By the time Livius reached thirteen, the palace could no longer contain his ambition. He began to slip past the outer wards at night, using his innate talent for magic to manipulate the sensory arrays that guarded the walls. To the elite mages of the empire, he was a flicker of static; to the common guards, he was a trick of the light.
His destination was the "Under-City," a sprawling slum built into the foundations of the capital. It was a place of filth, crime, and absolute freedom. It was here that Livius would build his real throne.
One rainy evening, Livius allowed himself to be caught by a group of slave traders operating out of a ruined tavern. They saw a small, pale boy in expensive-looking silk undergarments—an easy mark. They dragged him to a cellar, laughing about the "noble bird" they had caught.
"You should be careful who you pluck from the streets," Livius said, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor of the cell. He hadn't been tied up; he had walked in willingly.
The leader of the gang, a scarred brute named Grog, spat on the floor. "Shut up, brat. You'll fetch a high price in the fighting pits. Those golden eyes... even if they're fake, collectors love 'em."
Livius dropped the illusion. His eyes flared with a blinding, molten intensity that illuminated the dark cellar like a second sun. The temperature in the room plummeted as he began to draw the mana from the air, a technique he had mastered from the forbidden scrolls in the archives.
"I am not a bird," Livius said, his voice echoing with a dual-tone that sounded like a dragon's growl. "I am the storm you didn't see coming."
In a blur of motion, he didn't kill them. He dismantled them. With precise strikes to their mana circuits, he paralyzed the guards. He used a "Geas" spell—a binding contract of magic—on Grog. The man collapsed to his knees, his heart fluttering in his chest as the magic took hold.
"From today, this den belongs to me," Livius commanded, standing over the fallen leader. "You will no longer trade in flesh. You will trade in the most valuable currency in existence: secrets. You will be my eyes in the alleys, my ears in the taverns. You will be the start of something that reaches every corner of this empire."
"What... what do we call ourselves?" Grog wheezed, his spirit broken by the boy's overwhelming presence.
Livius looked up at the ceiling, sensing the palace miles above them. "We are the center of all things. We are the connection between the light and the dark. We are Nexus."
That night, the Ghost of Argentine became the Sovereign of the Shadows. And in the silent library back at the palace, Vaelin finished the portrait, hiding it within the pages of a book he knew only one person would ever open.