The council chamber had not emptied. The echoes of the last decree—Illyria's appointment as the nameless knight of Crimson Dominion—still lingered in the vaulted ceiling. Torches hissed against the damp stone walls, casting red light over the faces of dukes, barons, and ministers. Their whispers overlapped like a hive of gnats, restless, greedy, fearful.
The girl in chains had been led away, her iron mask clutched in her hands, her footsteps vanishing into the blackness of the lower halls. For a time, silence had followed her departure. It was the silence of unease, the silence that comes when men of power are forced to look upon something that is not human, yet had once been.
King Veythar broke that silence with a single, cold word.
"War."
The sound of it rippled through the court. Some straightened in anticipation. Others shifted uneasily, remembering the hollow girl and the chains that had scraped across the marble.
"Not war in the way fools dream of," the king continued, his voice low but sharp, a blade sliding across the chamber. "No banners clashing, no fields painted red by wasted men. This is war as it was always meant to be: the end of one kingdom, the swallowing of another. Silent. Swift. Absolute."
Duke Malrick Thorne leaned forward, his gaunt face lit by the torchlight. "And how, my king, do we achieve such an end? The girl—yes, she may silence leaders in the dark—but entire nations do not fall by assassination alone. Armies will march. They will resist."
"Armies," Veythar said, almost amused. "They march because they still believe they have a choice. I will take that belief from them."
A slow murmur rippled through the lords. It was Baron Ulrich Fenrow, a broad man with scarred hands, who spoke next. "Then you mean… the swarms?"
A smile, thin as a knife's edge, touched Veythar's lips. He lifted a hand, and the great doors at the side of the chamber groaned open. The smell arrived before the sight: a damp, cloying musk, tinged with copper and decay. Then the cages were wheeled in.
Glass walls trembled with movement. Inside, wings shimmered like broken crystal, translucent bodies pulsed with veins that glowed faintly blue. Beetles scraped against runes carved into their shells. Spiderlike creatures spun threads of living mana, weaving webs that hummed with vibration. The air buzzed, alive, restless.
"Entomancers," King Veythar said, his voice carrying above the mutters of shock and awe.
Cloaked figures stepped forward, bowing. Their robes were stitched with patterns resembling carapaces and wings. One of them lifted a gloved hand, and immediately a spider the size of a fist crawled down his arm, resting obediently in his palm.
"These are not insects," said Grand Entomancer Tharos. His voice was dry, papery, like wings brushing stone. "They are extensions of our will. Each brood is designed for a kingdom, a city, a people. Some infest the blood, spreading madness. Others gnaw upon mana until mages are left hollow. Some burrow into the mind, whispering commands until the host becomes little more than a puppet. Release them, and resistance ends before it begins."
Gasps, curses, uneasy laughter broke across the chamber.
"This is…" Duke Elvaris Nyx began, his voice hushed with dread. "…darker than war."
"Darker?" King Veythar cut him off. "No. Cleaner. We waste no soldiers. We stain no soil. When their leaders are slain—" his eyes flicked briefly to the empty archway where Illyria had vanished "—and their armies already broken within, their crowns will kneel without spilling a drop of our own blood."
The nobles fell silent. Some nodded, eyes gleaming with hunger. Others looked pale, sickened, yet cowed into silence.
Above them all, Veythar's children sat listening. Prince Kaelith leaned back, his expression unreadable, though his fingers tapped rhythmically on the arm of his chair. Princess Seliora's eyes gleamed with curiosity and faint revulsion, though she said nothing.
The king's gaze swept the chamber. "You hesitate because you still think of war as honor. Forget honor. Think of survival. In the jungle, only the lion survives. The others feed him."
---
Below the court, far beneath the floor where strategies of conquest were spoken, the Hall of Silence stirred once more. The girl sat alone, chains heavy on her body, the iron mask pressed against her face. Her hair, once silver-bright, hung damp and matted, streaked with blood and soot. Her dress was nothing but steel and scars, her body carved by ritual and monsters alike.
She did not tremble. She did not weep. She did not even breathe with the rhythm of a human anymore. She was waiting, because waiting was all that was left to her.
Soon they would summon her. Soon she would be paraded again, but this time not as a chained spectacle—this time as a blade hidden behind a mask. The nameless assassin. The hollow weapon.
She rose slowly, chains scraping stone, her movements precise, obedient. Every scar, every hollowed breath, every faint shimmer of blood upon her skin testified to what she had become: not a girl, not a princess, not even a memory. Only a weapon.
---
Deep beneath the palace, lower than the roots of any stone, the chains stirred. Their sound was not thunder, but something quieter—metal scraping softly, as though the earth itself remembered a wound it could not heal.
Kaelus opened his eyes.
For a moment, the darkness seemed to recoil from that flicker. His gaze was not fire, nor light—it was vision. A cursed sight that forced him to behold the world above as if painted directly upon the walls of his mind. He did not wish it. He had never wished it. But still, it came.
And he saw her.
His daughter, weathered and broken, led on chains as though she were less than human. He saw the court that applauded her silence, the mask that would smother her face, the insects bred to enslave nations. He saw her sword raised, not by choice, but because her will had been taken from her.
He trembled. His body was a mountain wrapped in chains forged by gods, his wings torn, his heart pierced long ago. He could not break free, no matter how he pulled. No matter how he raged. Even in his prime, he had been forbidden—his bloodline cursed to remain bound, lest the world collapse under its weight.
And now he saw what that curse meant: he could save no one. Not his people. Not his kingdom. Not his child.
The sound that rose from his throat was not a roar. It was a sob, dragged across the centuries, scraping through his chest until it bled. When a dragon weeps, the earth itself seems to shift in mourning, yet no one above could hear.
Only the abyss heard him.
His tears struck the ground, but they were not water. They burned, searing the stone, leaving trails like scars. They were not just grief—they were centuries of failure, of helplessness, of being too strong and yet never free.
"Forgive me… Illyria…" His voice broke against the silence, a whisper so heavy the chains themselves shuddered. "Forgive me… my child…"
But silence swallowed his prayer.
And then, from beyond the void, laughter spilled.
It was not human, nor dragon, nor god. It was jagged, cold, but threaded with a twisted familiarity.
"Hahaha… how pitiful you are. How pitiful she is. Power, or no power… what does it matter? Always the same. Always broken."
The words sliced into him like another chain. The voice belonged to no single age—it was Illyria's own shadow, the echo of a self that once was, or might yet come, entangled with something darker. A demon's voice. A creator's voice. A future that mocked its own beginning.
"Why can't you save yourself, Illyria? Why do you remain shattered, no matter how many lives you live?"
Kaelus pressed his head against the chains, as though he could crush the visions away. But they clung to him, cruel and merciless. He saw her hollow eyes. He heard her silence. He felt her slipping further beyond reach.
And he knew the truth.
The greatest grief was not that he was chained. It was that even if the chains shattered, he could do nothing. His daughter was already gone.
Still, his body shook, and tears poured like molten stone.
And in the void, the laughter continued, curling like smoke around the name no one dared speak aloud:
"Always broken… always mine."
The whisper faded. Chains groaned. And in the heart of Crimson Dominion, the king smiled.
The war had begun.