditions, wanted to chain it to the past. Both saw Alexius as a pawn—a weak, spoiled prince they could push around. The thought made his stomach twist, not just with fear but with a slow-burning anger. Michael Sano, the guy who used to spend his nights debugging code in a cluttered apartment, wasn't built for this. But he wasn't about to let them write him out of the story.
He stared out the window, the capital's rooftops blurring into a gray haze. Titus's fake smile and Althea's piercing gaze lingered in his mind like pop-up ads he couldn't close. The old Alexius might've drowned his frustrations in wine or women. Michael? He wanted to rewrite the damn code of this world, but he had no idea where to start.
"They think I'm a kid, Elias," he said, turning as the steward slipped into the room with a tray of bread, cheese, and a pitcher of water. He hadn't even noticed how much time had slipped by. "A soft, stupid prince they can twist or break."
Elias set the tray down, his weathered face calm but his eyes sharp. "People see what they expect to see, Your Highness. But a clever man can use that. Let them underestimate you." He paused, his voice dropping. "I have news. About… the other matter."
Alexius's heart skipped. "The Nightwatch?"
Elias nodded, his expression tightening. "The paths are old, and most who walked them are gone—silenced or driven deep underground by… certain parties." He didn't need to say Valerius's name; they both knew who'd gutted the Crown's spies. "But I got a response. A name. A place to meet."
"A leader?" Alexius leaned forward, the ache in his head forgotten.
"Not a leader," Elias said carefully. "The Nightwatch's leaders are dead or buried too deep to find. This is… a survivor. Someone who served your mother, Queen Lyra, back in the day. They're cautious. The meeting's risky—tonight, in the Sump, at an old shrine by the Blackwater Cut."
The Sump. Even Michael, who'd only been in this world a short while, knew the name. It was the capital's underbelly, a stinking maze of slums, tanneries, and a canal that doubled as a sewer. No place for a prince—or anyone with a functioning nose. "And the contact?"
"They call themselves 'Whisper,'" Elias said. "That's all I've got. They'll be waiting, but… Your Highness, this could be a trap. The Sump's a bad place at night, and we don't know if this is a real Nightwatch remnant or one of Valerius's tricks."
Alexius's mind spun, his old programmer instincts kicking in. Risk assessment: high. A trap was likely. Valerius was a snake, and snakes loved bait. But sitting here, relying on whatever scraps the Dukes fed him, was a death sentence—slower, but just as final. He needed his own eyes, his own ears. The System, which had been buzzing in the back of his head like an overactive app, chimed in with a cold, clear breakdown: High-risk opportunity. Meet the Nightwatch contact. Reward: a shot at your own intelligence network. Danger: ambush, exposure, game over. It even threw in a cryptic nudge about "Agent of Change Status," whatever that meant.
He hated how much sense it made. "I'm going, Elias," he said, his voice quieter than he meant but steady.
Elias's calm cracked, his eyes widening. "Your Highness, no! It's too dangerous. Let me go instead. I can carry your message."
Alexius shook his head, a stubborn knot forming in his chest. "If this 'Whisper' is loyal, it's to my mother's memory, to the Crown. They need to see me, Elias. Not a messenger. They need to know I'm not the idiot prince everyone expects." He glanced at his hands—soft, unscarred, useless for anything but typing code in another life. "And if it's a trap, better it catches me than you. At least I'll know who's holding the knife."
It was reckless, and Michael Sano knew it. Back in his old life, he'd have run a dozen simulations and called it a bad idea. But this wasn't a coding project. This was survival, and maybe the first real step toward whatever the System meant by Assume Control. Ascend. Conquer.
Elias argued—hard. He talked about duty, about the Prince Regent being too valuable to risk. Alexius listened, then gently shut him down. Something in his eyes—a fire that hadn't been there before—made Elias sigh, a heavy, defeated sound.
"If you're set on this, Your Highness," he said, "we do it carefully. A disguise. Just you and me. A whole entourage will draw too many eyes."
So, under a thin, scarred moon, Alexius Demetrios Leo, Prince Regent of Leo, slipped out of the palace through a creaky side gate. He wore a rough gray tunic, patched pants, and a hooded cloak that smelled like mothballs and cedar. His neat hair was mussed, a smudge of dirt streaked across his cheek, and he slouched like a tired worker after a long shift. Elias, dressed just as plainly but gripping a cudgel like he'd used it before, stayed close behind.
The city outside the palace hit like a shockwave. The air turned thick with coal smoke, sweat, and the sour rot of the Blackwater Cut. Grand streets gave way to tight, slippery alleys where shouts, slurred songs, and the occasional scream bounced off crumbling walls. Michael's stomach churned. This wasn't the poverty he'd seen on TV, distant and sanitized. This was raw, in his face, and dangerous as hell.
Elias moved like he'd walked these streets before, guiding them through the maze with quiet confidence. He nodded toward a shadowy nook. "The Shrine of Old Man River," he whispered. "Abandoned for years. The Human Supremacy Church called the river gods heresy."
It was barely a shrine—just a crumbling brick alcove tucked behind a sagging tannery wall. The air stank of chemicals and decay. A single oil lamp flickered, throwing twisted shadows across the stone. As they stepped closer, a figure peeled away from the darkness.
They were small, wiry, wrapped in a shapeless cloak that hid everything but their eyes—pale, almost glowing, and sharp enough to cut. "You're late," they rasped, their voice like dry leaves, impossible to pin as male or female. "Or maybe you're not who I was expecting."
"We got held up," Alexius said, roughening his voice to sound like a nobody. His heart pounded so hard he was sure they could hear it. This was it.
The figure tilted their head, like they were listening to something beyond the Sump's chaos. "I know the old steward," they said, their tone unreadable. "But you… you smell of palace polish under those rags. Who are you to chase Nightwatch ghosts?"
Alexius knew lying wouldn't work. Not with those eyes boring into him. He pushed back his hood just enough for the lamplight to catch his face. "I'm Alexius Demetrios Leo," he said, keeping his voice low but letting a hint of steel creep in. "Son of Queen Lyra. I'm looking for anyone still loyal to her, to the real Leo."
The figure's eyes flickered, just a fraction. They didn't move, but their gaze felt like it was peeling him apart. "Queen Lyra…" they murmured, and for a moment, their voice cracked with something raw—grief, maybe. "She was a light. Snuffed out too soon." They stepped closer, and the light caught a scarred, slender hand. "Her Nightwatch is gone. Hunted. Broken. Why should we trust her son? The boy who partied while wolves prowled?"
The words hit like a punch. They were true, or at least true of the old Alexius. Michael felt the sting, but he pushed it down. "Because that boy's awake now," he said, his voice rough with a truth he hadn't expected to feel so deeply. "I see the wolves. They're tearing at everything my mother built. I'm desperate, and I'm betting there's still someone out there who cares enough to help." He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small silver locket, etched with a nightingale—his mother's sigil, found among her things. "She trusted the Nightwatch. I'm asking you to trust me. Help me save what she loved."
He held out the locket, his hand steady despite the knot in his chest. The figure stared at it, frozen, as the Sump's noise faded to a dull hum. Then, slowly, they took it, their scarred fingers tracing the nightingale's outline.
"The Queen's Nightingale…" they whispered, their voice soft and heavy with memory. "She gave these to her closest… her eyes and ears." They looked up, their gaze less sharp now, more searching. "Big words for a prince who's lived in silk and gold."
"The gold's running out," Alexius said plainly. "And I'd rather fight than get buried in the rubble."
Whisper didn't speak for a long moment. Then they nodded, sharp and final. "Alright. A test, then. One ghost to a prince who dares the dark." They slipped a tiny, rolled-up scrap of parchment into his hand. "This is something Valerius's men don't want you to know. What you do with it will show me if you're worth trusting."
The scroll felt heavier than it should, like it carried the weight of a thousand decisions. "And if I pass?" Alexius asked.
"Then maybe more whispers find you," they said, their voice back to that dry rustle. "But watch yourself, Prince. Shadows stick. And they bite."
Before he could reply, Whisper melted into the darkness, gone like they'd never been there. Only a faint whiff of dust and old grief hung in the air.
Alexius and Elias didn't talk until they were out of the Sump, back in the cleaner, quieter streets near the palace. Alexius's fingers were still clenched around the scroll, his knuckles white.
The System pinged, a faint buzz in his mind like an email alert. Contact made: 'Whisper,' Nightwatch remnant. Loyalty: shaky, tied to Queen Lyra's memory. Quest updated: 'Forging the Nightwatch.' You've got your first piece of intel. New task: check out this 'Valerian Secret.' Prove it's real and act on it. Reward: Whisper's trust, maybe a few more allies.
He'd done it. A tiny, fragile win—a thread to pull in a world trying to strangle him. The scroll wasn't just paper; it was a weapon, a test, a chance. As he trudged back to the palace, its towers looming like silent judges, Alexius felt the game shift. It was scarier now, more real. The shadows did have teeth, and he'd just invited them in. But for the first time, he felt like he was playing the game, not just surviving it. (Continue....)