"What is the commotion, Zaban?" Kaelen took a slow sip of his tea. His dark suit clung to his frame. He turned his face toward the window.
Zaban took a heavy step forward. He kept his right arm rigid—the bone still aching from the healing magic—and bowed deep.
"A riot, my Liege. The low-tiers are breaching the outer courtyards. They demand the removal of Noxara," Zaban reported, fighting to keep the tremor out of his voice.
Kaelen set his teacup on the saucer. The porcelain clinked in the quiet room. He walked to the glass and looked down at the chaos.
The mob battered the towering walls. They swung heavy iron mallets and rusted wood-axes against the pale-grey stone, their gray skin slick with sweat. The roar of their desperation echoed all the way up to the throne room.
"Who do they think I sustain the field for?" Kaelen murmured. "Had it not been for Noxara, the remaining demons would have butchered this city months ago."
"My Liege, you slaughtered the Demonic Generals," Zaban said, his draped cloak brushing the stone floor. "Forgive my overstep, but does the threat linger?"
Kaelen let out a short, hollow laugh. It held zero warmth. His silver eyes remained locked on the rioters.
"If only it was as easy as killing them," Kaelen stated, turning his back to the window. "Those deaths will only stoke the fire. It opens new doors for worse things to crawl through."
Kaelen moved toward the exit. The massive oak doors groaned open at his approach. He descended the grand marble staircase, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous halls.
At the base of the steps, the Vanguard held the line. Rows of armored knights stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their shields locked into an impenetrable wall, bracing against the crushing weight of the starving mob.
Kaelen reached the Vanguard line. The armored knights parted without a word, dropping to one knee in the mud. Kaelen did not touch the heavy iron gates. He offered a single, subtle gesture with his hand.
The Vanguard hauled the massive doors open.
Kaelen stepped out into the freezing rain, walking straight into the furious mob. Zaban shadowed him, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
Upon Kaelen's arrival, the front lines of the mob faltered. The rioters took a collective step backward. The hollow, absolute weight of his silver eyes was enough to paralyze their rage.
Kaelen's lips parted into an immaculate, welcoming smile.
"My people," Kaelen called out, his voice a resonant hum that carried itself through the noise, piercing the ears of the mob. He opened his arms to them. "Why do you batter the walls of your own home?"
"The Noxara!" A peasant screamed from the back, his graying skin shone with sweat and rain. "It suffocates us! The low-tiers are dying!"
"Fifty deaths this month alone!" a woman shrieked, falling to her knees in the mud. "We don't want the Noxara, My Liege! Please!"
Kaelen let his smile fade into a sorrow. The silver eyes shut and the lips trembled. He turned his gaze to the dented walls, then back to the desperate faces.
"I hear your cries," Kaelen murmured, pressing a white glove over his heart. "I mourn the fifty souls we lost, I feel my incompetence as your crowned ruler. I feel your terror. I have failed the lower-tiers — But! I must deny your demands."
The crowd went dead silent.
"The Noxara is the strongest and only barrier keeping the Demonic Kin at bay," Kaelen stated, his voice unwavering. "To lower this barrier is to invite the slaughter of millions more than said fifty."
"Then give us the stones!" a man begged, coughing a thick wad of blood onto the cobblestones. "The mines are full! Give us mana-stones to survive!"
Kaelen tilted his head. His silver eyes locking on the coughing man. The man straightened and trembled under the gaze.
"The refined stones fuel the Kingdom's weaponry. To empty the vaults for the lower districts would break our swords and shatter our shields," Kaelen explained, his voice carrying itself over the stunned peasants. "And consuming raw stones would merely make your minds erratic and accelerate your deaths."
He took a slow step forward, looking down at the dying citizens.
"I weep for your withering, I do. But the grandest canopy only touches the sun when the roots are fed."
A single scream tore through the silent mob.
A starving, gray-skinned man broke from the front line. He charged through the freezing rain, his boots slipping in the mud as he raised a rusted wood-axe toward the King.
Kaelen didn't flinch. His lips curled into a faint smile.
A Vanguard Soldier stepped ahead of the King. He drove a heavy steel gauntlet into the peasant's jaw. The sickening crunch of bone echoed over the rain. The jaw shattered. The man collapsed, his rusted axe burying itself in the mud.
The soldier drew his sword, raising the heavy steel high to take the peasant's head.
A gauntleted hand shot out from the shield wall, wrapping around the recruit's wrist like a vice.
The recruit's sword stopped dead in the air. He turned, his eyes widening behind his visor.
A towering Knight stepped out of the formation. His armor was polished silver, trimmed in deep crimson. The rain battered against his high red plume.
"Lower your sword, recruit," the Knight commanded, his voice a low rumble that brooked no argument. He shoved the recruit backward and stepped over the bleeding peasant.
Kaelen's smile vanished. He tilted his head, his silver eyes locking onto the crimson plume.
"Sir Levon," Kaelen observed. "You break formation."
"I swore my life to the Crown, my Liege," Sir Levon stated, his voice cutting through the storm. "I swore to protect the borders of Aethelgard and the throne."
Levon reached up with both hands. He unlatched his helm and pulled it free. Then tossed it onto the muddy ground. His face was pale and scarred, but his breathing was steady. The suffocating pull of the Noxara didn't seem to affect him at all.
Levon dropped his hand to the hilt of his saber. He unsheathed it with a single CLICK. He discarded the sheath to the ground.
"But before I knelt to the throne, I took the Oath of Iron, The Oath of Knights!" Levon rasped, pointing his bared saber toward the crowd. "I swore to be the shield for the weak. I swore to protect the roots of this kingdom. I swore to never fight against humanity, be it for Wealth or Kings!"
Sir Levon straightened.
"Tell me, My Liege, What good a canopy will do if it's raised on the corpses of trampled?" Sir Levon sneered. "It will be a failed canopy, and the King will be a failure. I refuse to serve or live for both!"
"Treason, Levon?"Kaelen smiled, yet it didn't reach his bored eyes. "How mundane. You really plan on throwing your life away."
Levon raised the saber into a heavy, two-handed stance.
"I am merely keeping the roots—"
The Knight charged.
The cobblestones shattered beneath his steel boots. He crossed the courtyard with a velocity that defied logic. He materialized mere inches from the King, his heavy saber arcing downward to cleave Kaelen's heart in two.
Kaelen's warm smile grew, the amusement reaching his silver eyes.
He raised two fingers and flicked the air.
"—alive," Levon gasped.
A shockwave snapped through the air. Sir Levon's vision shattered as his legs gave way. He collapsed to the cobblestones, the deafening ring of steel hitting stone echoing through the courtyard.
He tried to stand up, but his legs did not obey. He looked down. A massive gash tore diagonally across his thick silver breastplate. His entire torso had been slashed open. Hot red pooled onto the wet mud, spreading without pause.
"Poured all my strength into that..." Levon coughed, thick blood spilling from his mouth and nose, burning his throat. He looked up at the King, who was standing unharmed. "And this is the... result..."
A thin, painful smile broke across his scarred face.
"Damn... anomaly..."
His rigid spine slacked. His eyes went glassy, locking onto the peasants one final time without focusing.
Captain Levon of Vanguard had died.
Kaelen turned his back on the corpse. A single, distinct line of crimson blood stained the lapel of his pristine dark suit. He stared at the stain, a flicker of genuine annoyance breaking his perfect composure for the first time.
"Treason is a disease," Kaelen stated, his voice cold and disgusted. He looked past Levon's body, his silver eyes landing on the starving peasant bleeding in the mud, the man the recruit had punched moments ago.
Kaelen pointed a single, gloved finger at the groaning man.
"Take the head of the one who raised the axe," Kaelen commanded, walking back toward the massive iron doors. He didn't look at the screaming crowd. "Let the rest watch him bleed.
A Vanguard knight raised his broadsword. The heavy iron gates slammed shut behind the King.
_____________
The iron gates of Aethelgard slammed shut, the sound booming like a coffin lid.
Sir Levon lay in the freezing slush. The Noxara field washed over his cooling chest, searching for a spark to devour. It found only dead, magicless bone.
The physical world fractured. The gray sky of the present dissolved into the jagged screams of the past.
"Kill the anomaly!"
A woman's shriek tore through the dark. A jagged stone caught a young Levon in the temple, the impact hot and wet. The village square smelled of pitch and hatred. "Light the pyre! The gods cursed him with empty veins! Cast him out!"
The heat of the torches became the bite of a winter morning.
"Levon, you have always been different, haven't you?" Viel laughed. The crate of winter oranges in his arms was a heavy, crushing slab of wood. The man's knees buckled. His breath came in ragged, desperate gasps.
"Let me."
Teenage Levon reached out. He took the crate. His spine didn't bend. His muscles didn't strain. He carried the weight of three men as if it were a handful of feathers.
The sharp scent of oranges turned to the suffocating incense of the Ivory Tower.
"Magic is not a gift, Levon. It is a leash." Grand Mage Orlon sat behind his heavy oak desk. He poured a glass of water, his silver eyes fixed on the boy's scarred hands. "Humans invent gods to explain the math they cannot grasp. They fear the vacuum inside you."
Orlon stood. He slid a heavy, un-enchanted steel saber across the wood. The metal shrieked against the grain.
"The universe demands equilibrium. It denied you the spark, boy. In exchange, it gave you a vessel of violence. Go. Forget the spells. Master the art of blade"
The tower morphed into a small hut, the insides lively and workers hammering the steel. A burly man stood in the center, staring at Levon.
"Forge for the Vanguard."
The slide of the blade became a deafening roar of a thousand voices.
Silver armor gleamed under a midday sun. A grand stage rose above a sea of bowing knights.
"I hereby declare..." The announcer's voice boomed, vibrating in the very stone of the capital. "The youngest Captain in the history of the Vanguard! Sir Levon of the House Gausic!"
The roar of the crowd swelled—a beautiful, hollow lie. Levon bowed, his hand resting on the hilt of his Saber. He stood among the mages of the realm, a man with dry veins and iron skin, hiding his secret behind a wall of medals.
The cheers faded back into the hiss of the freezing rain. The memories faded into a mere nothingness.
The corpse was hauled away.