While the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in bruises of violet and gold, a different kind of darkness began to strangulate the Seraphim Kingdom's financial heart.
Stacian sat at a mahogany desk in the Avangard Treasury, her eyes glowing with a sharp, analytical light. She wasn't using healing magic now; she was using the magic of commerce—a far more cold-blooded discipline.
"Transfer the short-options now," she commanded a line of scribes and mages. "I want Subiro's holdings in the grain trade collapsed by midnight. Flood the market with our reserves. Drive the price so low his collateral becomes worthless."
"But Lady Stacian," one scribe stammered, "this will cause a panic in the Seraphim markets! The ripple effect—"
"The Lord didn't ask for a ripple," Stacian interrupted, her voice snapping like a whip. "He asked for a tidal wave. Do it."
Back in the Seraphim Kingdom, Count Subiro paced his study. The blindness had worn off, replaced by a lingering, phantom itch behind his eyes. He reached for his ledger—the one Zhyelena had already copied—only to find it sitting exactly where he thought he'd left it.
Just nerves, he told himself, pouring a triple measure of brandy. That peasant in the palace was just a brute. A powerful one, yes, but money is the true magic of this world.
A frantic knocking at the door shattered his thoughts. His head steward burst in, face pale and wig askew.
"My Lord! The banks! The Iron-Oak Bank has just called in all your outstanding loans. They claim your assets in the southern ports have been... liquidated."
Subiro laughed, a high-pitched, nervous sound. "Liquidated? Impossible. I own the ships! I own the docks!"
"The docks were sold an hour ago, Excellency! A blind trust out of Avangard bought the deeds from your creditors. They're seizing the cargo as we speak. And the Pollium shipments... the Royal Guard is at the warehouse. Someone leaked the manifests!"
Subiro's glass hit the floor, shattering. The brandy soaked into his expensive rug—the color of old blood. "The Queen... Louis wouldn't dare. She needs my support!"
"The Queen isn't speaking, My Lord. She's locked herself in her chambers. They say she's... terrified."
Subiro felt a sudden, freezing draft. He looked toward the corner of the room. The shadows there seemed deeper than they should be. He remembered the void-blue eyes of the "peasant" on the throne.
"I have to leave," Subiro whispered, his bravado vanishing. "Get the carriage. We'll go to the summer estate."
"Excellency..." the steward said, his voice trembling. "The summer estate was seized ten minutes ago for back taxes. You are... you are penniless."
In the quiet sanctuary of the Avangard clinic, the air was warm and smelled of dried lavender.
Leornars hadn't moved. He sat in the shadows near the window, his silhouette sharp against the moonlight. He looked less like a king and more like a gargoyle—stone-still, vigilant, and dangerous.
A small, choked sound came from the bed.
Lyra's eyes snapped open. They were wide, unfocused, and filled with a terror so deep it seemed to swallow her pupils. She didn't scream; she couldn't. She simply began to shake, her small hands clutching the silken sheets as if they were the only thing keeping her from falling into a pit.
"No..." she whimpered, her voice a ghost of a sound. "Please... I'll work harder... don't take the light..."
Leornars was at her side in an instant. He didn't touch her—he knew better than to startle a wounded animal—but he lowered his aura until it was a soft, protective hum, like the purr of a great lion.
"Lyra," he said. His voice was no longer the flat line of an executioner. it was a low, resonant vibration that seemed to anchor her to the present. "Look at me. Look at the window."
The girl's head turned slowly, her neck stiff. She saw the moonlight. She saw the branches of a willow tree swaying in the breeze.
"The dark is gone," Leornars whispered. "You aren't in the dirt. You aren't in the cage. You are in my house, and I am the wall between you and the dark cruel world."
Lyra's eyes finally found his. She saw the Crimson Crown flickering faintly on his brow, but she didn't see a tyrant. She saw a mountain.
"Is... is it real?" she breathed, a single tear carving a path through the dust still lingering on her cheek.
"It is the only thing that is real," Leornars replied. He reached out, palm open, letting her make the choice.
After a long silence, Lyra reached out a trembling hand and rested her small fingers in his palm. She felt the heat of his skin—the fire he had promised to burn the world with—and for the first time in years, she felt warm.
"He's still there," she whispered, her voice trembling. "The man with the fan. He said... he said I was just a thing."
Leornars' grip tightened almost imperceptibly, his eyes glowing with a cold, predatory light.
"He is a ghost now, Lyra," Leornars promised. "A ghost who hasn't realized he's dead yet. Sleep. When you wake up, his name will be forgotten by the wind."
Count Subiro stumbled out of his manor, wearing nothing but his silk nightshirt and a heavy fur coat he'd grabbed in a panic. The street was empty, save for a single figure leaning against a flickering lamppost.
Zhyelena adjusted her gloves.
"You look cold, Count," she said, her voice like a winter breeze.
"Get away from me! I have guards! I have—"
"You have nothing," she interrupted. "Not even a shadow. I took that, too."
She stepped forward, and the darkness of the street seemed to rise up to meet her. Subiro backed away, tripping over a loose cobblestone and falling into the mud.
"Lord Leornars sends his regards," Zhyelena whispered, leaning over him. "He wanted you to know that the price of a child's tears is exactly everything you've ever owned. And since you've run out of gold..."
She pulled a small, jagged blade from her sleeve—the iron rod Leornars had forged in his fury, now cooled into a needle of black glass.
" What child?!"Count Subiro asked in confusion
"...we'll start taking the payment in years."
" As kurumi always says, you fucked up" Zhyelena adds
A single, muffled scream echoed through the Seraphim streets, silenced quickly by the heavy fog. In the palace, Queen Louis watched from her balcony, shivering despite her heavy robes. She looked toward Avangard, where the red glow of the Crimson Crown seemed to stain the horizon.
"God Liverra help us," she whispered. "We've traded a kingdom of laws for a kingdom of a man's heart. And his heart is breaking."