The silence in the scriptorium was a physical presence, a void where the Red Codex's psychic hum had once resided. Retour remained on his knees, his hands buried in the fine, grey dust of the unmade book. There was no catharsis. The visions of apotheosis—of healing Ciski with a thought, of commanding the land itself—had been severed, but their echoes remained, haunting the empty spaces in his mind. The choice to destroy the Codex felt less like a victory and more like a self-amputation. He had cut away a cancerous limb to save the whole, but the phantom pain of its potential throbbed with every heartbeat. The act had required a will he didn't know he possessed, a cold, surgical precision that felt alien. It was the first time he had used the mist's power not in a surge of emotion, but with deliberate, terrifying intent—to unmake rather than to destroy. The distinction was subtle, but it marked a fundamental shift in his relationship with the curse. He was no longer just its victim; he was its craftsman, and the knowledge was a frost settling on his soul.
A soft scuff of a boot on stone broke the stillness. He didn't need to look up. The rhythm of the breath, the faint scent of old leather and oiled steel—it was Dean.
The knight stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the torchlight of the corridor. His gaze swept the room, taking in the empty desk, the cold hearth, and Retour kneeling in the aftermath. He saw the pile of fibrous dust. He did not ask what had happened. The answer was written in the grim set of Retour's shoulders and the new, deeper hollows in his face.
"The girl's condition is unchanged," Dean reported, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. It was stripped of the triumphant tone that had followed Elaron's fall. "The healers are at a loss. It's not a poison their arts can touch. It's… a stasis. A held breath." He paused, his eyes, old and tired, finally settling on the dust in the hearth. "Oleik is securing the perimeter. The men are… quiet. They saw what happened in the forest."
What I did in the forest. The memory was a fresh brand of shame. The petrified trees, the maimed rebels whose muffled groans of pain now filled the infirmary, the expanding dome of annihilation he had barely reined in. He had become the very thing they feared, and the trust he had earned at the Ravencleft had fractured in that single, uncontrolled moment. He could see it in the way the soldiers now averted their gaze, not out of reverence, but out of a primal fear. They saw the prince, but they flinched from the power.
"And Roty?" Retour asked, his own voice rough from disuse. He pushed himself to his feet, his muscles protesting, stiff not from physical exertion, but from the metaphysical strain of containing the mist after its violent release. The effort left a metallic taste in his mouth, the cost of his power a constant, draining presence.
Dean's jaw tightened. A flicker of the old, protective anger crossed his face, but it was quickly banked. "Confined to quarters. Under guard. He denies everything, of course. Claims he was scouting ahead. But the timing of the ambush… the specific location…" He didn't finish the sentence. The evidence was a chain of logic as heavy and cold as iron. "Ciski would have my head if I acted without proof. And yours." The knight's hand, resting on the pommel of his sword, was a white-knuckled fist. The betrayal was a personal wound, a violation of the code he lived by.
The mention of her name was a physical ache, a cold stone settling in his gut. Retour looked at his hands, half-expecting to see them stained with the ash of the Codex or the phantom blood of his own people. "Keep him confined, but see that he is fed. We are not Rotard. We do not punish on suspicion." The words felt hollow, a performance of kingship he no longer felt capable of. A true king would have known what to do. A true king would not have a brother's betrayal festering in his own camp while his most loyal defender lay dying. The political reality was a cage. To execute Roty without irrefutable proof would shatter the fragile alliance with the outcasts who followed him. To let him live was to harbor a viper. Every path was lined with thorns.
He walked to the narrow window of the scriptorium, looking out over the conquered city of Elaron. The celebratory fires had died down. In the grey pre-dawn light, the city was a stark outline of a victory that felt more like a gilded cage. The cheers of liberation had been replaced by the wary silence of a population waiting for the other boot to drop. They had traded one master for another—a known tyrant for an unstable, grieving prince who carried a world-ending power in his blood. He could feel the weight of their collective anxiety, a low hum that grated against his senses. The mist within him was quiet now, a sullen ocean after a storm. But he could feel its new, terrifying potential. The Codex's visions had shown him a path to control so absolute it was indistinguishable from divinity. In destroying it, he had rejected that path, but the knowledge of its existence had irrevocably changed him. The mist was no longer just a curse to be contained; it was a tool he had glimpsed using with precision. The temptation was a seed, buried deep, waiting for the next crisis to water it.
A soft, almost imperceptible shift in the air behind him signaled another presence. He didn't turn.
"The threads of loyalty are fraying," Ile's voice stated, devoid of judgment, a mere report on the state of their resources. The scholar entered, his gaze immediately drawn to the pile of dust in the hearth. A flicker of what might have been professional regret crossed his features, but it was gone in an instant. "The tactical victory is secure. The strategic position is deteriorating. Roty's alleged betrayal is a crack in the foundation of the 'Red Cloak.' Morale is a resource, Prince Retour. And ours is bleeding out. Furthermore, my analysis of the residual energy from the forest site confirms the attack was not merely a military ambush. It was a targeted data collection. Kora was testing the limits of your control, measuring the radius of your outburst. She was harvesting information."
The confirmation was a cold splash of reality. He was not just being hunted; he was being studied. The "artisan" was refining his approach. Retour's knuckles were white where he gripped the stone windowsill. The rough granite was the only solid, real thing in a world that felt like it was dissolving at the edges.
"Then we stop the bleeding," Retour said, his voice low but firm, a decision crystallizing in the cold silence of the room. He turned from the window, his eyes meeting Dean's, then Ile's. The grief and uncertainty were still there, but beneath them was a layer of hardened resolve. "We march for the Broken Valley. Not as conquerors, but as supplicants. The twins are the only ones who might understand the nature of Rotard's 'key.' They are our only chance to save her."
Dean's eyes widened slightly. "My Prince, the army… the political situation here… to abandon Elaron so soon—"
"Is a risk," Retour interrupted, his tone leaving no room for debate. It was the voice of the prince he was forced to become. "But holding a city means nothing if we lose the war for the soul of this kingdom in the process. Ciski is that soul. And I will not let her die because of political calculations." He looked at Ile. "Oleik will remain. He will hold Elaron, enforce the curfew, and maintain the illusion of strength. His mask is better suited to that theater than any of ours. You, scholar, will accompany us. Your mind may see what ours cannot."
It was not a grand strategic move. It was an act of desperate faith, a gamble that a single life was worth the stability of a hard-won fortress. But in the brutal economy of a leader who was still a man, saving one life could sometimes be the only way to save the soul of many. And as he spoke the words, he felt the first, hairline fractures in his own sanity begin to form, the immense, grinding pressure of the choice ahead already testing the fragile vessel that contained the ocean. The path to the Black Keep was being paved, not with stone, but with the breaking of bonds and the slow erosion of a prince's mind.
end of vol II