Once the contract was signed in Whispering Pines.
Around Rayn, the illusion rippled. The humble canvas tent dissolved into a swirl of golden dust, then reformed into a grand, sun-scorched highway stretching toward the horizon.
Getting Leonard and Steven to sign had only been the first hurdle.
Whispering pines lay within the borders of Solavar, the Sun Kingdom, the second wealthiest superpower on the continent. A border lord from rival Kingslay territory could not simply haul grain across the frontier. Not without royal sanction.
So Dawinton had called upon an old friend from his youth.
Selene. A former academy classmate, now an elite officer in the Sun Kingdom's royal garrison. She had carried his petition to the throne herself.
The Sun King refused it flatly.
He would not let his realm's agricultural lifeblood be bartered away to a foreign settlement he had never seen. Instead, he issued a royal summons. Selene was to escort Dawinton, Leonard, and old Steven to the capital palace.
Rayn walked silently beside the memory of the four travelers as the towering gates of the royal citadel groaned open.
Stepping into the palace felt like walking into the belly of a living sun.
Colossal pillars of flawless white jade soared upward, vanishing into a vaulted ceiling studded with thousands of glowing star-gems. Beneath their boots lay a seamless floor of transparent crystal. And beneath the crystal, rivers of molten gold flowed in slow, silent currents.
Every inch of the chamber spoke of a treasury that could buy entire kingdoms outright.
Yet for all its splendor, the hall was dead silent.
No guards lined the colonnades. No silk-robed courtiers whispered in the alcoves. Only four travelers stood at the center of that staggering wealth, their footsteps echoing hollow as they stared toward the far dais.
There, thirty feet tall, rose a throne of solid gold.
Fist-sized cores of ancient calamity beasts were set into its frame, pulsing like slow heartbeats. The throne radiated a primordial majesty so heavy the air itself felt thick as lead.
But the velvet seat was empty.
No monarch. No shadow. Only an unmanned altar of absolute dominion.
Then the air above the throne trembled.
"So. You are the Dawinton I have heard whispers of. The foreigner who wishes to siphon the harvests of my kingdom's farmers."
The voice came from everywhere at once. From the pillars. From the crystal floor. From the star-gem ceiling. It struck the mortals like a physical hammer, and cold sweat instantly soaked Leonard's and Steven's backs.
Dawinton's composure cracked.
His sharp eyes darted across the empty galleries, the shadows behind the pillars, the high balconies. Nothing. Aside from the four of them, the hall was empty.
Where is he speaking from? A projection array? A hidden chamber?
BOOM.
The air above Dawinton collapsed.
An invisible force, heavy as a mountain, slammed onto his shoulders and drove the proud lord of Ashburg flat onto his hands and knees. The crystal spider-webbed beneath his palms. His bones groaned. He could not lift his chin even an inch.
"I ask the questions in this hall," the voice rumbled, cold with disdain. "Your only purpose for breathing my air is to answer them. Why do your eyes wander my sanctuary, searching for a silhouette you have no right to behold? Speak when spoken to. Do not play the petty detective."
Pinned to the floor, Dawinton gasped. Blood roared in his ears. He forced his trembling jaw to move.
"Forgive my insolence, Your Majesty… I came only to beg for a trade of grain. My settlement, Ashburg, is newly founded. Our own crown in Kingslay cannot spare the provisions to carry us through the coming frost. While scouting the borderlands, I found Whispering pines. No garrisons guarded it. No banners flew over it. I saw the fields and believed, wrongly, that the valley lay within our unclaimed frontier. I sought only an honest purchase to feed my starving people."
Silence stretched across the golden hall.
Heartbeat by heartbeat, the unseen monarch weighed the plea.
At last, the pressure on Dawinton's spine eased by a fraction. Not enough to rise. Just enough to breathe.
"And you, Selene."
The voice turned toward the armored woman standing stiffly beside the farmers.
"You wear the insignia of Solavar's military. Yet you bring a foreign petitioner before my dais. How do you two know each other?"
Selene swallowed hard and snapped into a crisp salute. "Your Majesty, Dawinton and I attended the academy together when I was twelve. We became friends during our studies, which is how he reached out to me. And Sire, having seen the border reports, I truly know his town is struggling—"
CRACK.
The same catastrophic pressure crashed down on her.
Her knees buckled. Her throat locked as if an iron vice had clamped around it, choking every breath from her lungs.
"Answer only what I ask," the King said coldly. "Not the sympathies you wish to plead on his behalf."
Selene's face went ash-white. Trembling from head to toe, she managed a frantic nod. "Y-Yes, my lord…"
The unseen gaze shifted once more. It settled on Leonard and his elderly father.
"Farmers of Whispering pines. I grant you a choice. Whether you sell your grain to this outsider or cast him from your gates is your decision alone. But hear my decree. Should any calamity arise from this trade, it is none of the crown's concern. Furthermore, your village will pay a tithe of forty percent of every crop you grow directly to the royal granaries. The remaining sixty percent, you may sell to whomever you wish. I will not interfere."
Leonard and Steven exchanged a troubled glance.
Forty percent.
It would strip their harvests to the bone. Every instinct screamed at them to refuse.
But Leonard looked down at Dawinton, still pressed against the crystal floor, humbling himself in the dirt for thousands of starving families.
And Leonard remembered.
The cold streets. The empty stomach. The nights as an orphan with nothing.
He looked at Steven. The old man gave a slow, resigned nod.
"We accept Your Majesty's terms," Leonard said, bowing toward the empty throne. "Forty percent of everything Whispering pines harvests will go to the crown. The rest we will trade to Lord Dawinton." He hesitated. Then he spoke again. "However, Sire… if I may be so bold. This tax will strain our village. Could Your Majesty instruct the neighboring towns of Solavar to raise their purchase prices slightly for the goods we sell within the kingdom?"
The air froze solid.
Dawinton stopped breathing. So did Selene.
A common peasant had just haggled with the Supreme Ruler of the Sun Kingdom.
Ten seconds passed. Ten agonizing seconds with no sound but the silent flow of gold beneath the floor. Everyone braced for the King's wrath to grind the two farmers into blood mist.
"Very well."
The voice was calm. Almost mild.
"I will pass the directive to the neighboring towns. Your domestic rates will be adjusted."
Then a single word fell like a guillotine.
"Leave."
Near the entrance, a soldier wrapped head to toe in a pitch-black cloak materialized out of thin air. Without a sound, he gestured toward the towering doors.
Dawinton hauled himself up. The four of them turned to follow.
Behind them, the King's voice echoed one final time, carrying an eerie, prophetic chill.
"Leonard of Whispering pines. Remember the covenant struck on this floor. The crown of Solavar bears no responsibility for whatever fate visits your valley. On the day trouble knocks at your gates, this kingdom will not send a single blade to save you. Are we clear?"
Leonard paused at the threshold. He turned and offered one last, deep, honest bow.
"Yes, my lord. I have heard your words, and I understand them clearly."
The colossal golden doors swung shut with a booming finality.
But Rayn did not follow them out.
His spectral form stayed at the foot of the crystal floor, and the memory revealed what none of the four visitors had ever seen.
The moment the locks clicked into place, the empty air shimmered like heat haze over desert sand.
Along both sides of the hall, figures flickered into view. Dozens of them. High-ranking ministers. Noble courtiers. Armored commanders. They had been seated in the galleries the entire time, hidden beneath a masterwork royal stealth array.
Murmurs spread across the hall. A senior minister stepped forward and bowed toward the dais.
"Your Majesty… why did you humor that peasant? Why grant them permission to trade across the border at all?"
High atop the thirty-foot throne, the empty air folded back like a curtain.
And there he was.
Sitting casually on the velvet cushion, where he had been the entire time, was the Sun King.
No heavy armor. Only an immaculate, sharply tailored white suit. Radiant blond hair framed a face of breathtaking, almost inhuman beauty. And his eyes, a resplendent golden-yellow, gleamed with cold, all-seeing amusement.
"Because I saw the rot beneath the plea," the King said smoothly, resting his chin on his knuckles. "It is the nature of serpents to bite the hand that warms them. One day, that man Dawinton will betray them. And on that day, when Leonard's paradise burns and he crawls back to my doors begging for salvation…"
A faint smile.
"…I will give him my true answer."
An armored commander near the steps frowned. "Sire, how can you be so certain Dawinton will turn on them?"
The King's golden eyes drifted toward the sealed doors.
"My sixth sense feels it," he murmured. "The threads of greed and desperation are already tangled. It is an inevitability I can taste on the wind."
The illusion began to fade, sinking back into the dark mists of the mental domain.
But one last thought from the golden-eyed monarch echoed across the void, clear enough for Rayn to hear.
'Go and reap your harvest, Leonard. I will be waiting on this throne for the day you return on your knees, begging for my mercy.'