The morning came muted.Gray clouds hung low, and even the city's usual hum seemed distant.It was the kind of day where the world held its breath — as if it sensed something shifting beneath its streets, something that couldn't be undone.
I stood before the mirror, fastening the last button of my high-collared coat. My reflection stared back, pale and sharp-edged, eyes darker than I remembered.No matter.This face would suit today's work.
I stepped away as a knock echoed softly against my door."Enter," I said.
Cassian slipped in, his posture low, voice lower. "The first batch waits in the old training yard, my lord. As you requested."
My fingers paused at the silver signet ring I now wore—a ring that once belonged to my late father, the duke everyone claimed I would surpass in cruelty one day.I turned it once on my finger and nodded."Good. Take me to them."
The yard was nothing like it used to be.Once, this place echoed with the clash of steel and the barks of drillmasters. Now, it was a ruin of cracked stone and overgrown weeds — forgotten, just like the people gathered there.
I counted them as I stepped into the open space:Disgraced knights stripped of title.Servants cast out for imagined slights.Broken soldiers who once fought for glory but returned home to whispers and closed doors.
Thirty in total.Thirty souls society had spat out and left to rot.
I looked over them, letting the silence stretch thin and sharp.Their eyes didn't meet mine.Not yet.
I waited until I felt their discomfort bloom.Then, I spoke.
"You've all been called traitors, failures, and worse. You've been forgotten by the world you bled for. And now, they expect you to die quietly."I let that hang in the cold air before stepping closer, voice soft but biting."But I see something else when I look at you. I see weapons. I see men and women who have nothing left to lose — and that makes you dangerous."
A ripple moved through them.Subtle.But there.
I stepped closer still."I am offering you a chance. Not to return to their good graces — they will never welcome you back. No."My smile was thin as a knife's edge."I offer you a chance to burn their graces to the ground. To rise, not as their pawns, but as something they fear. Serve me, and you will have power. Serve me, and your names will be remembered — not in shame, but in terror."
Now, some eyes rose to meet mine.I could see it — the flickers of hunger, of resentment long buried.The fragile embers I only needed to fan into flame.
Cassian stepped forward, tossing a sack onto the cracked stones.It spilled open, revealing silver coins, blades, and papers with official seals — proof that I had access to things they thought forever out of reach.
"This is your down payment," I said."If you walk away now, you take this and disappear. I will not hunt you.But if you stay… if you swear yourself to me today… you will not turn back.You will be mine — body and soul.And together, we will make this world bleed."
A heavy pause followed.
Then, one man — a one-armed veteran with a face carved by old wounds — stepped forward.He knelt."I am yours, Lord Leonhart.Let them call me monster, as long as they choke on my name."
That was all it took.One oath to crack the dam.
Others followed.Knees hit stone.Voices murmured oaths, some bitter, some desperate, but all binding.By the time the last one knelt, I felt it — the first real foundation of the empire I would build from their ruin.
I drew a breath, slow and steady."This is only the beginning," I told them."Today, you are forgotten ghosts.Tomorrow, you will be my shadows — and the world will tremble when it feels you moving."
Later, when the yard emptied and only Cassian remained at my side, he spoke quietly."My lord… you are truly committed now. There is no return from this path."
I turned my gaze to the distant city skyline, where towers stretched toward the bruised sky."Good," I murmured."Let there be no return.Forward is the only direction left for men like me."
And in that moment, even I could feel it — the chains fate once wrapped around my throat had begun to loosen.But freedom was never given freely.It had to be taken — carved from the bones of those who called themselves heroes.
And I intended to take everything.
Far below, in a different wing of the palace, Evelyne stood by her window, watching the same skyline.Her fists clenched tight, nails biting into her palms.The whispers in her mind grew louder — fragmented flashes of another life, another failure, another heartbreak.
Her voice was barely audible.But the word she spoke was clear."Leonhart…"