CHAPTER 98: SUMMONED PROTECTION

The knife gleamed in the candlelight, an edge catching motes of gold that quivered with the tremor of Aric’s grip.

He stood over Lady Lisellie Brienne, her slender frame half-swallowed by silk sheets, her face serene, almost innocent beneath the wavering glow. Shadows licked her cheekbones, softened the sharpness of her beauty, painted her as fragile, breakable.

Her chest rose and fell in shallow rhythm, breaths delicate, uneven, as though her body fully resigned to sleep’s helpless surrender.

For an instant, Aric allowed himself to feel it—the thrill.

A sharp, searing current that coursed through his veins like lightning. One thrust, one flick of the wrist, and the world would shift.

The stone cast, the avalanche begun. Her death would not merely silence a schemer—it would topple a house, bleed into a dozen webs of alliances, ripple across Valeria’s nobility like cracks spidering through glass.

But hesitation—hesitation was a wedge. Even the sharpest blade dulled if caught in indecision.

He faltered. A breath, nothing more. A heartbeat.

There was always the second option, and he considered taking it.

Lisellie’s eyes snapped open. Bright. Sharp. Awake.

Triumph glimmered there, mocking him, and her lips curved into a smile far too knowing for one roused from sleep.

"You shouldn’t have hesitated... bastard," she whispered.

The words were soft, but laced with venom, quiet as poison slipped into wine.

Aric’s muscles coiled, knife half-poised for the plunge. But her fingers unfurled.

In her palm lay the crumbled remains of a mana crystal. Its fractured edges bled faint light, an unnatural glow that pulsed once, then again, before sinking into the chamber like a stone into still water.

The air groaned.

The walls shuddered as if some unseen weight pressed down upon them. The temperature dropped, not with chill, a suffocating heaviness, as though the oxygen had thickened into molten lead.

Aric’s chest tightened. His lungs strained. Every breath scraped like iron dragged across stone. His pulse hammered, quick and heavy.

Then it came.

A presence. More than just mana or raw ki—more dangerous, deeper. A will that carried death as its nature, that bore no compromise, no hesitation, no humanity. It clung to his skin like smoke tends, burned into his bones, seeped into marrow.

From the shadows, a figure stepped forth.

The soldier was clad in dark armor etched with crimson veins that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. His helmet’s visor bled darkness, hiding his face, but the eyes that burned within were merciless, fixed on Aric with the weight of inevitability.

Recognition struck instantly.

An Imperial Guard.

Even among Valeria’s three pillars of power, they stood apart.

The Imperial Army—the empire’s hammer, vast and disciplined, crushing rebellion and defending borders. The Imperial Squad—the emperor’s shadowed hand, their existence whispered of but never proven for commoners.

But the Imperial Guard...

They were oaths in armor.

Body, blade, and soul bound to the emperor.

Their numbers were few, their reach limited, but their devotion pure. No noble, no general, not even the highest houses could command them. Law itself forbade it.

And yet one now stood in Lisellie’s chamber.

Aric’s eyes narrowed, but his expression remained still. The truth assembled in silence: Lisellie Brienne was not merely a schemer of her house. She was betrothed to Prince Sylas. Through him, she carried privileges that eclipsed her station.

The guard’s voice rolled through the chamber, deep, metallic, thunder given language.

"Speak your name. Speak who sent you. Quickly—so I may take your life at once."

There was no anger in it. No malice. Only inevitability. The cadence of one who had ended countless lives without thought, without pause, without regret.

The candlelight flickered across the guard’s armor, throwing jagged shadows along the walls, hollowing him into something less than human. A tool. A blade.

Aric studied him with cool calculation. The stance—balanced, weight distributed with perfection. Fingers near his hilt, ready for the first twitch of aggression. Every detail declared it: this was no bluff. No theatrics. This was death embodied.

And yet, Aric had expected this. Planned for it.

His heartbeat slowed. His grip on the knife loosened, no fear only readiness. He had not come blind into Lisellie’s web. He had wanted to see the depth of her reliance, the shape of her protection.

Now, he had it.

Lisellie, her eyes shining with cruel satisfaction, believed she had won. She believed the shattered crystal had sealed his fate.

She did not understand. Could not.

Aric’s thoughts whispered like knives. Patience. Patience is sharper than steel.

The crystal’s remnants told him everything. This was no trinket. No charm. It was a binding crystal—an artifact worth kingdoms. Its shattering summoned an Imperial Guard from anywhere in the empire, wrenching him through the skein of space to stand at her side.

A privilege granted only to the closest of the imperial bloodline.

Prince Sylas had given it to her.

Bitterness twisted faintly in Aric’s chest. So. Even you, Sylas.

He had once idolized his brothers, built shrines to them in his heart. Strength, wisdom, unbreakable will. And yet, again and again, they faltered. They compromised. They allowed weakness.

Disappointments.

First Darius. Now you. All of you blinded by sentiment.

The guard stepped forward. The air bent to his stride, crushing, suffocating. Lisellie’s smile grew sharper with every step.

Aric did not move.

Because he knew the truth: if he wished, he could end this without ever drawing steel.

If he revealed himself—if he spoke his name, Prince Aric Valerian—the guard’s blade would fall idle. Imperial law was absolute. No Guard could lift his weapon against the bloodline.

But the risk was great. A name spoken here could echo into Sylas’s ear, could unravel careful plans.

No—he had prepared another way.

Aric’s hand drifted through the air, summoning from his cloak a dagger. Not the crude blade he had hovered over Lisellie with, but a polished one, slender, its edge shimmering silver, the one he toyed with in the carriage. Candlelight caught on the crest etched into its hilt.

The mark of Valeria’s bloodline.

Recognition flickered in the guard’s gaze. His hand stilled. Then, slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head. A silent bow. Submission.

The suffocating presence in the room lifted, like storm clouds parting to reveal the night sky.

Lisellie’s triumph shattered.

Her face twisted first with confusion, then with dawning realization. Fear followed swiftly after, hollowing her eyes.

"No..." she whispered. Louder, shrill. "No! What are you doing? Stop him! Stop him!"

But the guard did not move. Could not.

Aric stepped forward. His hand shot out, seizing Lisellie’s wrists. Her body jolted as he slammed her against the wall, her arms wrenched high above her head.

She gasped, breath breaking into panicked sobs, her struggles frantic but pitiful.

Leaning close, Aric’s voice rasped low, distorted into something unrecognizable.

"You are fortunate Sylas loves you. But he is unfortunate that he does."

Her eyes blazed with fury, but terror bled through the cracks.

Aric drew parchment from his cloak and pressed it into her palm, pinning it against the wall. The dagger flashed.

Steel pierced flesh.

Lisellie’s scream tore the chamber apart—raw, animal, the sound of someone ripped from composure into sheer agony. Blood sprayed, warm and thick, splattering stone, streaking her face.

Her body convulsed, her knees buckled, but the dagger held her aloft, hand nailed to the wall like a grotesque painting. Tears streaked down, mingling with crimson, crowning her in agony.

Aric’s expression never shifted. He watched as if studying rainfall.

Her sobs filled the silence, broken, ragged, each one weaker than the last.

At last, he turned from her, facing the guard. His tone was cold iron.

"Inform the second prince what has happened here. No one enters until he arrives."

The guard bowed low, then vanished into the corridors in a blur of shadow and steel.

Silence returned.

Lisellie sagged against the wall, whimpering, blood pattering onto the floor in steady rhythm. Aric did not glance at her again.

He stepped into the hall. Serina and Borag waited, their figures half-shrouded in shadow, their eyes alight with grim satisfaction.

"Is it done?" Aric asked.

Borag inclined his head. "All within House Brienne’s main estate... have been slaughtered."

For a heartbeat, silence stretched.

Then, faint, cold satisfaction sparked in Aric’s eyes.

"Good," he said simply.

No celebration. No excess. Only finality.

The Brienne estate, once proud, was now a tomb. Its halls echoed with no voices. Its lineage, extinguished.

In one night of fire and steel, a house had fallen.

Aric lingered at the estate’s threshold before departing, his gaze sweeping across the courtyard where the night still smoldered with ruin.

The air carried the thick stench of blood and smoke, a mingling perfume of death that clung to every stone.

Bodies lay scattered across the flagstones, some cut clean, others broken in heaps where they had fled and been dragged back.

Servants, guards, cousins, heirs—none had been spared. Flames licked through the stables, consuming the last of the Brienne horses, while the great banners of their house sagged in tatters, edges curled black from fire.

Aric watched without reaction.

The cries of burning wood reached him as faint echoes, insignificant against the greater silence that already swallowed the estate.

Hours ago, the Brienne crest had stood as one of Valeria’s oldest noble sigils, a mark of wealth and cunning. Now it hung limp and broken above the main gate, soaked through with soot and blood, barely recognizable.

To most, this night would be remembered as horror. To Aric, it was necessity. A house erased. A lesson written with blood.

When at last he turned his back on the burning halls, the air drew the smoke with him, carrying it into the night. No voice rose to challenge him.

No Brienne remained to speak.

The estate was a grave. And graves did not speak.