The viscount's ashes had not yet cooled before the ripples began.
Kael felt it the next morning as he moved through the merchant quarter disguised as a traveling scribe. Merchants whispered in hushed voices of Vellor's sudden silence. Nobles speculated that he had fallen ill, or perhaps fled debts he could no longer pay. Some muttered that the Cult itself had devoured him for failure.
Kael listened, but his mind was elsewhere.
Selene Varadis had let him walk free. That was not mercy. That was calculation. She was clever enough to know when striking invited more risk than gain. Which meant she would wait, prepare, and strike not with blades but with masks.
Kael welcomed it. Let her try.
But that evening, the first strike came—not against him, but through him.
Kael returned to his ruined cathedral to find his scouts kneeling in the gloom, their whispers urgent.
"Word spreads… Sovereign. They say the Monarch moves in the merchant quarter. They say he bleeds men of coin, kills them in alleys, swallows their children."
Kael's eyes narrowed.
A smear.
Selene had turned his own tactics against him. Rumors, carefully planted, seeded in places where Kael's influence had grown. If left unchecked, they would erode the legend he was building—turning awe into fear, fear into rebellion.
Clever.
But not clever enough.
Kael summoned his spies. Four figures rose from his shadow, thin as ink strokes, their faces half-formed.
"You will hunt the source," he commanded softly. "Do not silence them. Twist them. Let their lies grow into knots that strangle their own masters."
The spies bowed, melting into the stone.
Kael leaned back against the shattered altar, fingers brushing the Eye of Dusk beneath his cloak. Its pulse was stronger now, as if feeding on the tension between him and Selene.
"Two webs cannot exist in the same dark," he murmured. "One will strangle the other."
His lips curved faintly.
"And it will not be mine."
That night, Selene Varadis met with her crimson-cloaked agents in the Vellor estate's empty hall. She moved with the calm of someone who had already anticipated the next ten steps.
"Spread more," she said softly, her tone precise. "Let the people believe the Monarch hunts not the Cult, but them. Every whisper of violet fire, every missing merchant, will tie to his name."
Her agent bowed. "And when they fear him more than us?"
Selene's silver eyes gleamed. "Then he will stand alone. Even shadows cannot rule if the world itself turns against them."
Three nights later, Kael walked into a tavern near the docks, hood drawn. The moment he entered, silence fell. Eyes darted away.
The barkeep stiffened, his hand trembling as he poured ale for another man.
Kael sat at the farthest table, listening.
"…they say he dragged a child into the canals.""…burned a warehouse with men still inside.""…his shadows don't serve justice, they devour anything they touch."
Kael's fingers tapped the table slowly. Not anger. Calculation.
The barkeep finally approached, setting down a mug though Kael had not ordered. His eyes flicked nervously to Kael's hood. "You—you should go. Before someone notices."
Kael looked up at him. His violet gaze glimmered faintly.
"Tell me," Kael said softly. "Who told you these things?"
The barkeep swallowed hard. "A woman. Silver hair. Said she was warning us. Said the Monarch wasn't what we thought."
Kael's smile was thin as a knife. Selene moves openly now.
He left the mug untouched.
Back in his refuge, Kael gathered his legion. The ruined cathedral filled with violet fire, his knights and spies kneeling in endless rows.
"The Hand of the Veil strikes back," Kael said, his voice steady. "She seeks to turn the people against me. To twist fear into rebellion."
The shadows whispered, restless.
Kael raised his hand, silencing them. "Then we will answer—not with silence, not with rumor. With proof."
He stepped down from the altar, cloak stirring.
"We will expose her. We will turn her masks inside out. And when she believes herself the hunter…" His eyes glowed brighter. "…she will realize she has always been prey."
The shadows bowed low, their whispers unified. By your will, Sovereign.
Kael turned his gaze upward, through the shattered roof, toward the faint gleam of moonlight.
Selene Varadis had drawn first blood in the war of masks.
But the Sovereign never played to survive. He played to end.