The royal palace trembled with the King's fury. His voice thundered through the marble halls, echoing off the high ceilings and crashing against the golden pillars.
"How many times have I warned you?" the King roared, his eyes blazing with unrestrained wrath as he struck the armrest of his throne. "How many times did I tell you not to cross paths with the Dream family? They are not to be toyed with—they do not forgive, and they do not forget!"
The Crown Prince stood before him, pale and stiff, unable to meet his father's burning gaze. Sweat gathered on his forehead as the King's words cut deeper than any blade.
"They will destroy you," the King spat. "And worse—they will destroy us all. Our family cannot survive the weight of their vengeance."
The King's voice cracked, and suddenly the force of his rage gave way to a tremor. He lowered himself onto the throne, his fingers gripping the gilded armrests tightly as though to anchor himself. His shoulders shook with a subtle, almost invisible shiver.
His mind slipped away from the present, back into the days when he had been nothing but a young prince riding into the chaos of war. The clash of steel, the cries of dying men, the smell of blood-soaked earth—it all came rushing back to him with merciless clarity.
He remembered fighting alongside the current Duke of Dream, Meliny's father. Where the young prince fought with desperate precision, parrying and striking with measured skill, the Duke had been something else entirely.
The Duke moved like a demon born of the battlefield. His blade carved through flesh and armor with terrifying ease, and not a single drop of his own blood was ever spilled. He laughed—laughed with twisted delight—his eyes alight with a sadistic hunger as he painted himself crimson with the lives of their enemies.
The prince had watched him then, horrified, as the Duke stood among a sea of mutilated corpses, drenched in gore from head to toe. And in a trembling whisper, he had uttered the words that still haunted him:
"They are not human… They are monsters. The Dreams are the spawn of the Devil himself."
Now, sitting on his throne, the King realized he had spoken aloud. His words slipped past his lips like a curse. The Crown Prince frowned in confusion, staring at him with wide eyes.
"Father?" he asked cautiously.
But the King did not answer. He was too lost in the memories, in the fear that still lived within his bones.
—
Far from the palace, within the cold stone walls of his study, Leonard Dream sat in silence. The candlelight danced across his sharp features, his expression carved from shadow and menace. He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin, listening intently as the spy delivered his report.
The King's palace, shaken.
The Crown Prince, humiliated.
The royal family, unraveling.
A slow, cruel smile curled across Leonard's lips. His eyes glimmered with the same merciless cruelty his father once carried into battle.
"So," he murmured, voice low and velvet-smooth. "The palace begins to crumble."
The spy bowed his head, trembling, as Leonard's gaze pinned him like a predator to prey.
"This," Leonard whispered, his words wrapping around the silence like chains, "is only the beginning. They have yet to see what true despair looks like."
His laugh was quiet, but it carried the weight of a storm yet to come.