Night settled over the Golden Throne Kingdom like a velvet shroud, moonlight washing the white stone and gilded accents in a pale, silvered glow. Eiden moved through the city's quiet arteries with a rhythmic, purposeful stride, his boots echoing softly against the marble walkways. He bypassed the barracks, the War Hall, and the looming silhouette of the castle, his path fixed instead on the far eastern edge of the kingdom.
The Grand Auric Library stood as a monolith of white stone veined with gold, its cathedral-like roof reaching toward the stars. Inside, the air was cool and heavy with the scent of ancient parchment and enchanted ink. Floating lanterns drifted like ghosts between marble shelves, casting a steady, blue mana-light over volumes bound in leather, dragon-scale, and celestial cloth.
Eiden claimed a velvet sofa in the reading chamber, surrounded by a mountain of ancient Titan lore. He scoured the texts, his eyes tracking line after line of forgotten history until he hit a wall of biological fact.
A Titan's iris is invariably gold or amber; their pupils are eternally yellow. There are no recorded exceptions in cosmological history.
Eiden closed the final tome with a hollow thud. He leaned back, his hand resting on his chin as the pieces refused to fit. "It doesn't track," he murmured to the empty room. "Staying in the Abyssal Frontier... slaughtering his own people... none of it aligns."
With a sharp flick of his fingers, he summoned his personal grimoire. The book materialized in a swirl of brilliant white light, humming with the weight of millennia. He bypassed the public records and flipped to his private entries—the truths the kingdom's textbooks had sanitized.
He stopped at the Seraphiad, the Divine Snakes. The public archives called them a harmless, meditative race. Eiden's notes told a darker story: predatory, deceptive, and masters of the mind-bend. He turned the pages, revealing a catalog of horrors:
Entities that replaced leaders with perfect, hollow copies.
Parasites that feasted on a civilization's collective past.
A species capable of rewriting the emotional core of an entire planet.
Civilar had supposedly wiped out the Seraphiad four hundred years ago, shortly before turning his blade on his own Titan kin. But the detail remained: Civilar's pupils were blue.
"Something is very wrong," Eiden whispered. He clipped the humming grimoire to his waist and stepped back out into the moonlit streets.
The War Hall was still ablaze with lantern light when he entered. Around the obsidian war table, the strategy session was in full swing. Prinston, the dragons, the sages—all looked up as Eiden approached.
"Eiden," Prinston said, pausing mid-sentence. "What's the word?"
Eiden leaned over the table, his shadow stretching across the maps. "The strike on Civilar—when is the launch?"
"Tomorrow night," Prinston replied, glancing at Mayble. "Why the sudden interest?"
Eiden unclipped his grimoire and slammed it onto the obsidian surface. "Hold the plan. We aren't moving yet."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Mayble stepped forward, her brow furrowed. "What did you find?"
"Civilar has blue pupils," Eiden explained, his voice low and steady. "Titans only have yellow. I've cross-referenced the races he allegedly 'purified,' specifically the Seraphiad. There is no logical reason for a Titan to drive his own species to extinction unless the architect of that slaughter wasn't actually a Titan."
Ou'weii folded his massive arms. "You think he's being piloted? A puppet?"
"I suspect he is under external control," Eiden said. "I can't be certain of the 'who' yet, but the 'what' is clear: we are missing the true threat."
Prinston tapped his chin, looking at the heavy grimoire on the table. "Understood. We'll stall the mobilization. Eiden, if you're going to the Abyssal Frontier, go as an observer first. Face Civilar if you must, but don't kill him until we know who is pulling the strings."
Eiden nodded once. Without another word, he grabbed his grimoire, clipped it onto his waist, and turned and exited the hall, the heavy doors closing behind him with a final, echoing boom. The kingdom remained silent under the moon as he reached the outer gates, stepping onto the dirt road that led toward the dark horizon.