The story of an empire is never one of peace.It is written in blood, carried on banners, and whispered in dark halls where truth and lies weave the same cloth.
Ikaroas was no different.
When the old Emperor's health faltered, the court buzzed like carrion birds circling a dying beast. Nobles plotted succession in velvet-draped chambers. The Archduke lobbied for unity, whispering of diplomacy and restraint. And in distant provinces, soldiers still bled on the frontiers, holding lines in forgotten wars.
But the throne was not meant for whispers.It was meant for one who could seize it.
Lucian Vael had been marked for that role long before he understood what it meant.
At sixteen, he was still a boy grieving a mother, unaware of the cause that brought her death — an accident, they had called it. Grief gave him no time to breathe. His father, the Emperor, forced him into war before the dirt had settled on her grave. He was thrown into the ranks like a weapon to be tested.
The boy did not break.
He bled, he killed, he rose — and the battlefield became his crown long before the empire recognized it. They whispered he was blessed by God, some said it was black magic, cursed to outlive every comrade, and fated to return from every battlefield covered in another man's blood.
But prophecy is a cruel thing. It binds as much as it elevates.
Lucian learned to smile with his teeth hidden, to trust only shadows, to sharpen silence into a weapon. And as the years carved him into a commander, the nobles who once spat his name now bent their knees.
Yet if war had forged him, it also hollowed him.
The Empress, his stepmother- schemed ceaselessly, belittling him in youth and wielding him in adulthood like a pawn to strengthen her faction. His younger brother Collain followed him with devotion, but devotion was not enough to shield either of them from the weight of expectations. Lucian bore it alone, always alone.
Until Varah.
The kingdom of Varah was no ordinary conquest. Its king — old, weary, draped in loyalty from his people — had married Kaelia, a noblewoman as cunning as she was beautiful. Some called her a goddess of the people, others a serpent cloaked in grace. To Lucian, she was something else entirely: a threat. A fascination. Perhaps both.
He remembered the first time he saw her. A coronation banquet, years ago. She was newly wed, seated at the old King's side, her face calm as carved stone, her eyes sharp as silver blades. She had looked at him once, only once — and the memory festered in him like a wound that would never close.
And now fate had placed her in his path again.
Varah fell. Its banners were torn down, its royal family broken. Kaelia and her children were dragged into Ikaroas not as guests, but as captives. The boy Agni, proud even in chains. The girl Arya, quiet but watchful. And Kaelia — stripped of her crown, yet carrying herself with a dignity that infuriated him more than any blade ever had.
The nobles whisper that she seduces him. That she has bent his will. That her gray eyes hold the empire's future hostage.
But the truth is darker.
Lucian does not bend.He takes.
And as the empire prepares to witness his coronation — as banners are hung, as knights are elevated, as nobles play their games of loyalty and rebellion — one truth overshadows all:
The Emperor is dead.The wolf has come to the throne.And Kaelia, the woman who once belonged to another kingdom, now stands at the edge of his obsession, caught between survival and surrender.
What began as a prophecy of a war hero has become something far more dangerous.
An empire reborn not in justice, nor peace — but in the iron will of a man who has known nothing but war.
And those who whisper of rebellion in the shadows forget one thing:
Lucian Vael was not raised to defend a throne.He was raised to conquer it.