(Flashback – Seven years ago)
The bells did not toll.
There were no horns. No last cries of resistance.
Kersayne did not fall in fire. It fell in silence.
Marquess Johannatus Lacan stood atop the eastern watchtower of Veyric Keep, hands clenched behind his back, eyes fixed on the courtyard below.
The banner of Kersayne—green laced with ash-gray—had been lowered.
In its place, the sun of Solendawn rose like a curse.
He did not speak.
He did not blink.
But something in him broke.
---
Three nights prior, a letter had arrived.
Slipped into his quarters by unknown hands, sealed with no crest—just torn black silk and the faint scent of sea salt and ash.
He read it under candlelight.
The Prince is dead.
Betrayed.
His name has been erased.
Prince Edmund Crieur De Lion.
The boy who once wandered his halls in laughter.
The young lion who had spoken of justice like it was something alive.
Gone.
And with him, Kersayne's last hope.
---
In the council chambers, ministers gathered like vultures around an untouched feast.
"You swore loyalty to this kingdom!" Johannatus thundered, his voice echoing against centuries-old stone.
An aging noble bowed his head without shame.
"We swore loyalty to survival."
"Solendawn offers integration," said another. "Titles. Peace."
"Chains," Johannatus hissed. "Wrapped in silk. Stained with blood we're too cowardly to acknowledge."
They did not argue. They did not need to.
The decisions had already been made.
---
At dawn, Solendawn's emissaries arrived.
No siege weapons. No bloodshed. Only scrolls and smiles.
Royal decrees. New laws.
And an offer: bend the knee, or fade into irrelevance.
No one lifted a sword.
No one died.
But something in the land went still—as if the hills themselves held their breath.
---
Johannatus was the last to enter the great hall.
Before him lay a treaty.
Wax seal. Gold ink. The weight of surrender disguised as diplomacy.
He stared at the quill.
Then at the empty chair where Prince Edmund once sat when visiting.
"Your people will rise again one day," Edmund had said.
"Even ashes remember fire."
He signed.
Not out of loyalty.
But to remain.
To watch.
To wait.
---
PRESENT DAY
The candle flickered beside the half-drunk wine.
Johannatus ran a gloved hand across the underside of his desk—until his fingers found it:
A small metal disk. Etched with a symbol long forgotten by Solendawn's historians.
The broken crown of Kersayne, crossed by a single sword turned downward.
Not gone. Not yet.
He opened the secret drawer and slid the old sigil into his palm.
---
"The girl lives. The shadow walks with her."
Perhaps Kersayne's fire had not gone out.
Perhaps it had simply shifted hands.
And if Prince Edmund had truly returned—
No longer lion, but something sharper—
Then the game had only just begun.
Johannatus smiled, bitter and slow.
"Even ashes remember fire," he whispered again.
Then he tucked the sigil away and reached for a blank sheet of parchment.
Time to write his own message.