The morning had been uncommonly beautiful.

  Kaelion had climbed to the roof of the eastern watchtower before sunrise, as he often did when sleep refused to come easily. The city of Cyllris stretched beneath him in quiet tiers of slate and stone, still half-drowned in shadow.

  The first rays of sunlight began their slow ascent over the horizon, spilling gold between the rooftops and catching against the polished lenses of his glasses. For a moment, light fractured across his thin rims, striking a bright contrast against the dark blue and black robes that marked his rank as a Diamond-tier Royal Knight.

  He inhaled slowly, the cigarette between his fingers burning with a steady ember.

  Dawn was the only hour that did not demand anything from him.

  Then the wards ignited.

  The sensation did not come as sound but as a violent pressure against the lattice of magical arrays etched into his consciousness. Every Royal Knight Commander carried an imprint of the city’s defensive grid within their mind, but Kaelion’s access ran deeper than most. He felt the flare like a blade drawn across raw nerve.

  The cigarette slipped from his lips.

  He did not notice it falling.

  His mind dove into the ward network, isolating the source, filtering the tier, verifying the alarm.

  And then he froze.

  It was not Adamantium.

  It was Orichalcum.

  For a moment, he genuinely thought there had been an error in calibration. Orichalcum-tier alerts were theoretical for most of the city’s active defensive systems. He had only reviewed such signatures in archived war records.

  His heart gave a single, heavy beat.

  He nearly misstepped on the sloped tiles before catching his balance.

  “That’s impossible,” he muttered under his breath.

  But it was not impossible.

  It was happening.

  He established a telepathic link immediately. Most of his officers were off rotation at this hour. Only two responded.

  Of course.

  Hollis and Ellie.

  They materialized beside him in a distortion of compressed mana.

  Hollis appeared first, adjusting his collar with a grin already forming. “Commander, if this is about that tavern incident, I can—”

  He stopped when he saw Kaelion’s expression.

  Ellie arrived a heartbeat later, blowing a slow pink bubble that expanded between her lips before popping softly. She continued chewing, her dark eyes assessing the tension in Kaelion’s posture.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked casually.

  “There is an Orichalcum level disturbance,” Kaelion replied.

  The bubble stilled.

  Hollis blinked twice. “You’re joking.”

  “I am not.”

  Kaelion opened the ward overlay within their shared link, allowing them to feel the intensity of the spike themselves. The magnitude was not merely high—it was overwhelming.

  “Location?” Ellie asked, her tone no longer idle.

  Kaelion’s jaw tightened.

  “Thunderbloom Manor.”

  Hollis’ usual flippancy vanished.

  The Thunderblooms were not merely wealthy nobles. They were foundational political pillars within Cyllris and beyond. Their alliances threaded through merchant guilds, border lords, and even the Royal Court itself. An Orichalcum-tier discharge at their estate was not simply a magical event; it was a political tremor.

  Kaelion did not fear losing his position. He feared what such an attack implied. If someone had the capacity to breach Thunderbloom defenses at that level, then the balance of power within the city had already shifted.

  “Equip boost relics,” he ordered.

  They complied without hesitation.

  Moments later, the three of them tore across the sky, suspended on compressed currents of mana. Below them, early-rising citizens stopped in the streets to stare upward. Some shielded their eyes against the sudden flare of magical propulsion.

  Hollis, unable to suppress himself even now, winked down at a pair of startled women and blew an exaggerated kiss.

  Kaelion did not bother reprimanding him.

  Ellie rolled her eyes and kept chewing.

  As they crossed into the noble district, the Thunderbloom estate came into view.

  Kaelion felt his chest constrict.

  The rear wall had been obliterated, not shattered randomly but breached with force and precision. Defensive runes that he personally had overseen were no longer active. They had not failed catastrophically; they had been dismantled expertly.

  That disturbed him more than destruction would have.

  They descended.

  Bodies lay at the main entrance.

  Guards.

  Cut down efficiently.

  No excessive brutality. No spectacle. This was professional work.

  The air still carried thick residual mana—lightning, suppression, defensive arrays, and something darker, heavier, that lingered like smoke after a battlefield had gone cold.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  And then he saw her.

  The daughter of the Thunderbloom household lay near the shattered fountain at the heart of the courtyard, half-covered by fallen debris. Blood had seeped into the pale stone beneath her, dark against the white.

  For a moment, the present dissolved.

  He saw her not in ruin but beneath chandeliers of crystal light.

  The Thunderbloom Winter Gala.

  Silk the color of frost draped elegantly over her shoulders. Silver embroidery tracing constellations along the hem of her gown. She had moved through the ballroom with effortless composure, laughter bright yet controlled, every gesture refined by noble upbringing and quiet intelligence.

  Multiple noble heirs had hovered near her that evening, each calculating alliances, wealth, prestige.

  House Thunderbloom’s jewel.

  Months later, the formal announcement had spread through the capital: she was to wed the heir of House Valemont. Mana wealth and military prestige entwined. A union designed to fortify the kingdom’s internal stability.

  And now she lay here.

  Broken.

  Unmoving.

  Kaelion approached slowly, removing his gloves before kneeling beside her. He did not touch her immediately. There was something sacred in that pause.

  Her features, though marred by ash and blood, still retained echoes of the poised young woman he remembered. A strand of silver hair clung to her cheek, darkened at the ends.

  “She’s gone,” Hollis murmured softly from behind him, his voice devoid of its usual mirth.

  Kaelion nodded solemnly.

  This was no isolated murder.

  This was a political detonation.

  He straightened then travelled swiftly towards the rear garden.

  Vaeron Thunderbloom stood rigid, jaw tight. Their mother stood beside him, her composure impressive but brittle at the edges. Argus lay unconscious nearby.

  And beyond them, bound in multiple suppression relics, was a man whose presence distorted the air even in stillness.

  Kaelion felt the pressure before he fully processed the identity.

  When recognition dawned, it did so coldly.

  Vilangos.

  The Usurper.

  The man tied to multiple Adamantium-tier deaths across the continent.

  Kaelion’s breath slowed deliberately as he stepped closer. Even weakened, the man radiated immense power. The suppression relics shimmered violently around him, indicating constant resistance.

  “How,” Kaelion asked carefully, turning back to the Thunderblooms, “did this occur?”

  The mother met his gaze.

  “We were attacked,” she said evenly.

  “By whom?”

  “They were assassins.”

  Kaelion’s voice caught in his throat. Assassins?

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  Ellie stopped chewing for a moment. “Six coordinated assassins breached wards laid out by one of the court mages themselves?”

  “They disabled the wards before the strike, I don’t know how” Vaeron said tightly.

  Kaelion studied their expressions. They were not lying. Not outright. But grief and caution had wrapped around their words like armor.

  “And Vilangos?” Kaelion asked.

  “He arrived during the attack,” the mother answered. “He was presumably the commander of these bastards.” Kaelion’s surprise was evident, Vilangos himself had led the attack. He usually worked alone and had previously never targeted or risked targeting noble families.

  “And you managed to subdue him?”

  Kaelion caught the faintest glimmer of hesitation, it might have been invisible to most.

  “We managed to attach suppression relics while he was weakened.”

  Kaelion’s mind worked through the implications. An Adamantium-tier commander did not simply become weakened without cause. Something had forced him into that state.

  He felt the lingering mana again.

  Lightning.

  Flames.

  Massive discharge.

  But something was missing.

  He extended his senses carefully.

  Vaeron’s mana lingered.

  The mother’s signature lingered.

  Vilangos’ lightning aura clung stubbornly to the air.

  Even the assassins left faint imprints.

  But Argus Thunderbloom—

  Nothing.

  That absence unsettled him more than anything else he had seen.

  “Did Argus take part in the battle?” Kaelion said, his tone remaining controlled.

  “Yes,” Vaeron replied.

  Kaelion’s gaze shifted toward the unconscious young man. There should have been residual trace. At this scale of conflict, mana clung to stone for hours.

  Yet Argus felt clean.

  Too clean.

  Ellie resumed chewing softly and leaned toward him. “Commander,” she murmured, “something’s off.”

  He already knew.

  He turned back to the matriarch.

  “The wards were dismantled with Orichalcum-level precision, at the least” he said. “That requires knowledge and power beyond ordinary assassins.”

  “We do not know how it was done,” she replied.

  He believed that answer.

  But not all of them.

  After several more pointed questions, he stepped back. The story was internally consistent, yet incomplete. They were withholding details, though perhaps not maliciously.

  Kaelion finally said, “We cannot transport Vilangos safely. Reinforce your containment. I will dispatch additional officers specialized in forensic mana analysis and high-tier interrogation.”

  As Ellie and Hollis scanned the grounds, Kaelion walked the perimeter slowly, boots tracing cracked stone.

  The manor’s wards had failed.

  That fact alone was catastrophic.

  House Thunderbloom supplied nearly a third of the refined mana crystals sustaining those very defenses. Their mines in the northern mountains were among the kingdom’s most valuable assets. Their donations ensured the capital remained shielded against both external and internal threats.

  And yet.

  When assassins struck their estate.

  The wards had faltered.

  If House Thunderbloom interpreted this as negligence—if they believed the Royal Court had grown complacent—the consequences would ripple outward.

  Other noble families, always cautious with their contributions, would seize this as leverage. They would demand audits. Restructure tax commitments. Withhold mana shipments under the guise of “temporary reassessment.”

  Confidence, once fractured, was difficult to restore.

  And then there was House Valemont.

  Their heir had been formally pledged to the girl now lying beneath blood-streaked marble.

  Military pride ran thick within that house. Their fleets guarded southern coasts. Their banners had flown in every major campaign of the past fifty years.

  They would demand retribution.

  They would not care whether the Royal Knights had been directly responsible.

  Blame required a target.

  Kaelion exhaled slowly, steadying the storm of calculations rising within his mind.

  External forces would not ignore this either.

  The Alysian Kingdom had remained at odds with Lymmr for over a century. Border skirmishes had ebbed and flowed like seasonal tides, never escalating into full war but never fading into peace.

  Political instability within Lymmr could tempt Alysia to test defenses.

  And then there was Sir Calebre Thunderbloom.

  Adamantium-ranked.

  Commander of the western outpost.

  If word of his daughter’s death reached him—and it would—he would not remain stationed at the frontier.

  He would return.

  And if he abandoned the western command, even temporarily, hostile forces might interpret that absence as weakness.

  An outpost weakened at the wrong moment could fall, and that would multiply the kingdom’s problems tenfold.

  Kaelion’s jaw tightened.

  This had been orchestrated with precision. The true objective, he suspected, was national destabilization—tempting external aggression while fracturing internal trust.

  It could have been worse. Far worse. If the entire bloodline had fallen tonight, the kingdom might already be unraveling.

  Depending on the number of assassins, and their strength, in no way should the residents of House Thunderbloom survived.

  His suspicions—which had dimmed—returned but for the moment he was grateful to whoever or whatever had saved the house.

  “Commander.”

  Kaelion turned toward Ellie.

  “Mana residue analysis complete,” she said quietly. “There was another signature present.”

  “Another assassin?”

  “No.”

  She hesitated.

  “It does not align with any of the five. Nor with Vilangos.”

  Kaelion’s gaze sharpened.

  “What rank?”

  “Uncertain. It dissipated unusually fast. As though concealed intentionally.”

  He glanced toward the manor’s shattered entrance.

  “Could the family have concealed involvement?”

  “Possible,” Hollis said, walking towards them . “But there’s no evidence of collusion.”

  Kaelion’s thoughts drifted briefly to Argus Thunderbloom.

  The son.

  Kaelion had not felt his mana residue earlier.

  Kaelion’s eyes narrowed, he remembered the matriarch telling him that Argus had fainted due to mana exhaustion.

  Mana exhaustion severe enough to cause collapse required extraordinary overuse.

  But no signature corresponding to such release remained.

  As though erased.

  A faint itch brushed against his scalp.

  He reached up instinctively, fingers grazing the back of his head.

  The sensation vanished immediately.

  He frowned slightly.

  Fatigue, perhaps.

  He dismissed it and refocused.

  “We’ll need specialized mages for this”, he told both of them.

  The matriarch was then told of their departure.

  He activated the transportation relic.

  As they rose into the air, Ellie resumed chewing audibly.

  Kaelion adjusted his glasses, the light flashing briefly across the lenses.

  Something had occurred at Thunderbloom Manor that did not align with surface evidence.

  And the absence of Argus’ mana signature lingered in his thoughts like an unresolved equation.

  They turned north, toward the Royal Capital.

  Toward consequences.