Hiral's web stretched quietly, every thread shimmering in places no one thought to look.
It began with whispers in the market stalls, small stories shared over bread and wine: Did you know it was Alexis who fought for libraries to be open for all, not just scholars and nobles?
Another would add, My cousin works on the road patrol—he swears the safe routes we travel now were secured because of Alexis's insistence. Not the King's orders, but his.
The tales spread, not as proclamations, but as truths rediscovered by the people themselves.
Hiral made sure of that.
Documents tucked into guild records, merchant accounts that mysteriously resurfaced, old correspondences once buried under noble archives—each finding its way into eager hands, passed along until Alexis's name was tied to every small mercy Ro still held intact.
Public libraries, opened despite noble protests of "wasted coin."
Public baths and wells, kept free because Alexis had forced oversight into the Prime Minister's office rather than a noble's coffers.
Merchants able to cross Ro's borders safely, owing to patrol routes Alexis had carved with both blade and policy.
The army's lower casualties when under his command, the quiet respect he had shown even to enemy dead.
And perhaps most potent—the ties Alexis had once forged with the southern nations, planting seeds of prosperity that the crown itself had neglected to nurture.
In contrast, Hiral allowed darker truths to surface.
Whispers of the King's gambling away the treasury on indulgences.
Records of nobles hoarding food during shortages, selling it back to starving peasants at ruinous prices.
Receipts, letters, testimonies—all trickled into the world like water seeping through cracks in stone.
Resentment sharpened into anger. Anger coalesced into conviction.
The Prime Minister felt the tide before he saw it.
Where once he had been cornered by accusations, now quiet hands reached to him in secret, voices that said:
We are with you. Alexis is with us. Why should we kneel to a crown that devours its people?
And so, behind shuttered doors and drawn curtains, the Prime Minsiter gathered a circle of the most trusted: old officers, unbribed judges, merchants who still believed in justice.
Their voices were hushed but steady. Plans were drawn on plain parchment, each word weighed like a blade.
It would not be long before the coup was set in motion. And Alexis, unaware, was already being prepared by the people to wear the crown.
Far from those hidden rooms, Hiral's quill scratched across parchment. His coded message flew by swift courier to the east.
[To Tirin, Seran—
Change the rhythm. Strike harder. Make Ro bleed speed into its march. Drive Alexis to the edge, force him to hasten the war's end. Desperation sharpens, desperation reveals. Do not relent.
–H]
Tirin's reply would be terse, Seran's loud and complaining, but Hiral knew they would obey.
When the letter was sealed, Hiral set aside the guise of the southern merchant for the last time.
The robes folded neatly into a chest, the accent softened from his tongue.
He left Ro with the blessings of the Queen still echoing in the court, his name on the lips of merchants, and his shadow lingering in the Prime Minister's counsel.
But his path did not turn south as promised.
Instead, cloaked and unmarked, he began the quiet road back to the east.
For the storm he had stirred in Ro was only half the tempest.
The other half waited across the border, and Hiral would carry the wind of change there, too.
****
It began with whispers in taverns and merchant guild halls—turned to shouts in the markets—until it roared into streets swollen with people no longer afraid.
For months the Prime Minister had endured accusations in silence, teeth gritted under the weight of the King's indifference and the nobles' greed.
Now, with the people at his back and Hiral's invisible hand shaping the storm, restraint snapped.
Arms were lifted, not only by peasants with farming tools and merchants with blades hastily purchased, but also by soldiers—those weary of watching their families starve while nobles grew fat.
Even among the nobility, some bent knee to the tide, proving their loyalty to the people by opening their estates, their treasuries, their men.
The rebellion struck with precision and speed that left the court reeling.
Barracks loyal to the Prime Minister opened their gates at dawn, seizing weapon stockpiles before the crown could rally.
Guard towers turned their flags in silence.
In the city, coordinated riots cut through noble districts like fire, each street controlled not by chaos but by carefully chosen leaders—men and women who had long awaited this moment.
By the end of the first week, three noble houses had fallen.
By the second, half the court was either in chains or swearing oaths to the people.
By the third, the King himself fled, abandoning the Queen, the crown prince, and his younger sons.
His escape was no grand retreat but a disgraceful flight in the night, cursing those he left behind.
Betrayal met him on the road, one of his own men selling him to those eager to buy royal blood. His name would live on in infamy, not majesty.
The coup swept through Ro in a month—swift, decisive, surgical. What remained was not ruin but rebirth.
The nobles who had proved their worth and bent to the vision of Ro's founders were spared, integrated into the new order, and some even fought alongside the people to topple their corrupt peers.
Markets opened again with fairer prices.
Soldiers received proper rations instead of promises.
And in the heart of the capital, the Prime Minister stood as the temporary leading figure, a bridge between the ashes of the old court and the foundations of something new.
Within another month, the kingdom stabilized.
The streets were not free of scars, but the people proved their resilience.
They endured hunger, blood, betrayal—and yet their unity held. Their coherence, once fractured by nobles' greed, now shone as they rallied behind a shared vision: Ro as a nation that governed for its people, not above them.
And yet, for all their strength, war still burned at the borders.
In the newly restored council chamber, the Prime Minister put quill to parchment.
Delegates were dispatched eastward, carrying messages of ceasefire, appeals to reason, and promises of a Ro reborn.
At the same time, another summons was penned—sealed with the crest of the capital and sent to the frontlines.
It was addressed to General Alexis.
Ro needs you, the letter read.
Not as commander at the front, but as the pillar in the capital. Come home.
It was the very design Hiral had envisioned: Alexis pulled away from the battlefield, drawn into the heart of a kingdom remade in his shadow.
But even this was only another step—just another move in a game Hiral had set in motion long before the first banner fell.