[Charles]
Charles walked away from the training hall in silence.
His boots struck marble in the same measured rhythm they always did. Four-count breathing. Weight forward, ready to pivot. Marius's lessons didn't stop just because he'd left the practice yard. Every step was deliberate. Every movement economical.
Behind him, the sound of splintering wood still echoed in his mind.
Crude.
Charles's jaw tightened slightly as he replayed the demonstration. A single oversized spike. Brute force channeled through sloppy pronunciation and raw output. Inefficient. A waste of energy that could have been distributed across multiple strikes, or shaped into something with actual strategic value.
Orell had been right to call it a liability. Not because Viktor was dangerous—though he was—but because the power was unsophisticated. No finesse. No calculation. Just overwhelming force that destroyed everything in its path without consideration for what came after.
Werner's method. The conqueror's approach: apply maximum pressure until the target breaks.
Charles found it artless.
He turned the corner toward the eastern wing where his quarters were located. A servant hurried past in the opposite direction, bowing quickly before continuing toward the training hall. Likely sent to collect Viktor. To clean him up and return him to his room before he collapsed from Source exhaustion.
Charles didn't look back.
Viktor would be a mess right now. Drained, shaking, probably still riding the high of Werner's praise without understanding the cost. The boy had no idea what was being done to him. What he was being shaped into.
Good. Understanding would only complicate things.
Charles's chambers occupied the entire northeast corner of the third floor—befitting the crown prince, Werner always said. The door was dark oak banded with iron, the Kirchner hydra carved into the wood above the handle. Charles pushed it open and stepped inside.
The room was everything Viktor's quarters were not.
Massive. Lavish. Floor-to-ceiling windows along two walls let in afternoon light that caught on rich fabrics—deep greens and golds, velvet drapes that could be drawn against winter cold. Weapons lined one wall: his arming sword and buckler, a practice spear, a collection of daggers in varying weights. Books filled another wall entirely—military theory, economic treatises, histories of conquest and consolidation. His desk sat near the window, papers organized in precise stacks, a ledger open to the latest revenue reports from the northern vassals.
Everything in its place. Everything measured. Everything controlled.
Charles moved to his desk and began unbuttoning his formal jacket. The demonstration had taken less than ten minutes, but Werner had made his point. Viktor was being shaped. Hammered. Broken down and rebuilt—
The floor rumbled.
Charles froze.
A rectangle of pulsing black and violet tore itself into existence along the far wall, edges crackling with energy that made the air taste like copper and ozone. The portal stabilized with a sound like tearing fabric.
Charles's hand had moved instinctively toward the knife at his belt before he recognized the signature.
Darwin.
A figure stepped through. Tall, lanky, moving with the ungainly grace of someone who'd never spent a day in a training yard. Darwin Enzel pushed his circular glasses up his nose as he emerged, long hair falling around his shoulders in unkempt waves. He was pale—sickly pale, the kind that came from spending weeks underground in archives or laboratories.
"You look like you just swallowed a manticore, Charles."
Darwin Enzel. Old friend. Brilliant theorist. The only person in the world Charles could have an honest conversation with—and even then, only to a point. They'd met at the Academy as boys, bonded over books and theory while other students focused on practical combat. Darwin had chosen the IMF research track. Charles had chosen the throne.
Charles exhaled slowly, willing his heart rate back down. "I've asked you not to do that."
"Portal directly into your chambers?" Darwin grinned, dropping his leather satchel onto one of the chairs. "You've mentioned it. Asking implies I might stop." He glanced around the room with open curiosity. "Besides, it's faster than the front gates, and I hate small talk with guards."
"One day Father's wards will detect your intrusion."
"One day I'll figure out why they haven't yet." Darwin's grin widened as he moved deeper into the room, energy radiating from him despite his tired appearance. "Until then, I'll consider it an ongoing magical mystery. The kind that makes life interesting."
Charles turned back to his desk, resuming the process of removing his jacket. "You're back from that place early."
"Field research concluded faster than expected." Darwin moved to the window, looking out over the palace grounds with genuine fascination. "I was just arriving when I heard the crash from the training hall. What was that? It sounded like someone dropped a trebuchet stone on a cathedral."
Charles's hands stilled on his cuff buttons. "Viktor. Yes."
"The one Werner's been hiding?" Darwin turned from the window, eyes bright with academic enthusiasm behind his glasses. "The 'phantom prince' everyone whispers about but no one's actually met? What was the crash?"
"Father was... encouraging his raw output." Charles finished with the buttons and draped his jacket over the chair back. "A demonstration. Glacies Spiculum into a practice dummy."
Darwin's eyebrows rose. "And?"
"The dummy no longer exists. Neither does part of the wall behind it."
"Incredible!" Darwin's voice lit up with genuine wonder. He turned fully from the window, gesturing animatedly. "That kind of raw output at—what, ten years old? Charles, that's a gift. Real power. All that strength just needs proper shaping, proper theory." He pushed his glasses up again, a habit when he got excited. "He doesn't need some drill sergeant treating him like a siege weapon. He needs a teacher. Someone to show him why the lattice matters, not just bark at him that it does. Someone who understands Source mechanics at a fundamental level."
Charles said nothing. He moved to the small table near his weapon rack and poured himself water from the pitcher there. Drank slowly. Let Darwin's words settle into the silence.
Darwin was correct, of course. Viktor needed guidance. Structure. Someone to teach him control through understanding rather than fear. Someone to show him that precision wasn't weakness—it was the difference between a tool and a weapon.
But Charles didn't want to nurture Viktor.
Not yet.
Werner was a hammer. Brutal, direct, overwhelming. He broke things. He couldn't aim, couldn't shape, couldn't do anything except apply force until the problem stopped moving. That's what he was doing to Viktor right now—breaking him down, stripping away softness and hesitation and anything that looked like weakness.
It was crude work. The kind of thing Charles found distasteful.
But it was necessary work.
Charles was a blade. Sophisticated. Precise. Patient. He would inherit an empire that needed more than brute force to maintain. He would need tools his father never thought to build. Weapons Werner didn't know how to forge.
And here was Werner, doing the dirty work for him.
Breaking Viktor. Hardening the steel. Forging something that could cut when wielded properly.
Why interrupt the process?
Charles set down his water glass.
"You should say something, Charles." Darwin's voice had gone quieter. More serious. The enthusiasm had drained away, replaced by genuine concern. "That kind of pressure—being treated like a weapon instead of a person, having all that power and no understanding of how to control it safely—it can break a boy for good. I've seen it happen. Prodigies who burn themselves out or lose themselves trying to be what others need them to be."
Charles looked at his friend. Darwin meant well. He always did. That was the difference between them—Darwin still believed people could be saved through kindness and knowledge. That the right teacher at the right time could fix what was broken.
Charles knew better.
"Father knows what he's doing," Charles said. His voice was flat. Final.
Darwin's eyes studied him for a long moment. Something flickered there—recognition, maybe, or concern—but he didn't challenge it. Just nodded slightly and turned back toward his satchel.
Charles moved to join him at the window, looking out over the palace grounds.
Let him break. That is how a blade is forged. And when the steel is cooled, I will be the one to give it an edge.
"Come," Charles said aloud, changing the subject with the smooth efficiency of someone filing away one task to move to the next. "Tell me about your research. I'm in need of a sophisticated conversation."
Darwin's expression lightened immediately. "Mana resonance patterns in extreme temperature environments. I've got data that will make your head spin. Did you know that sustained sub-zero conditions actually improve Source stability in ice-attuned practitioners? The implications for training methodology are enormous—"
"Perfect." Charles gestured toward the chairs near his desk. "I could use something complex to think about."
They moved away from the window. Away from the training halls and the broken dummy and the ten-year-old boy who was being hammered into something useful.
Charles had patience.
He could wait.