Crown Prince Teivel Scougall stood at the center of the storm, black velvet robes from the previous night still clinging to him, golden hair disheveled for the first time in years. His face was a mask of barely contained rage, but beneath it lay something colder — fear.
Lord Vesperin slammed a fist on the table, voice booming. "Twenty thousand crowns! I paid twenty thousand crowns for the phantom prince, and he is gone! Escaped because of your incompetence!"
A duchess in emerald silk stepped forward, voice sharp as a blade. "My twins — paid fifteen thousand for the pair. Both vanished during the fireworks. I want my money returned in full, or I will withdraw every favor I have ever granted your cause."
More voices joined the chorus. Barons, counts, even a few minor lords who had pooled their resources — all of them had lost their "purchases." The total sum demanded back was staggering — nearly three hundred thousand crowns in a single morning. The slave market that was supposed to fund Teivel's quiet coup had instead become a black hole sucking gold and loyalty away from him in equal measure.
Teivel raised a hand for silence, but the room refused to quiet.
"You promised us exclusivity," one noble snarled. "You promised us living trophies. And now half the empire's most powerful families are laughing at us because your precious market collapsed in one night!"
A messenger in royal livery burst into the hall, face pale. He bowed low before Teivel, voice trembling.
"Your Highness… the King has been informed. He demands your immediate presence in the private audience chamber. He… he is not pleased."
The room fell into a stunned hush.
Teivel's face drained of color for half a second before he forced the mask back into place.
"Tell His Majesty I will attend him at once," he said, voice steady despite the ice in his veins.
He turned and strode out of the hall without another word, black cape swirling behind him like a funeral shroud. The nobles watched him go, their demands temporarily silenced by the mention of the King.
In the private audience chamber deep within the palace's heart, King Arbestas II waited.
The old monarch sat on a simple throne of dark oak, not the grand golden seat used for public ceremonies. He was dressed in plain gray robes, his once-powerful frame now slightly stooped with age. Silver threaded heavily through his dark hair, and his eyes — the same stormy gray that Styrmir had inherited — were heavy with disappointment.
Teivel entered alone, bowing low.
"Father," he said, voice carefully respectful. "You summoned me."
The King regarded his son for a long moment. The silence stretched until it became unbearable.
"I have heard the reports," King Arbestas said at last. His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of decades of rule. "The slave market you built in secret. The auction last night. The mass escape. Three hundred thousand crowns in expected revenue — vanished. And the centerpiece… the boy they called the phantom prince… gone."
Teivel kept his head bowed. "It was an unfortunate incident, Father. The Wadee consort betrayed us. I am handling it."
The King's eyes hardened.
"Handling it?" he repeated softly. "You allowed a single man — a house-husband — to infiltrate your most secure wing, free the most valuable slave in your collection, and trigger the escape of dozens more. And now the nobles who were supposed to be bound to you by debt are demanding their money back and questioning your competence."
Teivel's jaw tightened. "I will find the boy. I will recover the losses. The market will be rebuilt stronger."
King Arbestas rose slowly from the throne. For a moment, the years seemed to fall away, and the man who had once led armies stood before his son.
"You have always been ambitious, Teivel," the King said. "But ambition without wisdom is poison. I tolerated your… private ventures because I believed they would strengthen your claim. Instead, they have weakened it."
He stepped closer, voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than any shout.
"And the boy… the one you sold as a stillborn. The one you called 'merchandise.' He was never stillborn. He was my son. Your half-brother."
Teivel's head snapped up, shock flashing across his face for the first time.
The King's eyes grew distant, lost in memory.
"I loved his mother," he said softly. "My first queen. The one the history books barely mention because Lashina made sure her name was erased. She was kind. Gentle. She gave me a son in secret because she knew Lashina would kill him if she learned the truth. I thought sending him away would protect him. Instead, I condemned him to ten years of hell in the Wadee dungeons."
The King's voice cracked — the first time Teivel had ever heard his father sound truly broken.
"I have spent years pretending I didn't know. Pretending the guilt didn't eat me alive every night. And now you… my own son… turned my lost child into a slave for your ambition."
Teivel opened his mouth to speak, but the King raised a hand, silencing him.
"I am disappointed in you, Teivel. Deeply disappointed. The throne requires more than ruthlessness. It requires honor. And right now, I find myself wondering if I have been looking at the wrong son all these years."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
Teivel's face paled. "Father… you cannot mean—"
"I mean exactly what I said," the King replied, voice steady once more. "I am considering changing my heir. The bloodline must be secured. If the lost prince is still alive… if he can be found… the throne may yet have a rightful claimant."
Teivel's hands clenched at his sides. "You would replace me with a bastard raised in chains?"
"I would replace you with the son of the woman I loved," the King said quietly. "The son I failed to protect. The son you tried to erase for your own gain."
The King turned away, gazing out the tall window at the snow-covered gardens.
"Find him, Teivel. Find him before I do. Because if I discover that you have killed my lost son to keep your throne… there will be no mercy."
Teivel bowed stiffly and left the chamber.
In the corridor outside, he leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing hard. His carefully built empire was crumbling. The nobles were turning against him. His father was questioning his right to rule. And somewhere beyond the border, the boy who could destroy everything was free.
Teivel's lips curled into a snarl.
He would find the phantom prince.
He would find Gerffron Wadee.
And he would burn them both.
Far below, in the deepest cells of the Wadee dungeons
Gerffron hung in his chains, body aching from the beating Gorgina had given him the night before. The iron cuffs dug into his wrists, but the pain was nothing compared to the quiet satisfaction burning in his chest.
He could hear the distant shouts echoing through the stone — nobles demanding refunds, guards running, the entire palace in uproar.
His chaos had worked.
The majority of the slaves bought at the auction had escaped during the distraction he created. The guests were furious. The money was gone. Teivel's grand vision was collapsing in real time.
Gerffron smiled through cracked lips.
He had paid the price.
Now the empire was paying its own.
In the quiet darkness of his cell, he closed his eyes and let himself remember India for the first time in months — the hot Hyderabad sun, his mother's tired smile, the way his father used to sigh when relatives compared him to Birsha.
He had come so far from that boy who died apologizing.
And he still had so much further to go.
The King's words — spoken in a chamber far above — would soon reach him in whispers from sympathetic guards.
The heir was being considered again.
The lost prince was no longer lost.
And somewhere across the border, Styrmir was growing stronger every day.
Gerffron touched the two pebbles in his hidden pocket and smiled again.
The fire he had started was spreading.
And nothing — not Gorgina's coldness, not Teivel's rage, not even the King's disappointment — would stop it now.