As Lir climbed the slick, moisture-laden stones of the well—stones that had not tasted sunlight for centuries and reeked of a pungent, stinging mold—every movement felt like a lethal gamble. The moment his head cleared the surface, he was struck by the black, suffocating pall of smoke drifting from the Citadel. This was no common fire; the air was heavy with the acrid stench of burning silks, the bitter tang of ancient parchments, and an oppressive atmosphere that felt as though memories themselves were being consumed by the flames.
He peered cautiously through the tangled thickets at the edge of the castle gardens. The grounds were shrouded in a predatory silence. Only in the distance, along the ramparts, did the cold "clink" of sentries' steel armor ring out—a sound that felt as sharp and dangerous as the jingle of gold coins in the dead of night. Lir's heart thundered so violently against his ribs that he feared the entire fortress might hear its desperate rhythm.
Inside the opulent study, Viktor stood motionless before the fireplace like a frozen statue. His face, bathed in the dancing crimson glow of the embers, looked colder and more resolute than ever. With his own hands, he was consigning his father's most private journals, encrypted letters, and the hidden sins of the empire to the insatiable maw of the fire.
As each page curled and dissolved into black ash, Viktor felt as though he were purging his own final traces of humanity, his childhood terrors, and his lingering weaknesses. He gripped the iron grate so tightly that his knuckles turned a ghostly white, and the silver ring on his finger caught the firelight like a watchful, warning eye.
"If they find these letters," he thought, his jaw clenched in a grim line, "my fate will end with the same noose that claimed my father."
At that heartbeat, a sudden, frigid draft swept through the room, reaching up toward the gilded ceilings. Viktor spun around with the sharp instinct of a predator. The tall balcony doors had been left ajar, and the silk curtains swayed in the night wind like ashen ghosts performing a macabre dance. His hand flew instinctively to the hilt of his sword—the bite of the cold steel offering a flicker of grim comfort.
It was then that he saw the silhouette standing amidst the billowing fabric. It was a youth caked in mud, his clothes torn to shreds by thorns and shadows, his skin stained with the grime of the Solis Valley. Yet, behind this wretched appearance burned a look of such defiant resolve that Viktor had never seen its equal, even among his most ruthless generals.
Two worlds—gold and grime, the throne and the abyss—stood face-to-face on the threshold of a single balcony.