The servant walked ahead of him in silence.
Viktor followed, each step heavier than the last. The warmth of his mother's chambers had already faded, leached away by the cold stone corridors. The hallway felt longer than it should—endless marble and shadow, pale light from high windows that never quite reached the floor.
His hand found the locket at his throat. The silver was still warm from his mother's touch. Remember who you are beyond what he needs you to be.
But all Viktor could remember was the weight of this day—every failure, every word that marked him as less.
Liability.
Orell's voice, clinical and cold, the click of her abacus marking him as insufficient.
Phantom. Stay down. It's where you belong.
Leopold's boot inches from his face, the weight of humiliation pressing him into the stone.
His praise is a cage, his mother had warned him. He wants to make you a tool.
Viktor's chest tightened. His breathing had gone shallow again. The tears from earlier felt very close, threatening to return. What was his father going to say? What punishment was waiting? Werner had sent for him—the Emperor had sent for him—twenty minutes after his evaluation failed. After Orell had labeled him a liability.
This was it. The moment where everything came crashing down.
The servant stopped at a door. Heavy oak, darker than the standard palace doors, banded with iron. No decorative carving. Just solid, imposing weight.
"The Emperor is expecting you, Prince Viktor."
The servant knocked twice, sharp and formal, then opened the door and stepped aside.
Viktor's legs didn't want to move. He forced them forward.
The solar hit him like a wall.
Dark wood paneling. Crimson cloth draped everywhere—deep red, almost black, the color of blood. The room was huge and it made Viktor feel tiny. Smaller than Leopold's shoves had made him feel. Smaller than the training hall. Small like an insect under a boot.
Mounted heads watched him from the walls. Dead things with glass eyes. A frost wyrm, pale and terrible, its jaws frozen mid-snarl. A plains manticore with teeth as long as Viktor's fingers. Something with too many horns that he didn't have a name for.
Viktor's stomach turned. Everything in this room was about killing. About winning. About proving you were stronger than everything else.
Maps covered one wall—the Grishan Empire spreading across them like a stain. Pins and notes in his father's handwriting. Territory. Conquest. Control over a third of the world, and it was all documented here like it was simple. Like it was obvious.
The three-headed hydra banner hung behind the desk. Green and gold silk, massive, the three heads watching: Beauty, Wisdom, Power. The hydra's claws clutched a globe.
And above it, mounted like a promise: Werner's war-axe. The one Viktor had seen him carry. The one that made soldiers stand straighter and courtiers go quiet.
Werner sat at the desk.
He looked bigger than he should. Broader. The room bent around him somehow, like everything else was just decoration and he was the only thing that mattered. Dark wood desk, scarred from use. Papers spread across it—reports and letters and maps, all precisely placed in ways only Werner understood.
He wore his formal blacks. High collar. The black-stone signet ring on his hand gleaming in the low light from the braziers.
He didn't look up when Viktor entered.
Charles stood near the wall to Werner's right. Silent. Still. Hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect, face blank in the exact same way their father's could go blank. He looked like he was made of the same material as Werner—hard and unyielding. Watching Viktor with the same measuring look their father used. Learning. Practicing. Becoming.
Viktor's throat closed.
The door shut behind him with a heavy thud that echoed.
Werner's eyes flicked up. Emerald green and sharp. They tracked Viktor from head to toe—taking in the tear-streaked face, the dust still clinging to his tunic, the way his hands shook.
The silence stretched. One breath. Two. Three.
Viktor couldn't make himself move further into the room. Couldn't make himself speak.
"You sent for me, Father?" His voice came out small. Broken. Wrong.
Werner didn't respond immediately. Just held Viktor's gaze, and Viktor felt pinned. Measured. Found wanting.
Then Werner leaned back in his chair. Fingers steepling in front of him.
"Legate Orell was here."
Viktor flinched. The words landed like a physical blow.
This was it. The punishment. The confirmation that he'd failed, that he was a liability, that everything Orell had said was true and his father knew and—
Werner made a sound. A short, dry scoff.
He reached across his desk and pushed a stack of papers aside. Not angry. Just... dismissive. Like they didn't matter. Like Orell's words didn't matter.
"She says you 'lack control.'" Werner's voice was flat, but there was something underneath it Viktor couldn't identify. "That your power is 'a liability.'"
Viktor's hands were shaking so hard he had to press them against his sides. His vision was starting to blur again.
"I—I tried—I couldn't—"
"That woman is a bookkeeper."
Werner cut him off. Not harshly. Like he was stating a simple fact.
Viktor's breath caught.
Werner leaned forward. Elbows on the desk. His emerald eyes locked onto Viktor's, and Viktor couldn't look away. Couldn't move. His father had never looked at him like this before—not with disappointment, not with coldness, but with something else. Something that felt almost like...
"She's afraid of anything that doesn't fit in her columns," Werner said. "She sees a flaw..."
He paused. The weight of his attention pressed down on Viktor like a physical thing.
"...I see strength."
Viktor stared at him. His father's words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense.
Strength?
"I—" His voice cracked. "But I failed. Master Aldwin said—"
"Aldwin." Werner waved a hand, dismissive. "Aldwin is a theorist. He's never stood on a battlefield. Never felt what real power costs." Werner's eyes stayed locked on Viktor's. "He wants to teach you 'precision.' To build you a pretty lattice to live in."
Werner tapped his desk once, hard. The sound cracked through the room.
"A lattice is a cage, Viktor. It's a parlor trick for court artists who freeze wine at dinner parties."
Viktor's breath caught. His mother had said—she'd warned him about cages—but this was different. This was the opposite. His father was saying control was the cage, not praise.
"Orell, Aldwin, all of them—" Werner's voice dropped lower, and somehow that made it more intense. "They want you small. Manageable. Safe. They want to measure you and file you and make sure you never become something they can't predict."
He stood.
The movement was sudden enough that Viktor took a step back before he could stop himself. Werner was tall—taller than Viktor remembered, broader, filling the space like the room existed just to contain him. He came around the desk, boots heavy on the floor.
Charles shifted slightly against the wall. Still silent. Still watching.
Werner stopped in front of Viktor. Close enough that Viktor had to tilt his head all the way back to see his face.
"Do you know what Orell is really afraid of?" Werner asked.
Viktor shook his head. Couldn't speak.
"That you'll become something she can't control. Something that doesn't fit in her reports. Something powerful." Werner's mouth curved slightly. Not quite a smile. Something harder. "The 'raw output' that frightens bookkeepers is what keeps our family on the throne."
Viktor's hands had stopped shaking. The fear was still there, but something else was mixing with it now. Something warm and dangerous and intoxicating.
His father thought he was powerful.
Not broken. Not a liability.
Powerful.
"A storm is not 'precise,'" Werner said. His voice had gone quiet, but it filled the entire room anyway. "An avalanche is not 'controlled.' Fire doesn't apologize for spreading. That is power, Viktor. That is our power."
He reached out.
His hand landed on Viktor's shoulder. Heavy. Solid. The weight of it pressed down through Viktor's whole body, pinning him in place.
But it didn't feel like Leopold's shoves. It didn't feel like being pushed down.
It felt like being chosen.
"I'm tired of their reports," Werner said. His hand squeezed once, firm. "I'm tired of Orell's abacus and Aldwin's theories and all of them trying to make you into something safe and useless."
His emerald eyes bored into Viktor's.
"I want to see it for myself."
Viktor's throat was tight. "See... what?"
"What they're so afraid of." Werner's hand stayed on his shoulder. "Show me. The training hall. Now."
The words settled into Viktor like stones dropping into deep water.
Show me.
His father wanted to see his magic. Not Orell. Not Aldwin. Werner. The Emperor. The man who ruled a third of the world and made kingdoms bend and never, ever looked at Viktor the way he was looking at him right now.
Like Viktor mattered.
Like Viktor was important.
Like Viktor was strong.
All the warnings from earlier—his mother's careful words, the fear in her eyes, the way she'd said his praise is a cage—they were still there somewhere in the back of his mind. But they felt distant now. Muffled. Drowned out by the overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of his father's attention.
Werner thought he was powerful.
Werner wanted to see.
"Yes, Father," Viktor whispered.
Werner's hand lifted from his shoulder. He turned toward the door, and the room seemed to shift with him—everything orienting around where he stood, where he moved, what he wanted.
"Charles. Come."
Charles pushed off from the wall. Smooth. Fluid. He moved to Werner's side without a word, falling into step like he'd been waiting for the command his entire life.
Werner looked back at Viktor. "Well? Are you coming?"
Viktor nodded. His legs worked again, carrying him forward. The fear was gone. The shame was gone. The weight of Orell's words and Leopold's cruelty and even his mother's warning—all of it had been burned away by something bigger.
His father believed in him.
His father wanted to see him succeed.
And Viktor was going to show him exactly what he could do.