The First Move

"My Lord?! What in the hell are you doing? Why are you rolling in—oh gods, is that... shit?!"

The voice barely registered.

To Keiser, it arrived as though carried by the lingering echo of Aisha's bomb sigils—distorted, crackling, and sharp-edged like shrapnel. It rang in his ears, dissonant and distant, drowned beneath the searing noise of his own body in crisis.

He could scarcely think.

He was too busy choking on his own blood—thick, warm, copper-laced. It coated his tongue, filled the gaps between his teeth, and poured down his throat in suffocating waves. Each breath scraped against raw tissue, obstructed by whatever viscous substance now surged from his lungs.

His body convulsed, trembling with the effort to remain upright. His limbs trembled, his chest burned, and every gasp was a desperate attempt not to drown on land.

The taste in his mouth was unbearable—rust and rot, filth and fire.

He tried to rise.

His hands braced against the ground, only to slip—palms sinking into something slick, warm, and yielding. There was a wet, sickening squelch. The stench confirmed what his senses could not yet process.

But he didn't care.

He was supposed to be dead.

Keiser should have died.

His vision blurred—shapes moved in the haze. A beast snorted nearby. Someone gagged. Another, somewhere in the distance, laughed.

None of it mattered.

He was alive.

And he knew, with a clarity that pierced through the pain—He was never meant to be.

It was a feeling Keiser knew all too well—familiar, yet never something he could grow numb to.

He had believed, in his final moments, that hell would welcome him with open arms. That death would claim him swiftly, as it had so many before him. But it hadn't.

Instead, there was only the dulling ache, the numbing weight behind his eyes, as his vision blurred and his mind slipped. Through the haze, he watched the man he trusted most—his kingmaker, his companion, his friend—not only betray him in the final trial, but reveal a truth far crueler.

He had never been on Keiser's side to begin with.

A deeper ache bloomed in Keiser's chest—not from the wounds, but from the hollow where loyalty had once lived.

Even the sword—the one gift he believed was truly his, unlike the armor loaned by the kingdom—had not belonged to him in the way he thought. The blade he had carried with pride, entrusted with his life, had a truth hidden within it.

It was made from the bones of not just any dragon—but the very one they had rescued together from poachers in their youth. A rare, sacred creature, trembling and wounded, bound in chains. Keiser had slain those men without mercy. They deserved no quarter, not after the cruelty they inflicted on something so pure. Their deaths had been swift—merciful, if anything.

He had pleaded with the fourth prince to help return the young dragon to the sacred forest, where beings like it could live in peace. He had believed it had been done.

But on his twenty-fifth birthday, Keiser had unknowingly met the dragon again—not in flesh, but in bone. Its core had been reforged into the heart of the sword. Its bones, polished and bleached, formed the hilt he gripped in every battle.

He had carried its remains.

He had wielded a lie.

And now, to add cruelty upon cruelty, the blade that struck him in the final trial—guided by Gideon's sigils, not even by his hand—had waited for this moment. A strike not just of steel and spell, but of betrayal, sharpened over years of deceit.

The opportunity had come.

And Keiser could not bring himself to believe that it had all been leading here.

His hand shot to his chest—the very place where pain had once bloomed like fire, when his own sword was turned against him.

He remembered it vividly. How Gideon's sigils had coiled around the blade, moving with precision and ease, responding to his will as if born of it.

The pain had been excruciating, far before the blade pierced through the defensive enchantments of his armor. He had recognized the sigilwork, familiar and brutal. Aisha's magic—the same that once protected him—was now the very force that shattered his defense. But something far more fragile had broken in that moment.

His trust.

He had watched, paralyzed, as one by one, his allies drifted not behind him—but beside Gideon.

His body had burned, skewered and suspended only by the blade that impaled him, preventing him from collapsing fully to the blood-slicked marble floor of the palace court.

But now…?

Now, his hands—sticky, warm, reeking of something foul—pressed against a chest that felt intact. There was no wound. No steel. No pain.

His breath caught in his throat.

His vision, long blurred by blood and unshed tears, began to clear.

He was no longer in the throne room.

No gleaming marble.

No towering arches.

No weeping royals.

No nobles circling like wolves, baring gilded fangs.

Instead, he lay in something damp and fetid, staring up at rotting wooden beams and a few clumps of moldering hay. A weary-looking horse, standing not far from him, gave a long, nasal snort that sounded uncomfortably close to laughter.

Then came a very human laugh.

"What in the name of the gods were you doing your highness, lying in Sir McKenzy's royal dump spot?"

Keiser blinked.

A boy—perhaps a teen—stood a few paces away, dressed in worn, stained work clothes, a pitchfork slung casually over one shoulder and a smile tugging at his mouth.

Keiser glanced down at himself.

His own garments were worse—plain, filthy, and drenched in the unmistakable stench of manure.

What… is this?

Without warning, the boy upended a bucket of water over his head.

The shock hit like a slap—icy, bracing, and irrefutably real. Keiser gasped, the sudden chill cutting through the haze in his mind. He was no longer in the court. No throne loomed overhead. No crown rested on the fourth prince's brow.

And then—

"I think you need another bucket," the boy muttered. "Seriously, why were you rolling around in McKenzy's shit?"

Keiser's head snapped up. The boy had extended a hand in offering.

Keiser frowned and slapped it away.

"Who are you?" he rasped. His voice was raw, gravel-thick, almost unfamiliar to his own ears.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Alright, Your Highness. Should you really be lying here? Weren't you saying yesterday you were waiting on the royal decree for the King's Gambit on the proclamation bulletin?"

King's Gambit.

The words landed like a blow to the chest. Keiser flinched, staggering as he pushed himself upright. His legs trembled beneath him. Instinctively, he reached for the boy's shoulders for balance.

He was taller than Keiser expected—only slightly, but it surprised him.

Their eyes met. The boy's face was unremarkable, save for the mixture of annoyance and faint concern.

"What do you mean… King's Gambit?" Keiser asked, his voice barely above a whisper, his heartbeat thundering.

The boy made a face of pure disgust and flicked at Keiser's sleeve.

"Ugh. You're still covered in crap."

Keiser gritted his teeth and seized the boy by the shoulders, shaking him.

"What do you mean, the King's Gambit? That already happened! The candidates were chosen! The crown's been claimed!"

The boy pulled back slightly, raising an eyebrow. "Whoa, okay. Calm down. I don't know what kind of head sickness you're dealing with, but the Gambit hasn't started yet. The official notice is going out today, so folks like us can get some training in before the first trial kicks off."

He shrugged, unconcerned. "Not that anyone from this dump's making it past the first round."

Keiser stared at him, breath caught in his chest, heart pounding like a war drum. The boy's words rattled through him, clashing with everything he knew, everything he remembered.

And yet, none of it made sense.

The boy kept speaking, unaware of the storm behind Keiser's eyes.

"Funny, isn't it? The last King's Gambit was, what—forty years ago? And even though the current King was Crown Prince back then, he took forever to hold the next one. Like nothing ever satisfied him."

What?

Keiser froze.

The air turned heavy. Distant. Unreal.

The Crown Prince?

That wasn't right.

The man who took the throne… wasn't the heir.

He had been the fourth prince—a spare, a shadow behind gilded names. No one had expected him to rise, not until the candidates began to fall—to betray, to die.

Keiser, a knight of low birth, had risen through the trials. He had stood at the threshold of the crown.

And Gideon—the fourth prince, his friend, his kingmaker—had betrayed him.

He'd always been planning to.

And now this boy spoke of the Gambit as if it had yet to begin. As if a 'Crown Prince' had taken the throne without contest.

Something is wrong. Deeply wrong.

The boy sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets.

"Well, obviously the nobles have the advantage. They've been trained for this since they were in academy. The rest of us? We're just trying not to starve."

Then the boy squinted at him.

"Still don't get why you wanna try. We ran away to get out of there, didn't we, Muzio?"

Muzio?

That wasn't his name.

Keiser's lips parted to correct him, but before he could form the words, the world seemed to tilt—off-balance, like the ground gone askew.

He turned sharply back toward the boy, his voice low and cold.

"What did you just call me?"

That stopped him. The smirk vanished. His face paled.

"I—I mean… your highness prince Muzio," the boy stammered, eyes widening.

Keiser's hands trembled as he slowly released his grip, stepping back like he'd touched something far worst than the horse crap. The name echoed in his skull—ringing, pulling at the foundations of who he was.

Prince Muzio?

No.

That wasn't him.

Without another word, Keiser turned and walked out of the stables. The sunlight slammed into him like a blow—too warm, too bright, too real. He shielded his eyes, his head spinning with confusion and disbelief.

The world felt… wrong. Off. Slanted.

His gaze darted across the barnyard, searching desperately for some tether to reality. Then he saw it, a shallow trough of stagnant water beside a broken cart.

Unsteady, he stumbled toward it and dropped to his knees, heart thundering in his chest. He stared into the water's murky surface.

And what stared back made him stop breathing.

It wasn't the face he knew.

Not the battle-worn knight. Not the man who bore the scars of war. Not the warrior who had died with his own sword buried in his chest.

The reflection was that of a boy—barely older than the one he'd just spoken with. A teenager, slight of build, with skin unmarked by blades or fire. His features were finer, his hair dark and unruly, his eyes—

Red.

Aurex red.

The King's unmistakable eye color.

Keiser—Muzio—jerked back from the trough, nearly falling into it.

It was his face. Or rather, Muzio's face—just as he remembered from scattered portraits and whispers in palace corridors.

The bastard prince.

The tenth son of King Aurex Valemont.

The boy who had vanished from court and was later presumed dead at eighteen. No funeral. No public mourning. Not even a passing decree. Just silence—like a ghost fading through stone halls, forgotten before the echoes stopped.

A prince without a mother in the harem.

A child without a title.

A mistake born of a fleeting night.

A whisper.

A shadow.

A memory.

And now, staring into the water, Keiser realized—

He hadn't just survived.

He had returned.

But not as the knight who nearly became king.

He had returned as the one who was never meant to live long enough to try.

And now… somehow…

He was wearing Muzio's face.

But this body—this stance—felt unfamiliar.

All the King's children had their factions. From the moment they could walk, they were courted by nobles, scholars, and strategists. Every prince and princess was a potential sovereign. Every step they took was calculated, observed, recorded.

Groomed like pawns to be kings.

But this boy… was nothing like that.

Pale. Lanky. Sickly. His limbs too thin, his frame too frail. Muzio had never stood a chance, not even as a symbol. He wasn't courted. He wasn't groomed. He wasn't even acknowledged.

A bastard son of a lowly maid. Nameless in court documents. A ghost in every lineage chart.

And yet…

From what that stable boy had said, Muzio was interested in the King's Gambit. Hopeful even. But how could that be? Keiser had already lived it. Had already bled for it.

Unless…

Keiser's gaze snapped to the other boy, who was still watching him with a confused frown.

"Your Highness?" he asked cautiously.

Even in filth, even after running from the palace, Keiser realized—Muzio still bore the unmistakable mark of royalty. Those red eyes. That posture. The way silence naturally followed him.

He turned toward the boy again, eyes sharp.

"Who is the King?"

The teen blinked, baffled. "Uh… your father?"

Keiser's jaw clenched. His fists tightened until his nails bit into his palms, breaking skin—but the pain was distant, irrelevant.

That answer said everything.

The King's Gambit hadn't happened yet.

Gideon hadn't taken the crown. He hadn't played his final move.

He hadn't betrayed Keiser.

Not yet.

Which meant…

He could find him. Himself. If Keiser still exist in this return. Still a knight. Still marching toward that throne like a loyal pawn on a bloodstained board.

If he could reach him—warn him—then maybe…

Maybe he could stop it.

Because without Keiser, Gideon would never have won. The nobles never wanted the Fourth Prince. They'd backed the Crown Prince—cold and calculating—or the sixth princess, radiant and charming. Gideon was too quiet. Too distant. Too gray—his eyes not the eyes of an Aurex.

But Keiser? The knight born from nothing, forged by war, adored by soldiers and feared by court?

He was Gideon's blade. His strength. His shield.

And in the end—his sacrifice.

Keiser's hands trembled as he stared down again into the reflection.

Muzio's face stared back.

Too young. Too thin. Too soft.

It didn't belong to him—shouldn't belong to him.

But there it was. Unmistakable.

His.

None of this was right.

The crown had already been claimed. The King's Gambit had ended in fire, blood, and betrayal. And Keiser—once a mere knight risen beyond station—had become nothing more than a stepping stone. A tool Gideon sharpened, wielded, and discarded.

But now…

He was here.

Before it all happened.

Before the betrayals.

Before the crown.

Before his own death.

Back when things could still be changed.

And by all the gods above and demons below—he would change them.

He wouldn't just stop the Gambit.

He wouldn't just defy fate.

He would tear the it all down—brick by gilded brick—and make damn sure that rigged throne would never see another puppet crowned again.

Even trapped in this frail form—this overlooked, forgotten bastard prince—he still had weapons.

A name.

A number.

A bloodline.

People who still knew him.

And a history no one else remembered.

He would use it all. Every secret Muzio once held, every truth Keiser carried from his former life.

Because this time, it wouldn't be Gideon who made the King.

He, Muzio—Keiser—would be his own Kingmaker.

And no one else.

Not the Fourth Prince.

Not the court.

Not the crown.

Only him.