The city did not sleep easily.

  Some cheered Sei’s words. Quietly. In doorways. In kitchens where hands shook while holding cups. Others barred their windows and whispered prayers that no one answered aloud.

  By morning, Toradol was divided—not into factions, but into interpretations.

  Healers argued in hushed tones whether what he’d done at Greymark was miracle or violation. Guild halls debated whether his presence meant opportunity or catastrophe. The watch reported an increase in anonymous tips, many of them contradictory, all of them afraid.

  The King received three petitions before noon.

  The council received none.

  They were watching.

  So was Eva.

  She trained Sei harder that day—not cruelly, but relentlessly. Precision drills. Stress responses. Controlled restraint. She watched his breathing more than his strikes, his hands more than his blade.

  “You spoke well,” she said at last.

  Sei wiped sweat from his brow. “That wasn’t the plan.”

  “No,” Eva agreed. “It never is.”

  He didn’t smile.

  Far beyond Toradol’s walls, past roads that no longer bore names, there was a chamber without banners.

  No sigils.

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  No throne.

  Just stone worn smooth by time and intent.

  Two figures stood apart from one another, faces hidden by shadow and deliberate design.

  The first spoke with a man’s voice—measured, patient.

  “So,” he said. “The piece has moved itself.”

  The second answered—a woman’s voice, calm, faintly amused.

  “It was inevitable. The summoned always resist at first.”

  “A pity,” the man replied. “He could have been guided.”

  “He still can be,” the woman said. “Just not by them.”

  A pause.

  Then: “The speech complicates things.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Public symbols always do.”

  The man’s voice lowered. “And the green?”

  Her answer was immediate. “Confirmed. Controlled. Not taught.”

  That earned silence.

  Then, softly: “Then the wound has reopened.”

  She stepped closer to the center of the chamber, where a stone table lay etched with lines not meant for games.

  “Do you remember,” she asked, “what the last one chose?”

  “I remember what he refused to choose,” the man said.

  “And what it cost.”

  Another silence.

  Longer.

  “Toradol will rally around him,” the man said at last. “Briefly.”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Which makes him dangerous.”

  “Or useful.”

  The woman tilted her head, unseen smile implied. “Careful. That kind of thinking ended an age.”

  “An age that needed ending.”

  She did not deny it.

  Instead, she reached out and moved a single carved piece on the stone table—not a king.

  A knight.

  “Let Dominion posture,” she said. “Let their banners rise and fall. We do not need their loyalty.”

  The man’s voice sharpened. “You want to use them.”

  “I want to use the idea of them.”

  She placed another piece.

  A bishop.

  “This one heals,” she continued. “Which means he binds people to him. Bindings are stronger than fear.”

  “Then we sever them.”

  “No,” she corrected. “We test them.”

  The man exhaled slowly. “And if he breaks?”

  “Then he becomes what they already fear.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Her voice dropped, reverent and cold all at once.

  “Then we will finally know if the world learned anything the last time.”

  Back in Toradol, Elder Maerwyn stood alone in the archive’s uppermost gallery.

  She stared at a blank wall.

  Not seeing stone.

  Seeing echoes.

  Her fingers tightened around her staff.

  “So,” she murmured to no one at all.

  “They’ve begun to move again.”

  The silence did not answer.

  But for the first time in over a century—

  She listened anyway.