Rowan Ravenshade sat in his study, bathed in the warm, golden glow of a mana-lamp.
The room smelled of old paper, pipe tobacco, and the faint, metallic scent of ink.
It was a sanctuary of order.
The bookshelves were lined with perfectly aligned volumes of Oakhaven Law.
The heavy oak desk was a battlefield of documents, but even here, there was structure.
Stacks of trade agreements on the left, tax reports in the center, and personal correspondence on the right.
Rowan picked up his stamp—a heavy block of obsidian carved with the Ravenshade crest—and pressed it into the red wax of a document.
Authorized.
He let out a long sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
The report was for the quarterly grain distribution.
The numbers were good.
According to the sheets provided by the Central Ministry, the surplus had increased by 8%.
Oakhaven was thriving.
"Thank the Light," Rowan murmured. "Another stable season."
He leaned back, the leather chair groaning under his weight.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the silence of the house wash over him.
It was a good silence.
For seven years, the silence of this house had been heavy with grief, a holding breath while his son lay in a coma.
But now?
Now the silence felt peaceful.
Kael was awake.
Kael was recovering.
Rowan smiled.
He had sent Kael to the tailor today.
He imagined his son standing in front of a mirror, draped in fine silk, looking every inch the Noble Lord he was born to be.
Kael had missed so much—his teenage years, the balls, the hunts.
Rowan wanted to give it all back to him.
He wanted to wrap the boy in velvet and keep the world's sharp edges far, far away.
Bam.
The heavy double doors of the study flew open.
They bounced off the stoppers with a violence that made the crystal decanter on the side table rattle.
Rowan jumped, his hand instinctively going to the letter opener before he realized where he was.
Kael stood in the doorway.
He wasn't wearing the new suit.
He was wearing the same coat he had left in, but he looked... different.
His hair was windblown.
His face, usually pale, was flushed with a strange, cold color.
And his boots—Rowan's eyes darted down—his fine leather boots were stained with gray mud.
"Kael?" Rowan stood up, concern instantly flooding his chest.
"What happened? Did the carriage break down? Did someone hurt you?"
Kael walked into the room.
He didn't sit.
He walked straight to the desk and planted his hands on the polished wood, leaning forward until he was eye-level with his father.
"I went to the river," Kael said.
His voice was low, vibrating with a suppressed energy that Rowan had never heard before.
"The river?" Rowan blinked.
"The Promenade? It's lovely this time of year, but you look like you walked through a bog."
"Not the Promenade," Kael cut him off.
"The Iron Bridge. The Lower District."
Rowan froze.
The smile slid off his face like oil.
"The Lower District?" Rowan asked, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"Kael... why? You know the rules. It isn't safe. There are thieves, diseases... Why would you go there?"
"To see," Kael said.
"To see the people you govern."
Kael pushed off the desk and began to pace, his cane forgotten in his hand.
He was moving with a fluidity that shouldn't be possible for a recovering invalid, but Rowan was too distracted by the boy's anger to notice the lack of a limp.
"I saw a child eating mud, Father," Kael said.
He didn't shout.
He stated it like a fact, sharp and jagged.
"I saw a mother beaten by a guard because her son stole a piece of bread that was already ruined.
I saw eyes that had no light in them.
They are starving.
Right there.
Across the river.
While we sit here and stamp wax."
Rowan felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach.
He hated the Lower District.
Not because he despised the people, but because it was the one problem he couldn't seem to fix.
It was the scar on Oakhaven's face.
"Kael," Rowan said gently, walking around the desk.
"I know. It is... difficult to see.
You have been asleep for a long time.
The world is a harsh place.
You have a good heart, son.
You always did.
But you must understand—"
"Understand what?" Kael spun around.
His eyes were blazing gray fire.
"Understand why the surplus grain reports say we have overflowing silos, yet people are dying of malnutrition a mile away?
I saw the reports on your desk yesterday, Father.
Where is the food going?"
Rowan stopped.
He felt a flash of defensiveness.
He worked eighteen hours a day.
He sacrificed his health, his social life, everything to keep this administration running.
To be questioned by his son—who had woken up two days ago—stung.
"It is not that simple," Rowan said, his voice firming up.
He gestured to the stacks of paper.
"Governance is not about giving everyone everything they want.
It is about logistics.
It is about the Law."
"The Law?" Kael scoffed.
"Does the Law say we starve children?"
"The Law says we reward contribution!" Rowan snapped.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Rowan regretted the tone immediately, but he couldn't take it back.
He walked to the sideboard and poured a glass of water, his hands trembling slightly.
"Sit down, Kael," Rowan said wearily.
Kael didn't sit.
He stood like a statue.
Rowan sighed and drank the water.
"You saw the suffering. I know. It hurts me too.
Do you think I enjoy it?
Do you think I want them to suffer?"
"Then fix it," Kael said.
"I can't just fix it, Kael!" Rowan slammed the glass down.
"Listen to me.
Oakhaven is built on a delicate balance.
We are surrounded by threats.
The Noxlurs in the Wildlands.
The rival City-States to the West.
Our defense budget is astronomical.
The Mana Barrier that protects this city costs millions of gold crowns a day to maintain.
Millions."
Rowan walked back to his desk and picked up a ledger—the Tax Code of 1530.
He held it up like a shield.
"The citizens of the Upper District—the merchants, the mages, the nobles—they pay a Premium Tax.
They contribute 40% of their income to the city's defense.
In exchange, they receive the highest tier of benefits: sanitation, mana-grid access, imported food."
Rowan tossed the book onto the desk.
"The Lower District... they contribute almost nothing, Kael.
Most of them are unskilled laborers.
Their tax contribution is less than 2%.
The city subsidizes their housing.
We provide the water.
We provide the guards."
"You provide guards who beat them," Kael interjected coldly.
"Guards who keep order!" Rowan argued.
"If we didn't police the slums, the crime would spill over the bridges.
It would infect the trade routes.
The economy would collapse, and then everyone would starve.
Not just the poor.
Everyone."
Rowan looked at his son, pleading for him to understand the burden of the crown, or in this case, the Council seat.
"Magnus explained it to me years ago," Rowan said, his voice softening.
"He calls it the 'Law of Weight.'
You cannot carry a stone if you are drowning.
We must keep the head of the city—the Upper District—strong and healthy.
If the head dies, the body dies.
We tax the poor less because they have less.
In exchange, they get less.
It is fair.
It is the only way the math works."
Kael stared at him.
The boy's face was unreadable, a mask of smooth porcelain over something boiling.
"Magnus told you this?" Kael asked quietly.
"Yes," Rowan nodded, relieved that Kael seemed to be listening.
"President Magnus is a visionary, Kael.
You don't know what he has done for us.
When the Trade Wars happened five years ago, while you slept, he saved us from bankruptcy.
He made the hard choices.
He cut the fat to save the muscle."
"The fat," Kael repeated.
"That's what you call them?"
"It's a metaphor!" Rowan rubbed his face.
"Look, Kael. I know it looks cruel from the ground level.
But from the top... from where Magnus sits... he sees the whole picture.
He has to make decisions for the survival of the majority.
Sometimes... sometimes a limb must be numb for the heart to keep beating."
Rowan walked over and placed his hands on Kael's shoulders.
He looked into his son's gray eyes, searching for the boy he raised.
"I kept you away from this," Rowan whispered.
"I wanted you to see the beauty of Oakhaven, not the machinery that keeps it running.
I failed in that.
But you must trust me.
You must trust us.
The system isn't perfect, but it keeps the monsters out."
Kael looked at his father's hands on his shoulders.
He looked at the tired lines in Rowan's face.
Rowan believed it.
Kael realized it with a sinking sensation in his gut.
Rowan wasn't lying.
He wasn't evil.
He was completely, utterly indoctrinated.
Rowan truly believed that the slums were a necessary sacrifice.
He believed that Magnus was a hero holding back the dark.
He believed that the starving child Kael saw was just an unfortunate statistical anomaly in a grand, successful equation.
It was worse than if Rowan had been evil.
Evil could be fought.
Blindness... blindness was harder to cure.
"Father," Kael said.
His voice was no longer angry.
It was sad.
"You say they pay less tax.
Is that what the books say?"
"Yes," Rowan nodded vigorously, gesturing to the piles of paper Finn prepared.
"It's all there.
Verified by the Ministry of Finance."
"And you trust the Ministry?"
"They are appointed by Magnus," Rowan said simply.
"Of course I trust them."
Kael slowly reached up and removed Rowan's hands from his shoulders.
He took a step back.
"It is for the greater good," Rowan added, the mantra slipping out almost automatically.
"We do what we must."
Kael looked at the desk, piled high with lies stamped in red wax.
"The greater good," Kael repeated.
The words tasted like ash.
In his past life, Kael had heard those words before.
A General had said them right before ordering a village burned to stop a plague.
A King had said them right before executing his own brother.
The greater good is usually just a shield for the greater evil, Kael thought.
But he couldn't say that.
Not now.
If he pushed harder, Rowan would just dig in.
Rowan would run to Magnus for reassurance, and Magnus would know Kael was a problem.
Kael needed to be smarter.
He needed to let his father sleep a little longer while he sharpened the knife.
Kael forced his posture to relax.
He leaned heavily on his cane again, letting his shoulders slump.
"I am tired, Father," Kael lied.
"The excursion... it took more out of me than I thought."
Rowan's face instantly shifted from defensive to concerned.
"Oh.
Oh, of course.
I'm sorry, Kael.
I shouldn't have lectured you.
You are still recovering.
The stress..."
"Yes," Kael said.
"The stress.
I just... I saw things that scared me.
I wanted to understand."
"And you will," Rowan soothed him, guiding him toward the door.
"In time, you will take your place on the Council.
You will see the ledgers yourself.
You will see that we are doing the best we can."
"I'm sure I will," Kael said.
He stopped at the doorway and looked back at his father.
Rowan was already moving back to the desk, back to the stack of fake reports, back to the comfort of his ordered world.
"Father?"
Rowan looked up, pen in hand.
"Yes, son?"
"Does Magnus ever visit the Lower District?"
Rowan paused.
He frowned, thinking.
"The President is a busy man, Kael.
He cannot be everywhere.
That is why he has generals.
And... well, me."
"Right," Kael said.
"Goodnight, Father."
"Goodnight, Kael.
Sleep well."
Kael closed the heavy oak doors.
He stood in the hallway for a moment, listening to the scratch of his father's pen.
The sound of a good man signing death warrants he didn't even read.
Kael looked at the cane in his hand.
He straightened his back.
The limp vanished.
"He defends the system because he thinks it's a shield," Kael whispered to the empty corridor.
"He doesn't know it's a cage."
Kael turned and walked toward the stairs.
He wasn't going to his bedroom.
He was going to the library.
He needed to find a map of the sewers.
If his father wouldn't fix the rot, Kael would have to cut it out himself.
And he wouldn't use a stamp.
He would use a blade.