"Did you see this morning's front page?"

"Machiavelli is Noah Ashen?"

"Once a quiet bodyguard for House Bluerose, now the face of a syndicate and the North's supreme commander "

A tabloid screamed in bold type, the headline bleeding across the page like a deliberate wound.

"Hero or monster?" a broadsheet demanded.

"He led the raid, he saved the first daughter of the Bluerose Household..."

"Was it a rescue, or a staged spectacle to claim glory?"

"Who knew a butler's mansion and a demonic sanctuary could become the stage for our nation's greatest scandal?"

The stories multiplied, each retelling bending the image of Noah Ashen into what each platform needed.

Conservative press framed him as unstable and dangerous, a criminal elevated into command by desperate houses.

Liberal outlets tried to parse nuance.

The whisper networks spun conspiracies.

Did Lord Bluerose shelter criminals for political power?

Did the Chrome Hearts manipulate noble bloodlines to produce a general?

Was the whole rescue a ploy to prop up a new myth for a war-torn people?

"Is Machiavelli a symptom or a solution?" asked a serious-faced panelist, fingers drumming.

"Does House Bluerose owe the nation an explanation?" demanded the senate gossip column.

"Will the South use this as proof of Northern corruption and fan the flames of war?" fretted a strategic weekly.

In every newsroom the same image ran on repeat.

A man walking from smoke, cane in hand, a limp blue-haired girl folded over his shoulder.

The same questions echoed in every tone and reach, from the street-corner vendor hawking yesterday's sheets to the imperial channel with its polished anchors and official tone.

The press fed a hungry public with angles and outrage, and the public ate it up.

---

Inside Parliament things were louder but colder.

The chamber filled with voices, each a different timbre of fear and calculation.

The emergency session called in the aftermath of Frostveil had become a spectacle in itself.

Some called for Noah's removal, others for immediate leverage of the momentum he offered.

"He is a criminal, I've been saying this have I not?!" shouted one, red-faced and red-handed with indignation.

"How can men under a flag follow someone who once led syndicates? This undermines the military command. It undermines justice."

"He kept our streets functioning," countered another member, voice low and pragmatic.

"He brings an illegal order where our law failed. If the command of the North needs one decisive man, he is that man."

"Are we to trust a man who wears two faces?" the eldest senator rasped, pressing his palm to the wood of his desk.

"What precedent is this? Where does it end?"

At the center of the room they displayed a single chair with a worn, dark blazer folded across it—symbolic trappings ready to be claimed or refused.

Courtyards swelled with courtiers and clerks trading versions of every line.

In the rear, bandages wrapped his head and arm, Noah sat supported on a chair, his white tunic stained, a narrow strip of cloth across a wound at his side.

He had returned from the mansion with freshly bandaged cuts and the weight of whatever had happened in the sanctuary pressing him into a quiet that the reporters could not translate.

He had, by the law of the hour and the reality of power, been invited to speak.

When Parliament called for his address, Noah rose slowly, each movement measured.

The chamber quieted until the only sound was the crackle of candles and the shuffle of papers.

He walked to the center with a cane in hand, but he did not set it aside...he used it to steady himself and the moment.

Bandages hugged his forearm, but his face was visible.

"This session," he began, voice steady, "is meant to decide more than a man. It is meant to decide whether we will let fear govern our choices."

Murmurs flickered through the benches, some nodding, some scowling.

He continued without letting them swallow the floor.

"If you think I do not understand what it means to have a name besmirched, you underestimate the men under my command and you underestimate what I'm willing to carry."

A man with a large moustache—Lord Remel—rose at once, hand slapping a folder closed with a sharper sound than politeness warranted.

He had been vocally opposed to Machiavelli's appointment from the beginning.

His features were puffy from the morning's last cigars, and his tone dripped with the public's rage.

"You cannot lead an army, Sir, when you have worn the mask of a syndicate leader!" Remel bellowed.

"You are a pariah! How can we send troops under the command of a criminal?"

The room tightened around the silence.

"If any of you believe you can shoulder the deaths of my men, if any of you think you'd fare better leading those young soldiers into cold graves..."

"...stand up and take this blazer from me right now."

He gestured, slow and old-fashioned, toward the folded garment.

"If you feel you can do better, if you truly think you will risk your own blood instead of blaming mine, come now.

Take it."

Remel's knuckles whitened on the polished wood as he stood, moustache twitching, face flushed with a mixture of fury and the honored posture of a man who thought himself both judge and general.

He swaggered forward, dramatic as a stage actor, and planted himself near the blazer.

"I will take it...Fraud," he declared, voice cracking with the kind of moral thunder that moves crowds.

"Give it to me, and I'll show you how a noble leads!"

A few tittered, others groaned. Noah's eyes sank into Remel with a look that made the carved eagles on the ceiling look mild by comparison.

"Just know this...

I will not give it up so easily."

He stepped forward until the hem of his bandage rustled against his coat.

His voice dropped, cold and precise.

"You wish to lead? Then lead.

But understand this... to lead men to die is to take their lives into your hands.

If you desire that power, then you must taste what it costs."

He pointed a finger at Remel, the motion calm but lethal in its implication.

"I will not surrender command without giving you a beating resulting in you losing a limb or two...

...unless you are willing to be scarred, to be maimed, to be rendered useless by the very thing you wish to wield."

The chamber erupted in silence imce more.

No one expected that level of bluntness.

A few ministers gasped.

Remel's face shifted from bluster to something like pale calculation.

The man's bravado fled as the reality of what Noah meant sank into the room.

Without a fight he sat back down, his voice lost among the rustle of robes.

Noah fixed his gaze across the dais.

"I have stood in front of my men when they needed me," he said.

"I have smelled their fear, and I have buried those who could not be saved.

If you think you can do a better job, you will have to step into that mud and count the cost.

If you cannot, stay where you are and stop pretending the moral high ground means anything."

A long minute passed while Parliament struggled to find the next line.

The Head of Parliament, an old man with a voice like wet parchment, lifted a sealed letter he'd been given that morning.

The seal bore the imperial crest, its red clay pressed smooth and final.

He broke the seal and read slowly, each word reverberating in the chamber.

["By decree of His Imperial Majesty, having observed the courage and outcomes brought by General Machiavelli, and in recognition of the necessity of unity in these dire times, it is ordered that Machiavelli, known also as Noah Ashen, remain General of the Northern Forces. Victory is our duty. Victory is our aim. The General will maintain his post."]

A hush fell upon everyone.

The emperor's voice was a lever. It tilted the balance the state had been arguing over.

Faces turned, anger clouded, but policy outweighed passion.

The Head of Parliament let the paper rest carefully on the podium as if it weighed heavier than the marble itself.

Anger settled like smoke into a dozen eyes. Some glared openly at Noah, accusing.

Others looked away, ashamed or relieved, depending on which side they had chosen.

The carriage of power so often pomp and ceremony had again proven its blunt truth.

Noah remained standing.

The yellow light at the edge of his irises burned a little brighter as he looked across the room.

"Then I remain..."

He said simply, a statement not of arrogance but of appetite for the task.