CHAPTER 43: CRUELTY LAID BARE...

Keiser stared at the bandaged hand offering him a cup of water, his single open eye narrowing before lifting his gaze to Lenko.

"What did you just say?"

Lenko gave a low hum, almost casual. "I told you... you’ve been asleep for a week."

A week.

Keiser’s hand immediately dragged through his hair, as if the movement might shake some clarity into his fogged mind. A week in bed? He couldn’t comprehend it. He had never been the type to drift into long sleep, not even in comfort, let alone in a place like this.

His body was trained to rest lightly, to recover swiftly, to rise at the smallest disturbance.

Fainting, exhaustion, collapse... those were foreign words to him, things he had never allowed himself even during the most brutal drills of royal brigade.

And yet, with Muzio’s body...

He had experienced it. Not once. Not twice. His mind supplied the truth with a grim edge.

Thrice.

Lenko chuckled under his breath. "Good thing her highness and I managed to change the ward you put up..." he muttered, his voice half-distracted as he leaned closer to check Keiser’s arm.

Bandages. Everywhere.

His arm was swathed so tightly that Keiser could barely recognize it as his own, though it wasn’t his own to begin with. Chest and shoulders were the same, even half the face was hidden beneath layers of linen. His left eye was completely covered, blind and useless beneath the cloth.

Every attempt at movement betrayed him... small tremors rippled through his body, weak and humiliating, until Keiser blanched and clenched his jaw against the frustration.

This body...

How was he supposed to endure it? He couldn’t sit still, not when the restlessness clawed at him, not when he had been so close.

He’d seen himself

.

The man he once was. He’d had the chance to speak, to explain everything... whether or not the man would have believed him didn’t matter. It had been him. His own self. A chance to bridge that impossible gap. If only he could have held on longer. Maybe he could have convinced him... or maybe not.

Keiser groaned softly, dragging a hand down his face. Of course.

This was before the Gambit.

Before the endless drills that hammered him into a would-be king. Before he learned how to wear a noble’s mask, to temper his tongue, to sand down every rough edge. Back then he probably talked too much, picked fights, and threw words like daggers just to see if they’d stick.

Much like Lenko now, who hadn’t stopped running his mouth about him.

"It was so rude," Lenko muttered, his voice sharp with lingering resentment.

"How could he just throw you to the ground and leave you there? When we finally managed to force the ward open to people, you were just... lying there." His hands moved as if trying to sketch the scene in the air, to make Keiser see it the way he had. "If Sir Diego hadn’t gotten to you in time, who knows what would’ve happened."

He huffed, stuffing the spare bandages back into his satchel with unnecessary force. "At least the Mad Dog and the Royal Brigade are gone. Heard them whispering about some mess in the capital. Good riddance."

He even pulled a face. "Her highness and I could barely stand... we’d burned through all our mana just holding the gate together. And then the change... gods, that was worse! Took everything we had. How did you even pull it off?"

Keiser watched him, silent, before finally looking away. He couldn’t tell Lenko the truth... that he had done it because he thought it would work.

And it had.

Not with his own strength, but with Muzio’s mana

flowing through him.

It helped, though it pained him to admit it, that he still remembered some of Aisha’s lessons. Or what he thought were lessons. Sometimes he wondered if the mage had only been mocking him for his lack of mana and his endless stream of impossible ideas.

Like that one time, when he had asked her if she could make a fire that wouldn’t burn. She had given him the brightest, most mischievous smile and said, "Should I try making one and use you as my dummy?"

Of course, she had gone on to explain... half serious, half mocking... that the academy’s knowledge of magic was always written down, structured, crafted meticulously for specific materials.

That was the way of tradition.

Creation that strayed outside those bounds was not just dangerous... it was frowned upon. A heresy against the rigid order of runecraft.

And yet... it was precisely those absurd ideas of his that had worked, here and now.

"...Muzio?"

Keiser snapped out of his thoughts, his head turning toward the voice. On the bed across from him sat Wally... the boy from among the outsiders. He looked surprisingly well, aside from the arm bound in layers of bandages.

"Are you okay?" Keiser asked, his gaze narrowing on the injured limb.

"Oh, I’m fine now," Wally said quickly, lifting the bandaged arm as if to prove it. "Lenko already checked... he says it’s healing right." He gave a small laugh, though it sounded forced. "Guess I was luckier than most."

Keiser’s expression darkened. Lucky. That wasn’t the word he would have chosen.

His thoughts slipped back to what he’d pieced together... a year of sacrifices, a year of the villagers of Hinnom choosing their own skins over the lives of outsiders. Offering them up as bait, again and again, to keep themselves safe.

Wally must have caught the shift in his face, because the boy’s smile faltered. "...You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?"

Keiser didn’t answer right away. Lenko had mentioned earlier that the people of Hinnom managed to escape through the far gate. But escape was not absolution. Not after the truth had come to light.

Wally lowered his eyes, fiddling with the hem of the blanket draped over his lap. "We knew, you know. Maybe not the details, but... we knew we were being used. Some of the adults tried to fight it, but what could we do? No one listens to outsiders." His voice cracked on the word, and for a moment, the boy looked far older than he was.

Silence stretched between them.

Now, with the wards dismantled and the reason for Hinnom’s cruelty laid bare, they stood under the harsh eye of its neighbors. Scrutiny from other villages, whispers turning to accusations. They had no mage left to defend them, no veil of magic to hide behind.

And the weight of it all... retribution, justice, the hope of repair... fell squarely on the princess’s shoulders.