Chapter 15: The King Is Dead

Under the sullen, iron-grey skies of the world's largest empire, Orrenthol loomed like a myth carved from stone and steam. Above the sprawling imperial heartland, far beyond the reach of the desperate and the common, hovered the Empire Estate—a floating citadel of metal and marble, anchored aloft by colossal humming cores and radiant chains of gravity-binding runes etched deep into the crust of the sky itself. It resembled a crown torn from the skull of a god, all spires and sky-bridges, carved gargoyles and imperial banners trailing down through the mist like wounded seraphs. It looked more cathedral than fortress, more mausoleum than castle, suspended in eternal vigilance over the empire it ruled with divine indifference.

Beneath the airborne estate sprawled the Three Imperial Cities:

Rauthvenloch — the Capital, Steel Crown of the Empire. Every building there had sharp lines and high spires. Brass chimneys exhaled white smoke beside cathedrals shaped like halberds pointed skyward. The streets were paved with blood-colored cobblestone, and marble statues of emperors past watched the citizens with hollow, hollow eyes.

Brayweldt — the Furnace, Megacity of Industry. Towers of iron and glowing furnace-cores scorched the skies here. Weapon factories and rail-foundries churned nonstop, spewing heat and war-metal. The streets were always glowing orange with slag, and the air tasted like rusted gunpowder.

Krevengarde — the Port, Military and Spy Bastion. Canals the size of rivers cut through the city like veins. Giant dreadships hovered low in military mooring chains, their hulls like the bellies of iron whales. Assassin training halls, naval command towers, and imperial spy bureaus filled its underbelly like a nest of knives.

And above it all—the floating estate, silent as judgment.

Inside the imperial bedchambers, deep within the floating estate, there was only flesh, blood, and ruin.

King Arthur, Sovereign of the Empire of Heaven—was dead.

Naked. Splayed grotesquely across blood-drenched silk. The sheets were once a pristine glacier-white, but now bore streaks and clots like a battlefield. His entire upper head was gone, annihilated by something internal—shattered fragments of skull embedded in the gold-threaded pillows, brain matter splattered across the imperial tapestry on the wall. The explosion had turned his skull into an open flower, neck a blackened crater ringed in blistered flesh. The crown—his crown—was nowhere to be seen.

Five naked women stood frozen in horror—all covered in crimson. Their bodies were trembling. Three of them shook violently, shivering like strays, clinging to each other's arms as if their flesh might vanish if they let go. A fourth had collapsed in the corner, curled in fetal terror. But it was the fifth—the youngest, frozen and upright—who looked the most broken. Her lips twitched. Her eyes stared into nothing. Blood soaked her legs. She was covering her chest, but her trembling fingers couldn't stop.

Standing at the foot of the bed were Arthur's three High Advisors.

Croswin Maergal, Chancellor of Arms. Bald, bulky, with a monocle and a suit patterned in black wolfhide. His voice was thunder and logic, but his hands kept twitching.

Ludema Veiss, Grand Archivist. A rail-thin woman in layered robes made of stitched treaty parchment, her eyes sewn with gilded makeup, and six rings on each finger. Her voice was silk and poison.

Dravolt Hask, Imperial Espionant. Dressed in a plum-colored coat with high collars and a cane tipped in a screaming angel's face. His voice was dry, sardonic, with a faint wheeze of age.

They stared at the ruin of their king with disbelief.

"This is… this is…this can't be!" Croswin exclaimed, stepping closer, staring at the remains of the skull. "His Majesty's head is gone.….what—what could've happened?

"It happened from inside," Ludema whispered, fingers gripping her necklace of preserved black thorns. "Something imploded. Like an egg hatching..."

The fifth girl finally spoke, voice stuttering, frail.

"There was… there was a crown. A crown of—of golden light. It hovered above him—h-his head... And then his—his head just… he looked like he was choking, and then—he exploded—"

"Shut your mouth!" Dravolt barked. "You're the only witness. The only one who saw what happened. Do you understand what that means?"

"Do any of you understand what this means?" Ludema snapped. "The people revere him like a living god! How do we explain to the Empire that this is how he died?! Fucked to death by his harem and crowned by light? That's what people will take of it, and that's not even the half of what other rumors could come forth! This is absurd!"

"We don't say anything," Croswin growled. "We lie. We say he died in his sleep. Poisoned. Assassinated. Just not like this. By what these women are saying, his head just exploded…"

"And the women?" Dravolt asked darkly, eyes narrowing.

"Suspects. Let the dungeons sort them out."

But just then—the doors boomed open.

Seth, the son of Arthur, strode inside like the promise of war.

He was draped in a white regalia coat lined with obsidian embroidery, sleeves rolled high, waist fastened by a storm-buckle clasp, and royal boots that clacked with menace. His long hair, a cascade of golden white curls, was braided down the left side, while a thin streak of grey ran down the right. His beard was trimmed, his grey eyes stormglass cold.

He said nothing. Tears slid down his cheeks, but he didn't sob.

He knelt.

He gripped Arthur's ruined hand, the one still half-attached to the wrist. Clenching it tight.

"I take your burden now," he whispered. "I speak your law, your will, your oath of fire."

He began to recite the oaths of the Empire, voice low, guttural:

"I shall preserve the furnace of blood. I shall oil the gears with my bones. I shall burn my name if the machine demands silence. I shall break if it means Orrenthol endures."

His hand tightened.

Bones crunched in Arthur's dead wrist.

"Seth—" Ludema said gently, stepping forward.

Seth snapped his eyes upward, bloodshot. Then slowly, he stood. Still trembling.

He turned.

And before anyone could speak, he lunged—grabbing the fifth girl by her throat.

Her feet lifted from the floor, body flailing in terror, still slick with blood and silk. She gasped, eyes wide, lips unable to form words as his hand crushed her windpipe.

"You're all spies," Seth growled. "Worms sent from an empire who wishes to conquer us, to slip poison into my father's mouth. Seduced him. Married him. Killed him. You're not his concubines. My father has made many enemies throughout his reign, I guess it's come back to haunt us!"

The girl's mouth dripped with blood. Blood began leaking from her eyes. Her ribs heaved. "P-Please! We didn't do this—ACK!"

Then—a voice interrupted.

"Choking her won't bring your father back."

A man stood in the doorway, arms folded, a wry smile on his face. Dressed in a long black tailcoat with silver buttons, a deep red vest embroidered with ivy sigils, gloves with brass fingertips, and a top hat with a ribbon of three interlocked keys. His face was sharp, eyepatch over the left eye, and a perfectly waxed twirling mustache framed his grin.

"I'm Lars Wallace. Public Investigator. Rauthvenloch Division. And I'd prefer if the suspects stayed breathing while I do my job."

Everyone stared, mostly trying to figure out how the hell he got in there.

Seth's rage cracked like a firewire, head turning slow.

But before he could respond—

A blade pressed to Lars' neck from behind.

Another figure had appeared without a sound.

An old woman, her grey hair in two thick braided ponytails, a hunter's coat stitched from broken medallions and hollowed vertebrae, tight trousers, boots lined in chain-thread. A tricorn hat with an antler crest shadowed her face, but her glowing purple eyes shimmered through. The blade she held was bone-carved, glinting with something wrong.

She was back-to-back with Lars, her voice as soft as silk.

"I don't know you. Who are you?"

Lars didn't flinch.

He smiled wider, raising his hands lazily.

"Ah, forgive me. Didn't mean to step on any toes. Just thought the crown prince could use a second opinion before we burn half the empire to hide this interesting scandal."

Everyone in the room tensed. Guards drew weapons. Advisors moved to speak.

Seth said nothing.

The naked girl was still crying blood.

And the crown of Orrenthol, once worn by a god-king, now lay shattered and invisible, in a room of vultures.

The grand chamber fell into silence as Seth's eyes glinted with something dark—like a blade just shy of drawing blood.

He took a slow step forward toward Lars Wallace, his boots creaking softly against the polished blackwood floors soaked in arterial residue, and asked, voice like frost shaving steel, "How did you get past the royal guards?"

Lars smirked without hesitation, tilting his head in mock innocence. "Well, if you must know, I—"

SHIIINK.

A flash of silver sliced through the air—Seth's alchemy-infused blade arced clean across Lars' throat.

But instead of blood, reams of paper burst from the gash in Lars' neck like a bizarre parade unfurling. The pages fluttered into the air, spiraling across the blood-slicked room, some crumpling at the feet of the stunned advisors.

Lars immediately began scrambling after the pages like a crazed librarian mid-breakdown, panicked and swatting at them before they touched the gore on the ground. "Ah—wait! Wait, hold on! That's important evidence!"

The advisors blinked, Ludema hissed. "What the hell kind of nonsense is this?"

Lars gathered a page to his chest and, without missing a beat, announced, "I can explain the anomaly behind King Arthur's glorious and extremely unfortunate detonation."

The other two advisors— Croswin and Dravolt, glared at Lars, clearly on the verge of ordering him executed.

"Gentlemen and lady," Lars declared, rising to his feet dramatically with both arms full of paper. "Your king has fallen not by poison, nor treachery, but by the manifestation of Law XX—a divine execution administered by a very specific Arcana."

He flipped a page. "The Tarot of the Golden Gun—Ephellos, Court Card of Fallen Hierarchy. He is—was—a god forged by belief in ascension, in ordained supremacy, in the killing of those beneath you to maintain the illusion of control. In other words, he was the embodiment of fallen empires and hierarchy, like I mentioned before. In his earlier, unsealed form, he never touched this world. But even his idea alone was enough to collapse two kingdoms, three cult states, and ignite rebellions all over the world. He was the literal idea, just the concept of him shifting world order."

Ludema stepped forward, snarling, "Do not utter the name of a Tarot god in the chamber of the Emperor!"

"And where did you even get this information?" Croswin barked, hand twitching toward the hilt of his segmented claymore. "Have you bonded with a Tarot?! You'll be killed where you stand for it.."

Lars cleared his throat with a chuckle, "Hehe, no. That would be foolish to give up my ENTIRE being to a god."

"Then where..are you getting this information from?"

"Ah," Lars said, one finger raised, papers tucked under his arm. "Because I read. And I listen. And Fortune always lets me know something. Soul Alchemy at its best. And more importantly—" he pointed to the ceiling dramatically, "—your general will be found dead. Right about…now."

There was a thunderous crash. Doors burst open.

Four guards charged in, cloaked in shimmering gray-white alchemical plate armor, their steel cloaks trailing hissed steam. Their weapons—one a crucifix-shaped glaive, one a railbow with lightning-threaded string, one a jagged coil-spear, and one with a blade shaped like a half-gear—were raised in alarm.

One shouted, "The General—General Krelth—he's dead! Found decapitated near the Eastern wing of the estate! His head…it's just—!"

Seth's jaw tensed. A subtle flicker of pain—and rage.

Dravolt lunged toward Lars, growling, "You orchestrated this! He can't be trusted—!"

Lars smiled, sharp as a knife. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Seth raised his hand. "Stand down. If you lay a hand on him, I'll kill every last one of you."

Everything halted.

Ludema turned pale. "Seth…"

The room stilled like a storm that realized it was being watched.

Seth turned his gaze on Lars again, this time quieter. "Where is Ephellos now?"

Lars tucked his hat under his arm and grinned. "Dead. Killed by a man named Lucien Albrecht."

"Lucien Albrecht…that name..where have I heard that? Is he a human?"

"Nope. Not really. Kinda. The Fortune can't tell. Which is surprising."

"He is powerful then…"

In the shadowed corner, the old woman with twin grey braided ponytails tilted her head. Her dark violet eyes widened faintly. Just the sound of that name pulled something taut across her soul.

Seth noticed. "What is it, Astrid?"

She gave no answer. Just a soft breath through the nose. A hunter's calm.

He narrowed his eyes. "That name means something."

Astrid only offered a whisper of a smile.

Seth stood fully. "Then it doesn't matter. My father is dead. Ephellos is gone. That clears my path."

Croswin spoke, tone urgent. "You must be appointed formally by the Sacrarium. At the holy gate, as is law—"

"No." Seth's voice cut like frostbite. "The coronation will be held at the funeral. Four days from now. Public. Grand. It's what he would want."

"You can't," Ludema said. "It would be taken as arrogance—coronation amid mourning?"

Seth's gaze turned molten. "Our empire was never forged by sentiment. It was founded on Law. Industry. Blood. Our own strength. The Empire symbolizes strength built by your own hands and not by the divine wonders of the world such as the gods in the Tarot. Our crown is not bequeathed by divine right. We do not ask. We take. My father died embracing mortal lust—and I will rise showing imperial discipline."

He stepped past them.

"If any of you question my right again—"

Silence.

But when they turned—

Lars was gone.

Astrid remained, still as a ghost.

But her thoughts rang loud:

'Of course it was you…Lucien Albrecht.'

Seth didn't look back. "Spread the news. Let the Empire know… Arthur is dead. And I will take his throne."

Ludema asked, "What about that man who called himself Lars? He waltzed in using some divine power, and left…"

Seth took a deep breath, but rage filled his fists, "I will not cause more bloodshed in my fathers presence! He helped us this time, but if I see him again, I will find the truth. If he has bonded with a god fully in a contract, then he must be purged. He claims it was Soul Alchemy, but..what type?"

Dravolt explained, "Distillation of Thought Turns emotion into logic. A ritual alchemy used to organize chaotic information, track patterns, or map events backward in time. Often used by occult investigators to process trauma, insanity, or conflicting stories. And it's side effects is that the user becomes emotionally detached or loses the ability to empathize for a time. There's a few more like this, like Alkahest of Revelation: The solvent of lies and illusions. A fluid alchemical agent that dissolves falsehoods, glamours, or mental blocks. Can be dripped on letters, corpses, artifacts, or wounds to reveal the true past."

Seth clicked his teeth, looking away, "Tch."

The news of Arthur's death moved like smoke through Orrenthol—not with the roar of trumpets or the call of state bell towers, but with the slow, undeniable crawl of truth whispered between shaking lips. King Arthur—the Steel Crown, the man who'd ruled not by divine right but by grit, structure, and uncompromising logic—was dead. And the first to carry the burden of his death were the knights clad in imperial greyplate, steam-hissing pauldrons gleaming like bleached steel against the dull overcast skies. Their armor bore the crest of the Empire: a gear divided into three, overlaid with the ouroboros of flame, chain, and clockwork. Word was to be spread not through joy or force, but through presence—and so they marched, boots thunderous on cobbled thoroughways, through the winding arteries of the Grey.

In the Heights of the Nobility, where brass-windowed mansions stood behind mechanized gates, the news was met with pearl-draped hands over gaping mouths. Hushed gasps echoed through marble halls filled with ticking clockworks and rose-scented perfumes. Many of the old bloodlines owed Arthur their fortune—not by his generosity, but by the law he held them to. Women in veil-crowns collapsed to chaise lounges, men in waistcoats uncorked rare vintages in silence. They had no love for Arthur, not truly, but he was the keystone in the architecture of their dominion. His death shook their security like a tremor through glass pillars. Their children stared wide-eyed at stained-glass depictions of Arthur in their homes, as their parents whispered of succession, taxes, threats, and that dreadful son—Seth.

Down in the Chartered Quarters, between the gearfoundries and the license halls, the engineers and functionary heads stood in stairwells, listening as knights read the edict aloud in the crackling voice of vox-amplifiers. Ink-stained hands stilled mid-scroll; charts remained unrolled on brass tables. These were the men and women who patented war machines and owned the labor beneath them. Their grief was distant, functional. Arthur was the hammer that held back chaos, the reason their patents weren't stolen, their steel quotas weren't taxed to death by temple-lovers. To them, he was a firewall against both rebellion and religious interference. His death threatened that equilibrium. Some began drafting letters to the interim council. Some eyed their safeboxes. All feared what would come next.

The Servitor Class—clerks, record-keepers, educators and legal aides—gathered in back rooms and rooftop breaks, passing the news among one another with shaking fingers. There were tears here, genuine. Many of them were educated under the royal system Arthur reformed himself. They'd watched his speeches in their schooling, seen the old black-and-white reels of his younger self walking through the early Brayweldt factories, adjusting steam gauges by hand. They didn't worship him, but in their eyes, Arthur was myth turned man—stern, brilliant, unflinching. A leader who built a system where merit mattered at least a little. Now, that thread was snapped. They stared out the windows at the grey horizon and wondered if tomorrow they'd still have jobs—or lives.

In the Labor Districts, the smoke-choked tenements and steam gutters swarmed with whispers. Factory horns didn't sound at full shift. Half the production lines slowed to half-beat. Grease-covered machinists paused, wiping sweat from blackened brows. Women leaned out of laundry-sling balconies, exchanging confused questions, stunned silence. Not all loved him. But many respected him. Arthur never claimed to be a god—but he was something more terrifying. He was real. A man who held the bones of the Empire together with fists of law and efficiency. And he was gone. Some drank early. Others prayed, though not to gods.

And in the undocumented slums, the news didn't come in words—it came in atmosphere. An absence in the wind. Rats stopped chittering. Children who usually stole and played in boiler alleys sat in circles, watching the steel-knights pass through. Some spat. Some cursed the king they said never gave them bread. Others wept silently. Arthur was the devil and the keeper. He never acknowledged them, but neither did he burn them. That was enough for many. Lanterns were lit in windows for reasons no one admitted. In a slum that never prayed to gods, someone scrawled "He was still ours." on the side of a railgate with ash.

Among the grey fogged corridors of the city's churches, grief took stranger shapes. Within the Church of the Tower, built into the side of a once-collapsed rail cathedral, where the walls spiraled upward like jagged teeth around a hollow spire of glass, the followers of the Tower Tarot god, Ozeram, gathered. They were the children of collapse, the devotees of inevitable ruin, and they listened without reaction as the knight made the proclamation. The robed bishop, wearing a rusted crown of scaffolding wire, simply turned to his acolytes and said, "Even kings fall. Let us begin." Then they prayed—to collapse, to shattering, to Arthur's death being part of the Tower's plan.

In contrast, at the moon-silvered steps of the Church of the White Moon, beneath the pale blue lanterns and veiled arc-singers of Ashurael the moon goddess Tarot, the response was sorrowful music and pale weeping. The Moon's Sisterhood, dressed in white funeral garb trimmed with starlit embroidery, sang an ancient hymn about hollow light and fading crowns. Candles flickered along the channels carved into the marble floors. "A king of men, not of gods," one of the songmaidens whispered, her face obscured beneath the Moonveil. "May he be guided beyond the veil by the pale light of our mistress." Worshippers flooded in. Mourners lay bare offerings—gears, ink, steel roses—at the feet of the god's statue.

And far above it all, rising out of the haze of industry, the statue of Arthur loomed. Carved into the shape of a king not enthroned, but standing—back straight, arms crossed, eyes cast toward the spires of the Empire. He did not look triumphant. He looked tired. Resolute.

Atop his crown, perched like a crow on the shoulders of giants, stood Lars Wallace.

One foot planted against the head's curve, the other resting on the edge of a rusted lightning rod, he smoked a bent pipe that sputtered blue smoke into the grey skies. In his other hand—resting against the wind—was a single, weathered card.

The back was stitched with red thread. Blood-red. The symbol was circular. Spinning. A gear with eyes.

And as the steam of Orrenthol wept through the buildings, past clotheslines, over glimmering railways and hollow-eyed children, past gears and bells and brass domes that refused to ring—

Lars simply smiled.

And held the card higher to the storm-thick skies.

Blood trailed like ink from the corner of Lars Wallace's smiling mouth as he crouched atop the steel-crowned statue of King Arthur, the wind tugging at his coat like the hand of some impatient ghost. The pipe had gone out; the stormclouds above him shivered, pregnant with thunder, though no lightning broke them. He grinned despite the growing tremor in his right hand. The card he held between two fingers was old—not aged in time, but in truth. Its back was not printed, but stitched—threads of dark scarlet, tangled in spiral knots that hinted at something older than craft. 

The Tarot of the Wheel of Fortune. The Law of Chance: Fate's Capricious Turning. Its border was gold leaf, worn away by sweat and blood. And at its center, embossed in shifting mirrorlight, was the image of the god Ordin.

The card shimmered faintly in the grey dusk. Then—click—a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds like the blade of a forgotten sword, just long enough to catch the polished edge of the gearwork crown behind Lars. He moved fast, nearly slipping off the statue's shoulder, positioning the card so that the light touched its surface exactly. The card drank the sunlight like wine. Lars bit down on his thumb, hard, and smudged the blood over the card's stitched thread, dragging it in a circle.

Then came the price.

"I offer my sense of smell," Lars whispered, voice calm but low. "So that I may stand again in the eye of Fortune. Right Eye Ritual. Rite of Orbit. Law of Turning."

The moment he finished speaking, the glyphs hidden in the thread ignited—not in flame, but in pressure, like the silence between thunderclaps. His right eye burst, a sharp scream of pain clawing up his throat—but he swallowed it like liquor, head shaking as tears of red rolled down his cheek. Still, he grinned.

Then, in a single flicker, he was gone.

The world dissolved into ink. There was no wind, no light, no sound.

Only stars.

He floated in a void of impossible calm, blacker than shadow, deeper than anything that could be named. But the stars here were not stars. They were diamonds—each one glistening, hovering far apart but connected by invisible threads, like jewels placed in some celestial machinery. They hung like memories: beautiful, distant, and uncaring.

And then came Ordin.

The god of chance hovered lazily above the floating form of Lars Wallace. His body was humanesque, yet in a way no human could ever fully possess. His skin was smooth obsidian laced with microscopic runes that shifted when looked at directly. His hair, long and fluid, was the color of garnet blood, moving slowly like it was underwater. Wings made of pure diamonds stretched wide behind him, not feathered but faceted—each crystalline blade spinning, recalibrating, rearranging like living gears in a machine that no one could fix or break.

His eyes were raw diamonds, refracting every truth and lie within a glance. Upon his brow hovered a halo—a perfect ring made of ten slowly turning pieces, each one carved like a different phase of a wheel. And in his hands, he held the massive Wheel of Fortune itself, a titanic construct of spinning fractal pieces. It was neither gold nor steel, but something between intention and design, as if the entire mechanism was alive. The wheel spun in uneven pulses, reacting to no rhythm but its own—because that was its law.

"Long time no see, Ordin," Lars said coolly, floating there in the void with one bleeding eye and a half-dead smile. "Gotta thank your wheel there for giving me info on the Drakehelm incident and those involved. It's getting me closer to the Empire."

"Oh, gods, not you again," Ordin groaned dramatically, draping himself back like a bored starborn prince. "You mortals really do treat me like a prostitute. Just pop in a sense, lose an eyeball, and whirr, out comes a cosmic truth. Never a hello. Never a 'how are you, oh glorious architect of unpredictability.' No. It's always 'spin the wheel, Ordin.' 'Spin it.' Fuck you."

Lars rolled his one good eye and muttered, "Ewww Stop that." Then, with the faintest smirk at the corner of his lips, Lars added softly, "How are you doing, Ordin?"

The god's eyes widened. His halo pulsed with light.

"Oh! I'm fantastic, thank you for asking!" Ordin swooped forward dramatically, beaming. "It's so rare anyone asks! Do you know the last person who performed the Right Eye ritual? Didn't even wait for introductions. Just screamed and cried about how their child died in a lottery of my wheel. Like, yes, I get it. Fate is cruel. But don't shoot the messenger god!"

"You're not the messenger," Lars muttered, lighting his pipe with a match he conjured from his sleeve. "You're the roulette wheel itself."

"Can't smoke in here. And you mortals are the gamblers." Ordin sighed, placing a hand on his enormous, ever-rotating wheel. "But I do warn you, Lars—every time you perform the ritual, you get closer to breaking. The Law of a Tarot god's domain cannot be trespassed without sacrifice. Your eye, your smell…next it'll be your name, or your history, or your ability to laugh. You know this. The Wheel is based off chance alone."

"You sound like a nagging wife," Lars muttered between puffs. "But hey—every time I come to you, it's 50/50, right? That's what you love. Mortals spinning your wheel. Making you stronger. Law of the Wheel: the more we spin it, the more power you have to interfere. Win-win. Even if I lose."

"Tch," Ordin clicked his tongue, wings flicking. "You're not wrong. My Law is a paradox. Each spin—a mortal's choice. Free will. Yet each spin—my growth. And that's the secret, isn't it? The more uncertain you are, the stronger I become. I am the god of coin flips, dice rolls, and desperate prayers. And..I love bragging on myself."

He leaned down, the Wheel humming behind him like an ancient machine of fate.

"So. What's your question, investigator?"

Lars straightened his collar and extinguished his pipe, voice dropping lower now.

"Where is Fantasia? The All Mother of Beasts."

Everything in the void stilled.

The diamonds in Ordin's wings ceased turning. His halo stopped cycling. The Wheel behind him paused mid-spin, creaking softly.

"Why?" Ordin said, his voice no longer playful. "Why do you keep asking?"

Lars's eye narrowed. "My business. There's a reason why I'm trying to get close to the Empire…"

There was a moment of silence. Ordin stared. Then, begrudgingly, he extended his hand—and touched the Wheel.

It began to spin.

The void shuddered as the pieces of the Wheel turned inward, then outward, like a blooming fractal flower. Its symbols glowed—crescent moons, bestial glyphs, claws, wings, teeth, stars. Lars floated upward, slowly drawn over the spinning mechanism, hovering like a fly about to be swatted by divine gravity.

Then—

Click.

The Wheel stopped.

"Your question cannot be answered," Ordin said with a grimace. "Haha! I win again!"

Lars scoffed, furious. "All that, and you spin me nothing? I should offer my damn sausage next time just to see if that makes you take it seriously!"

"Gods, no, please." Ordin winced. "That'll be your fault once your wife sees you have no baby making tool down there."

"It's worth it. The discovery of Fantasia is worth it. Lars laughed bitterly. "Then I'll be back. Next spin, next piece."

"You forgot you can sacrifice the will of others to the Wheel to get answers!"

"Nahhh. I can't bring myself to hurt anyone actually."

Ordin said nothing. His wings shimmered.

And Lars Wallace, with his smile now gone and his pipe long dead, fell backward into the black, spiraling out of the domain of the Tarot, back into a world ruled not by gods—but by gamblers.

…

The marble halls of the Empire Estate wept like mausoleums. Oil-lamps flickered behind stained glass grates, dimming under the weight of mourning, their golden halos casting slow, dripping shadows that trailed like the edges of forgotten oaths. As Seth walked, the air around him felt unnaturally still—cut not by wind, but by the slow unraveling of a kingdom's breath. Every bootstep struck against the obsidian-veined floor echoed like a pronouncement, a slow dirge for a world that, just hours ago, still had a father.

Staff lined the corridors in broken procession—maids in crimson-trimmed mourning dresses held soiled handkerchiefs over trembling mouths; butlers and brass-coat stewards lowered their gazes to the floor, unable to meet the son of the man who had ruled them with both blade and benediction. Some wept openly. Others collapsed silently against pillars, whispering to no one. "He can't be gone," murmured one, voice frayed to paper. "I just saw him yesterday… he smiled at me." Another clutched a silver fork to his chest like a relic, sobbing into gloved fingers. "The kitchens are still warm… they'll never be warm again."

But Seth did not flinch. He walked with imperial stillness, a white figure of grief forged into something harder than steel. His long coat trailed behind like the edge of a banner yet to be unfurled, its golden inlays catching the trembling reflections of light like crackling fireflies in snow. His hands were gloved, clenched at his sides. His eyes—grey and stormlike—stared ahead without breaking. He was not yet Emperor. But already, he wore the weight.

Behind him trailed the three pillars of state, each their own storm of unease.

Croswin Maergal, the Chancellor of Arms, lumbered with thunder in his stride. His bald head glistened with sweat, and though his suit—patterned in black wolfhide with brass-pinned medals stitched through the shoulders—seemed carved from certainty, his fingers twitched near-constantly against his sidearm holster. His monocle clicked each time he blinked. "This is a wound the Empire cannot afford," he muttered under breath, mostly to himself. "Not now. Not now, not now…"

Beside him, her footsteps inaudible over the hush, Ludema Veiss, the Grand Archivist, glided like a specter made of treaties. Her parchment-layered robes whispered with every motion, centuries of codices and burnt diplomacy stitched into folds that rustled like history itself. Her gilded eye-makeup shimmered beneath the lamps, gold-powdered tears carefully painted onto her expressionless face. "And now the page turns," she whispered, almost lovingly. "I wonder what blood will sign the next era."

Trailing just behind them, gripping his cane like a fencing foil, Dravolt Hask, Imperial Espionant, leaned heavily as he moved, his cane clicking with the cry of a screaming angel carved into its head. He sniffed once, dryly. "Should have known," he rasped. "No king that powerful dies peacefully. His enemies didn't find him. His fate did." He adjusted his cufflinks—each one shaped like sealed mouths—and narrowed his jaundiced eyes at the fourth figure beside them.

Astrid. The outsider. The Black Chapel assassin, called in during the dark days of the Eastern Witch Rebellions, now walking among the most sacred corridors of Empire as if she'd never dipped her sabers in forbidden blood. She wore her coat like a mantle of blasphemy—dusty black and sharp-collared, layered in grim silks and reinforced leather sewn with quiet charms. Her two long grey braids swung like pendulums as she walked, her tricorn hat cocked low over glowing violet eyes. She made no attempt to look at the advisors. She didn't need to.

Still, the murmurs came.

"She doesn't belong here," muttered Croswin. "She's barely at the estate. Out hunting witches on Arthur and Seth's command. And when she finally gets here…it gets dark.."

"An unholy presence at the sanctuary of Heaven's Crown," whispered Ludema, eyes narrowing with disdain.

"I'd rather share a tomb with plague rats than let her shadow cross sacred ground," Dravolt scoffed.

But as Astrid's eye slid toward them—just one, a single glance, nothing more than a brief tilt of her head—their hearts stumbled. A terrible, quiet bloodlust moved in the air like a shifting gravity. Not fury. Not threat. Just… inevitability. If she wanted them dead, they would never speak another word. That was enough to silence even Ludema.

"Be quiet," Seth said without looking back, and they obeyed.

They reached the sanctuary doors—tall, wrought from duskwood and affixed with a dozen celestial locks of etched alchemy. They bore the sigil of Arthur himself: a sun shattered by a single blade. The guards stationed there stepped aside with trembling reverence. Seth said nothing. His hands reached forward and pushed the doors open. The creak was deep. Final.

"Wait here," he said, and without waiting for answer, stepped through and closed the door behind him.

The sanctuary was quiet, and soft in light. The air inside did not smell of incense or iron—it smelled like old paper, warm sunlight, dust, and lavender. The ceiling arched high above, painted in gold and bone-white depictions of the Empire's rise—Arthur's conquests, his reforms, the great peace forged with fire and cruelty alike. Tall bookshelves ringed the oval chamber, and at the far end, beneath a massive stained glass portrait of a sun pierced by chains, sat a singular throne of black marble. It had never been used. Kings did not sit in this room. They reflected.

And there, alone in the stillness, was Arthur.

Not his corpse. Not the twisted ruin left on that opulent deathbed. But Arthur as he had always been in life—or at least, how Seth remembered him. Seated tall, arms upon his knees, eyes closed, clad in full regalia of white and black steel plate trimmed in gold. The image was carved in honor—life-sized, impossibly lifelike, every wrinkle and breath of age etched with care. His crown rested beside him, not upon him. The sanctuary was not for kings, but for sons.

Seth approached slowly, step by step. He stopped before the statue and dropped to one knee. His head bowed. One gloved fist tightened and slammed against the ground—not loud, not angry. Just firm. Like a final oath being signed.

His voice trembled only once.

The sanctuary of Arthur the Lion-Blooded was a chamber carved from reverence itself. No throne, no banners, no fire. Just silence—stone silence, deep and endless and sacred. It was a place not of war councils or coronations, but of private reckoning. A place Arthur built to remember what the Empire cost him. A room without subjects, without fanfare. A room for truth.

Seth stood before his father's effigy—stone-wrought and lifelike—and breathed, as though waiting for the statue to open its eyes and tell him what the hell to do next.

"You used to come here," Seth said quietly, voice beginning to tremble, "to escape the noise."

His eyes lingered on the faint lavender-stained glass that bathed the space in holy dusk. A serenity meant for kings. But peace didn't live in him. Not today.

"You said this room was where you spoke to no one but yourself." His voice rose, his tone sharp with the sting of heartbreak disguised as anger. "Not the Lords of Council. Not your knights. Not even me. Just the part of you that bled for this land, away from the eyes of those who thought you were untouchable."

He took a step forward. Another. His boots echoed against the marble, a slow and deliberate drumbeat.

"This sanctuary… this room… this is where the lies stopped. Where the man came out from behind the myth."

His hands tightened into fists. "And now I'm standing here, speaking to a goddamn wall."

His eyes burned as he looked into the carved face of the father he loved, and hated, and never quite understood. "You built this Empire. You saved it from plague and fire. You crushed the Red Death under your boot when the world called it a prophecy. You purged the witches from the inner cities. You made the people believe in steel, in labor, in rising without divine mercy."

He pointed upward—toward the unseen heavens.

"The gods whispered to you. I know they did. You told me when I was a boy—how they tempted you. How they tried to barter their blessings in exchange for dominion here. And you spat in their face."

Seth's voice cracked, and a hot tear rolled down his cheek. "Because you believed in man. In strength. In self-reliance. No cards. No prayers. Just grit. Sweat. Tooth and fucking claw."

He paused. His body shuddered slightly, and he stared at the floor.

"I'm not ready."

His voice broke completely now, falling into the sanctuary like a stone.

"I know what they say. I hear them. Seth the Disciplined. Seth the Heir. Seth who studies law by memory and war by instinct." He shook his head bitterly. "But that was all to match you. Not to replace you. I wanted greatness. Not perfection."

He looked back up at Arthur's stone face.

"But now I have to be perfect. Don't I? Because you're gone."

He laughed under his breath—a dry, helpless sound—and looked away again.

"I should've shadowed you more. I should've asked more. Should've… learned. Instead of just watching from a distance, thinking I'd have time. This was out of nowhere, father!…You allow the people to worship any deity they want. Because it's of their own strength, and free will is granted on them. That's mercy..but I sense no heresy in freedom."

And then… silence.

A stillness so vast it swallowed the air. Only the faintest crying could be heard outside the door—imperial staff grieving in helpless little sobs that made Seth's skin crawl. He gritted his teeth, his jaw trembling in frustration as rage boiled in his throat—not at them, not at Arthur, but at the injustice of how quickly it ended. 

And then… the whispers began.

First like dust on the back of the ear. Then louder. Distinct.

Three voices. Two male, one female. Indistinct and echoing, but real. They slid like oil through the cracks of his mind, one laughing softly, one whispering truths that sounded like lies, and the third—a woman—chanting a wordless melody like a lullaby laced with arsenic.

The voices sounded…mighty? Royal even…tempting.

"No…" Seth whispered, shaking his head, stepping back. "No, no, no—"

The voices surged. Louder. Crashing into him like waves. He pressed his palms against his temples, staggering, the room spinning.

"GET OUT."

He drew his ceremonial blade, its edge still faintly thrumming from earlier rage, and with a shaking hand—eyes wild—he sliced through his hair in a rough, brutal motion. White and gold curls hit the floor like falling snow. Then his beard—sliced clean from his jaw, blood lightly dripping from a nicked chin.

"I'm not perfect," he hissed, trembling, staring up at the painted depiction of Arthur. "But I will be. I won't listen to them. Not like you didn't. They called to you… and now they're calling me. But I won't fucking answer."

He collapsed to both knees, breath shaking, blood cooling on his chin. The whispers faded. Quiet, then gone. "I'll turn into you.."

Seth stared upward at the painting—Arthur in full regalia, one hand resting on a map of the known world, the other behind his back, calm and kingly. And something changed in Seth's expression.

A smile.

A subtle, somber smile pulled at his lips, faint but determined.

"I'll pick it up," he said. "The mantle. The burdens. The weight."

His breathing calmed. He closed his eyes. "I'll carry it all. Like you did. Like I must."

And then he stood. "I can do it..I can do it. Yeah I can."

Straight. Proud. Beautiful in his solemn rebirth. His hair now short and gleaming with gold and white majesty, his face bare and bold. He looked not like a man rebelling against his fate, but one now prepared to become it.

He opened the sanctuary doors.

The advisors stepped back reflexively. Their eyes widened as they saw the transformation. Seth looked like a reflection of the Lion-Blooded now—not just in blood, but in bearing.

"We will prepare the funeral," Seth said calmly. "It will be a spectacle. As it should be. The man who saved a continent deserves nothing less."

The advisors nodded. No hesitation now. Only awe.

Croswin murmured, "He looks like him…when Arthur was younger…"

"Even more," said Ludema, softly. "And his attitude…"

'He's trying to become an exact copy of the king..?!'

Seth turned toward Astrid, still standing with that ghostly smile, fingers resting on the hilt of her hidden blades.

"I want your Chapel on security. Witches may try to desecrate the funeral. I want it clean."

Astrid's smile thinned.

"No," she said gently, without blinking.

Seth blinked in surprise. "Seth narrowed his eyes, but did not raise his voice. "This funeral is important. Not just for me, but for the world. I won't allow it to be stained by gods or zealots. Please. I ask humbly." Seth clapped his hands together softly.

Astrid said nothing, only stared. Something cold flickered in her old, violet eyes. But then, she spoke with a smile. "Only I was assigned to you. If I involve other assassins like me, the Exarch will look at me as if I needed…help. And as his closest member..I cannot allow that. I have been entrusted with this task of aiding this kingdom against witches due to their strength, and our knowledge of their weakness and dark power. I can do this alone."

Seth studied her, then took a slow breath and gave her a diplomatic nod.

"I trust you. Thank you," he said. "I have a feeling… things will happen."

Without waiting for an answer, Seth turned, and began walking down the hall, his new footsteps softer now—but no less resolved. The Empire would mourn.

And soon… the world would watch.

….

Back on Lucien's train—

The train screamed across the winding track like a berserk iron beast, spewing steam and sparks as it rattled through valleys and over decrepit bridges at a speed no sane engineer would dare attempt. The whistle had long since snapped off. The windows vibrated. The rails beneath sparked orange like dragonfire. The wind howled through the broken panels, and every gear in the engine clanged like funeral bells.

It started, as it always did, with Zaku.

"So… I might've… maybe—just a little—turned that weird brass dial in the engine room," she said with a crooked smile, her legs swinging casually as if the train wasn't hurtling toward oblivion.

Vaelle's eyes widened under his crow mask. "You what?"

"It said Velocity Gate on it!" she whined defensively. "I wanted to see if it worked!"

"It worked, alright!" Lucien shouted as he staggered into the engine car, gripping a steel pole to keep upright as the floor pitched violently under his feet. "We're moving like a goddamn artillery shell!"

The Jack flipped in midair as the train jolted, slamming into the ceiling with a dramatic pose, holding up a coin like he was betting on which way they'd die.

The Joker, windmilling his scythe like a flag in a storm, mimed bracing for impact and exaggerated prayer hands.

Sella slammed into the side wall, caught herself, and screamed over the cacophony. "WE NEED TO SLOW THIS THING DOWN!"

Zaku hopped to her feet with a mischievous grin. "I got it! I'll pull the emergency brake!"

"DO. NOT. TOUCH. ANYTHING," Vaelle bellowed, trying to wrench the dial back with brute force. The moment he touched it, a burst of steam exploded into his face, sending him sprawling backwards like a ragdoll in a plague doctor costume.

Lucien growled, teeth gritted. "What kind of train has an emergency brake next to a velocity gate?! Who designs this shit!?"

Sella staggered upright, gripping the side of a swaying cabinet. "Lucien! Sacrifice yourself!"

Lucien whipped around. "Excuse me?!"

"Jump in front of the train and slow it down with your body or something!"

"Hell no!" he yelled back, bracing himself as the train lurched again. "You do it!"

"JOKER," he pointed sharply, "THROW HER IN FRONT OF THE TRAIN!"

The Joker, without hesitation, saluted with a flourish, grabbed Sella like a ragdoll, and began dragging her toward the engine car.

Sella screamed, gripping the walls. "I SWEAR I WILL MURDER YOU, LUCIEN! I HATE YOU!!"

Meanwhile, the Queen elegantly floated through the chaos, casually collecting scattered luggage and handing out hats that had flown off heads, as if she were a train hostess on the world's worst commute. She gently patted Zaku's shoulder as she ran by, as if to say, this is your fault and we both know it.

The King, unmoving, stood in the corner like a dignified statue. A teacup in hand. Completely still. Unshaken. Silent judgment.

The train ripped through a stone tunnel and burst out the other side into a deepening dusk, the horizon ahead glowing with city lights.

And then—like an iron comet—they descended into Orrenthol.

The train tore into the Steel Wards district like a metal leviathan dropped from the sky. The entire front station glimmered with industrial elegance: cast-iron beams and stained glass panels shimmered in the sunset haze; glowing pressure gauges lined the support pillars like cathedral candles. Large brass statues of cloaked engineers lined the entryway, their eyes lit with rotating clockwork pupils. Steamwalkers clacked across the upper rails, wheezing and hauling freight. Newsboys yelled about rations. Nobles in trench coats and layered cravats clinked silver canes as they strolled by. A clock tower overhead boomed six times with a blast of pressurized chimes.

Dozens of red-coated station guards in polished gray cuirasses and breathing masks marched in formation past the gates, inspecting tickets and scanning passengers. And among the crowd, small scenes unfolded:

Two old women stood near a copper pipe radiator, whispering over cups of tea.

"Did you hear? King Arthur—dead…"

"Strength preserve us," the other muttered. "It's those cursed cards. I think some god was involved. It had to be…"

A boy nearby clutched his father's coat tightly. "Papa, are the gods angry at us?"

"No, son," the father whispered, eyes dark. "They aren't. They have no reason to be."

And then—

They heard it.

A scream of metal. A whistling roar. Steam and smoke on the wind like the breath of a furious god.

Everyone turned toward the tracks.

From the horizon, they saw the blaze of light and pressure, the fury of the rails, and the impossible speed of the incoming train.

Eyes widened. Mouths dropped. A man dropped his monocle into his tea.

The train shrieked as it approached.

Brass wheels screamed. Gears ground.

It was too fast.

Far too fast.

And it wasn't stopping.