We waited for another hour at the foot of the Tomb, a silence heavier than the mountain pressing down on us. Leo did not speak another word. He simply stood where he had emerged, a small, stark figure in the linen shroud, his twilight eyes scanning the cavern walls as if reading text written in the stone. His last words—"He stays. It was the price. And the gift."—echoed in our minds, making no sense and yet feeling like the only truth we had.
My place had been usurped. It was Duke Michael who now stood closest to the prince, his head bent low as he spoke in hushed, urgent tones I could not hear. He wasn't giving orders; he was asking questions. Even he, the kingdom's mightiest weapon, was trying to decipher the enigma before him. I saw the frustration in the tight line of his shoulders. For the first time in his life, Michael was confronting a puzzle his power could not solve.
After a period of restless, useless waiting, we moved. There was nothing more to do. We helped the prince into a simple cloak and mounted our horses, placing Leo before Michael on his saddle. The journey back was a funeral procession without a body. The air was thick with unspoken terror and confusion. No one sang. No one spoke. The knights moved like automatons, their eyes hollow. The magnitude of the event had not just stunned us; it had possessed us, forcing our bodies to carry on the routine of return while our minds screamed. We rode towards the capital as if the King were simply riding a parallel path, just out of sight. It was a collective delusion born of sheer inability to process the truth.
My eyes kept drifting to the child on Michael's horse. Leo's gaze was never still. He wasn't looking at the pine trees or the soaring hawks. He was scanning the horizon, the rock formations, the path itself, with a sharp, analytical intensity that was chilling. It wasn't the wonder of a boy; it was the assessment of a strategist. His small face was a mask of calm, but behind his eyes, calculations were whirring. What was he seeing? What was he planning?
The questions that had begun in the cavern now screamed inside my skull, a relentless chorus:
Can a five-year-old be a king?
What awaits the kingdom now?
Where in the name of the First is the King?
There were no answers. Only the clip-clop of hooves on stone, the sigh of the wind, and the terrifying, calculated silence of the new sovereign.
Before I was ready, before any of us could possibly be ready, the journey ended. The towering gates of the capital loomed, then opened. The familiar streets, the banners, the faces of the people who began to gather—it all felt like a cruel parody. They saw Duke Michael riding in, the prince before him. They looked for the King. Their smiles of welcome faltered, turning to confusion as the small, solemn procession passed without ceremony, without the booming laugh of their ruler.
We had arrived at the palace. The stone walls, which had always meant security and order, now felt like the jaws of a trap about to snap shut. We had brought back a mystery wrapped in a child, and the fragile peace of Collapsus had been left behind in the silent heart of the Agri Mountains.
The real storm was not one of magic or politics. It was the quiet, devastating storm of absence. And it was just beginning.
Upon our return to the palace, a surreal fragmentation of reality took hold. While Prince Leo, still in that strange, oversized linen tunic, went directly to his mother's chambers, the machinery of state—and of mourning—lurched into motion around him.
I, along with the seneschal and the royal heralds, drafted the official proclamations. The words felt like ash in my mouth: "With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of His Majesty, King Reynard, within the Sacred Tomb of the First King. His spirit remains with our ancestors. Long live King Leo the Fifth." The distribution began; riders galloped to every duchy, every border outpost. The news would spread like a cold front across the kingdom.
Around us, the palace became a study in controlled chaos. Servants rushed to replace bright banners with black drapes. The royal flags were lowered to half-mast. The sound of hammers echoed as carpenters began constructing the funeral bier in the Great Hall. Mourning clothes were distributed. Distinguished nobles, their faces pale with genuine shock or carefully practiced grief, began to arrive. The air was thick with the scent of beeswax candles and whispered speculation.
What happened next was a complete mystery.
In the midst of this, Prince Leo approached me. He had changed into simple, dark clothing, but his eyes still held that unsettling, calculating depth. He did not look like a grieving child. He looked like a foreman inspecting a construction site.
"Lord Alistair," he said, his voice quiet but clear. "A second throne is to be built. Behind the main one. Have it placed before the funeral rites begin."
I blinked, certain I had misheard. "A second… throne, Your Majesty? For whom?"
He met my gaze, and there was no room for question in those twilight eyes. "It will be needed. See that it is done."
The order was baffling. A second throne? Was it for Duke Michael as Regent? But that was not how it was done; a Regent typically used a seat of office to the side, not a throne behind the king's. Yet, the command had been issued with an authority that brooked no debate. I gave the order, and the carpenters, with confused looks, set to work on a slightly smaller, but still ornate, seat to be placed on the high dais, just behind and to the left of the Dragon Throne.
Two days later, during the official acceptance of condolences in the throne room, the purpose became horrifyingly clear.
King Leo V entered. He was not dressed in the simple mourning clothes of a boy. He wore a small, perfectly tailored cossack of black velvet, embroidered with subtle gold thread—a miniature version of a king's state robe. He looked both terribly young and ancient. He walked to the Dragon Throne, climbed its steps with a deliberate pace, and sat. The room held its breath.
Then, from the side entrance, Lady Emilia entered.
She was dressed not in the severe black of a mourning concubine, but in a gown of deep grey silk, her hair braided simply. She walked with a fragile dignity, her face a mask of grief and steely resolve. She did not look at the assembled, shocked nobility. Her eyes were only for her son.
And she walked past the rows of stunned dukes and counts, past the whispering priests, up the dais steps, and sat upon the newly built second throne.
A ripple of pure shock, like a silent thunderclap, went through the hall. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Duke Thornwood. A muffled curse from another lord. My own heart sank.
It was a political disaster. She was a concubine. Not a queen. Not of noble blood. And utterly without magic. By the ancient protocols and the unspoken laws of power, she had no right to be on that dais, let alone on a throne. It undermined centuries of tradition. It was an insult to every noble house that had married their daughters into the royal line for a chance at that prestige. It shouted that the new king's primary allegiance was to his common-born mother, not to the aristocratic structure of Collapsus.
But it was too late to stop it. The act was done. And as I looked from the pale, defiant Emilia to her small son on the primary throne, I understood with dawning, cold clarity.
This was not a child's whim. This was Leo's first calculated move. He had not just lost a father in that tomb; he had gained a terrifying, precocious understanding of power. He had placed his mother beside him, not out of childish need, but as a statement and a shield. He was making her a part of his rule, making her untouchable by elevating her publicly, and simultaneously declaring that the old rules—the rules of pure blood and magic—were now subject to his interpretation.
Duke Michael, standing rigidly to the right of the dais as the King's sworn shield, did not react. His face was granite. He had known. He had, perhaps, even helped arrange it.
As the first noble, Lord Galeway, stepped forward to offer his stumbling condolences, his eyes flicking nervously between the small king and the seated concubine, I realized the true nature of the storm that had begun.
We were no longer mourning just a king. We were mourning an old order. And the child on the throne, with his mother at his back, was already building something new, dangerous, and utterly unpredictable in its place. The question of where the king was had been replaced by a more immediate, more terrifying one: What, exactly, had returned from that mountain?