The wine at court was poisoned long before it ever touched the lips.
Caelan—still wearing the mask of Lord Rael Aurelian—leaned back in his chair at the outer ring of the royal court's banquet hall, watching the flow of conversation like a general studying a battlefield. Every movement, every laugh, every clink of a goblet was a dagger or a shield.
He could already see the fault lines forming.
To his right, Lord Valtric of House Erenthil—the wealthiest merchant-noble in the empire—spoke with the simpering Duke Rennar, a spineless relic of a bygone age. Rennar laughed too loudly, clearly desperate to curry favor. To his left, Lady Lys Verenne watched him from behind her painted fan, eyes sharp with curiosity. She was a whisper-monger, a widow with no title but all the ears of the capital.
And across the hall, seated beneath the towering stained glass of the imperial phoenix, sat the true monsters.
Queen Elaria.
And beside her, Prince Theron.
Theron had changed. Ten years ago, he had been a lean, awkward boy with a jealous heart and a cruel mouth. Now he was taller, broader—regal, even. But Caelan knew that heart remained the same: insecure, easily swayed, desperate to prove himself worthy of the throne.
The crown he stole.
Their eyes met across the hall. Theron did not recognize him—how could he? A decade of exile had stripped Caelan of his boyish face. But something in his gaze made the prince's expression tighten.
Good. Let him feel the cold breath of something he cannot name.
Later that night, after the feast had ended and the masks of civility were hung alongside the nobles' cloaks, Caelan returned to his newly assigned estate—a crumbling manor on the edge of the noble quarter. It was a far cry from the grand palace wings he had once called home, but the isolation suited him.
"Lord Aurelian," said a quiet voice as he passed into the study. "You have a visitor."
Caelan raised an eyebrow. His steward, a man named Bram—loyal, competent, and utterly forgettable in a crowd—never allowed anyone through unvetted.
"Who?"
"Lady Lys Verenne," Bram replied, stepping aside.
She entered with a glide of silk and the smell of myrrh.
"Forgive the intrusion," Lys said with a half-smile. "But after tonight's performance, I couldn't sleep. Curiosity is a dangerous condition, you understand."
Caelan gestured toward the hearth. "Then let us see if we can cure it."
They sat opposite each other, firelight casting flickers across her elaborate mask of cosmetics. Caelan poured two cups of blackroot tea—bitter, unsweetened. She accepted hers without hesitation. A test. She passed it.
"You were studying everyone tonight," she said. "Except me."
"I make it a habit to study what I don't understand," he replied. "You, Lady Verenne, are a known quantity. Or so I thought."
She laughed softly. "High praise from a ghost."
He froze—only for a heartbeat. Then met her eyes.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, don't insult me, Lord Rael." She set her cup down, untouched. "There are only a handful of men in this empire who can look the queen in the eye without blinking. And even fewer who carry the weight of exile like armor, not shame."
A tense silence followed.
"I don't plan to expose you," she said at last. "Not yet."
"Then what do you want?"
Her smile faded. "Leverage."
Now they were speaking the same language.
"I lost my husband to the queen's schemes," she said, voice cool. "He died in the Third Succession War—on a battlefield we were never supposed to hold, sent there by a forged command. He was a loyalist to King Valen. I buried him alone."
Caelan's expression didn't change, but something cold settled deeper into his gut.
"She's planning something," Lys continued. "A consolidation of power, hidden beneath the talk of peace. I hear whispers—about a secret faction, a blood-purge in the east, even talks with the Thaerien Empire across the sea."
"And you think I can stop her?"
"I think you're the only one who ever could."
Caelan considered her. Sharp, bitter, dangerous—but useful.
"I'll need names," he said. "And loyalty."
"You'll have both," she said, standing. "In return, I want justice."
"Justice," Caelan echoed. "Or revenge?"
Her lips curled. "Is there a difference in this city?"
Two days later, in the Palace of Blades—Vireon's military headquarters, Caelan's plan began.
He entered under pretense of claiming old war records tied to House Aurelian, which technically he had the right to do under his restored title. The guards barely glanced at the parchment he presented.
Inside, the vast marble hallways echoed with footsteps and clattering armor. Caelan walked as though he belonged—and in truth, he once had. He knew these halls. He knew every turn, every hidden passage, every flaw in the guard schedule.
He also knew where to find General Corven Draeven.
A legend among the army, Corven was once Caelan's sworn swordmaster and the last living man who might still carry a flicker of loyalty to the fallen heir.
Caelan found him alone in the Hall of Command, hunched over a table of wooden unit markers.
The general looked up.
"Who are you?" he barked, squinting. "I don't know you."
"You trained me to break an assassin's wrist before he could draw a second blade," Caelan said quietly. "And you once told me only cowards fight with poison."
Corven stared at him.
Then took a step back, as if he were seeing a ghost.
"By the gods," he whispered. "Your Highness—"
"Not here," Caelan said sharply. "Not ever again. That name is dead. I'm Lord Aurelian now. And I need your help."
A long pause.
Then Corven dropped to one knee.
"I swore an oath to the true heir," he said. "I thought I failed you."
Caelan's throat tightened.
"Help me make it right," he said. "The game has already begun."
That night, from the upper balcony of the Aurelian estate, Caelan stood alone, overlooking the glittering lights of the capital. The golden dome of the royal palace loomed like a curse.
He pulled from his pocket a tiny carved token—a rook, from an old chessboard.
"In chess," his father had once told him, "the rook is underestimated. Rigid. Predictable. But it has one thing the others do not: it breaks through walls."
Caelan let the token roll between his fingers.
The board was set. The pieces were moving.
And he?
He was no longer playing to survive.
He was playing to win.