The knock came before dawn.

  Not loud. Not urgent.

  Just steady enough to insist on being answered.

  Sei sat up in the narrow bed the palace had assigned him—still too soft, still too clean, still not his—and listened. For a moment he thought it might be a guard with another quiet instruction, another careful message from the council.

  Then he heard the second sound.

  A breath. Controlled. Familiar in its blunt patience.

  He opened the door.

  Rhen Varick stood in the corridor like he had been carved there—broad shoulders filling the space, eyes half-lidded, expression unreadable. Behind him, a few paces back, Eva leaned against the wall, arms crossed, sea-emerald hair loose in a way that made her look more like the girl she never let anyone see.

  Rhen didn’t bother with greetings.

  “They shouldn’t know this fast,” he said.

  Sei’s stomach tightened. “You’re saying it again.”

  “I’m saying it because it’s true,” Rhen replied. “And because truth doesn’t care how inconvenient it is.”

  Eva’s gaze flicked past Sei into the room, checking corners out of habit. “We need to talk,” she said quietly.

  Sei stepped aside. “Then talk.”

  Rhen entered without hesitation. Eva followed, shutting the door behind them with a soft click that felt louder than it should have.

  For a moment, there was only the sound of breathing.

  Then Rhen spoke again, voice low.

  “If someone is watching,” he said, “we give them something worth watching.”

  Sei stared at him. “You want to flush them out.”

  “I want to stop being the only one in chains,” Rhen corrected. “And you’re starting to attract a very specific kind of attention.”

  Eva didn’t contradict him.

  That alone made Sei’s skin prickle.

  Rhen folded his arms. “I’ve seen how kingdoms handle uncertainty. They don’t solve it. They contain it. They label it. They decide what it is for them.”

  Sei’s mind flashed to the silence in the Heartstone chamber, to the way the council’s eyes had measured him after the light.

  “I’m aware,” Sei said.

  “Good.” Rhen’s voice was flat. “Then here’s the proposal.”

  Eva’s posture stiffened slightly, as if she’d already heard it.

  Rhen’s eyes held Sei’s.

  “A visible incident,” he said. “Controlled. Public. Something that forces whoever is leaking information to react.”

  Sei’s mouth tightened. “You’re talking about staging an attack.”

  Rhen didn’t blink. “I’m talking about staging pressure.”

  Sei felt his jaw clench. The word staging scraped against everything he’d been clinging to since he arrived in this world. He’d lied before, small lies—deflections, jokes, the kind of humor that kept people from seeing the crack in his chest.

  But this was different.

  This would be a deliberate deception with consequences.

  “I don’t—” Sei began.

  Eva cut in, calm but firm. “Sei.”

  He looked at her.

  Her expression wasn’t accusing. It wasn’t pleading. It was practical in the way battlefields made people.

  “We’re already being used,” she said quietly. “You can feel it, can’t you? The way people move around you now. The way the palace tightened overnight.”

  Rhen nodded once, as if to punctuate her point. “Silence gave fear room. Now fear is giving someone room to work.”

  Sei exhaled through his nose, slow, controlled. “So you want to bait them.”

  “Yes,” Rhen said. “And no.”

  Sei’s brows knit. “Which is it?”

  Rhen’s gaze narrowed slightly. “We don’t bait with lies. We bait with gradients. We alter timing. We change the shape of the truth just enough that whoever reacts reveals what they know—and when they knew it.”

  Eva’s eyes sharpened, recognizing the method.

  Sei didn’t relax, but something in him shifted. Less moral resistance, more wary calculation.

  He could live with misdirection.

  He couldn’t live with theatre that could get someone killed.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Rhen leaned forward just slightly. “If you insist on clean hands,” he said, “then make the cleanest move possible.”

  Sei’s gaze snapped up. “Meaning?”

  Sei felt the answer before he said it.

  He spoke anyway.

  “I heal the King,” he said.

  Eva’s eyes widened a fraction.

  Rhen’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened.

  Sei continued, words assembling as his mind caught traction. “Publicly. Not as a spectacle. Not as a proclamation. As a… demonstration of trust. Of intent.”

  He glanced at Eva. “And it helps the King. Actually helps him.”

  Eva’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “That’s—”

  “Risky,” Rhen finished, but his tone wasn’t disapproval. It was almost… respect. “And useful.”

  Sei nodded, the certainty in him from the Heartstone still warm behind his ribs. “If the mole expects fear and secrecy, then we give them openness. We give them a moment where everyone is watching and someone who’s listening can’t help themselves.”

  Eva’s eyes narrowed. “We still need a disruption. Something that forces a reaction.”

  Sei looked at her. “Not a real threat. A controlled one.”

  Rhen’s mouth twitched. “You’re learning.”

  Sei ignored that. He tapped the side of his finger against his palm, thinking like a resident planning a procedure. Controlled environment. Clear variables. Minimal risk.

  Then he looked at Eva.

  “You,” he said. “You can move through the city without drawing suspicion. People know you. They trust you.”

  Eva’s gaze sharpened. “You want me to seed the timing.”

  Sei nodded. “But not the same way to everyone. Different versions. Different hours. Different routes. If the mole takes the bait, we’ll see which version reaches the wrong ears.”

  Eva’s expression was focused now, not emotional. “I can do that.”

  Rhen leaned back against the wall. “And I’ll watch who twitches first.”

  Sei frowned. “You’re going to stand there and just… observe?”

  “That’s what I’m good at,” Rhen said. “And it makes everyone uncomfortable. Which is also useful.”

  Eva looked between them. “We need the King involved.”

  Sei’s stomach tightened again.

  He had known it the moment the plan formed.

  If the King didn’t consent, this became exactly what Sei hated—people deciding things for someone else because it was “necessary.”

  He would not do that again.

  “I’ll speak to him,” Sei said.

  Eva started to say something, then stopped. She nodded once.

  Rhen’s eyes didn’t leave Sei. “Alone,” he said.

  Sei blinked. “What?”

  Rhen’s voice remained calm. “If the wrong ears are in the room, you’ve already lost. Speak to him alone. Let the King decide if he wants to be seen vulnerable.”

  Sei held Rhen’s gaze.

  Then he nodded. “Agreed.”

  King Aldric Toren’s chamber was guarded, but the guards recognized Sei now. Not warmly. Not coldly. With the same careful assessment the whole city wore.

  Sei requested a private audience.

  A few moments later, he was allowed inside.

  The chamber smelled of herbs and clean linens layered over old stone and older blood. The King sat at a table near the window, papers arranged with the kind of neatness that suggested control was being used to manage pain.

  Aldric looked up when Sei entered.

  No surprise. No annoyance.

  “Sei,” the King said, voice even. “You’re awake early.”

  Sei stepped forward and stopped at a respectful distance. He didn’t bow. He didn’t posture. He simply breathed.

  “I need to speak with you privately,” Sei said.

  The King’s gaze flicked toward the door. “We are private.”

  Sei didn’t relax. “I mean without anyone else hearing. Not even the walls.”

  For the first time, something shifted in Aldric’s expression—small, measured interest.

  He lifted a hand.

  A faint shimmer crawled along the chamber’s perimeter, so subtle Sei might have missed it if he wasn’t already watching for the world to change. The air thickened slightly, as if sound itself had been pushed down.

  “A quieting ward,” Aldric said. “Go on.”

  Sei swallowed.

  He told him.

  Not every detail. Not the fractures. Not the visions. Not the private certainty that had bloomed inside him like a second heartbeat.

  He told him what mattered.

  “That information about the Heartstone is spreading too fast,” Sei said. “People are using specific language they shouldn’t know. The palace tightened overnight. The city’s already shaping a story about me.”

  Aldric listened without interruption.

  Sei continued, forcing his words into a careful line. “I believe there’s a leak. Someone within Toradol.”

  The King’s gaze remained steady, but the room felt colder.

  Sei went on. “We can’t hunt a shadow by looking at the dark. We need to give it something to reach for.”

  Aldric’s eyes narrowed. “And what are you proposing?”

  Sei exhaled slowly.

  “A public healing,” he said. “Of you.”

  A long silence followed.

  The King didn’t recoil. He didn’t scoff.

  He simply considered.

  Sei’s chest tightened. “Not a show,” he added quickly. “Not propaganda. I want it to be real. I want to actually help you. And I want people to see it so the mole can’t ignore it.”

  Aldric’s gaze sharpened. “Because it will force a reaction.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believe you can heal me.”

  Sei hesitated.

  He had healed.

  He had saved.

  But the King’s wounds were not a battlefield gash that needed a closing. They were deep, lingering, complicated.

  He could try.

  And in trying, he could fail.

  The thought made his stomach twist—the old scar from his world tugging at the edges of his courage.

  But then the Heartstone’s certainty rose in him again, quiet and unyielding.

  You have already begun.

  “I don’t know,” Sei admitted. “But I know I need to try.”

  Aldric studied him for a long moment.

  Then the King nodded once.

  “Very well,” he said.

  Sei blinked. “You’re… agreeing?”

  Aldric’s mouth curved faintly—not humor, not warmth. Something like steel acknowledging pressure.

  “If fear is spreading,” the King said, “then let them see I am not afraid.”

  He leaned back slightly, expression calm. “And let them see that Toradol does not cower from the hand we summoned.”

  Sei’s throat tightened.

  The King continued, voice steady. “We will frame it as a public address. A reassurance. I will speak. You will do what you can. No dramatics. No theatrics.”

  Sei nodded slowly. “Eva will move through the city and seed different timings. Rhen will observe. We’ll measure who reacts.”

  Aldric’s gaze sharpened again at Rhen’s name, but he didn’t comment.

  He simply said, “We proceed carefully.”

  Sei breathed out. “Thank you.”

  Aldric’s eyes held him.

  “You are risking much,” the King said.

  Sei didn’t flinch.

  “So are you.”

  Aldric nodded once more, as if that was the only answer worth accepting.

  “Then we are aligned,” he said.

  When Sei left the chamber, the palace corridors felt different.

  Not safer.

  Tighter.

  As if they had crossed a threshold that could not be uncrossed.

  He found Eva and Rhen near the outer hall.

  Eva took one look at his face and understood. “He agreed.”

  Sei nodded.

  Eva’s jaw set. “Then I move first.”

  Rhen’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t repeat the same version.”

  “I won’t,” Eva replied.

  She turned and walked away without another word, already becoming someone else—shoulders slouched just enough, pace adjusted, hair tucked beneath a hood that would make her look like any other veteran soldier moving through a tired city.

  Rhen watched her go.

  Then he looked at Sei.

  “You hate this,” Rhen said.

  Sei didn’t deny it. “I hate that it’s necessary.”

  Rhen’s expression was unreadable. “It’s not necessary,” he said quietly. “It’s efficient.”

  Sei’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not the same thing.”

  Rhen’s mouth twitched faintly. “No,” he agreed. “It’s worse.”

  Sei didn’t like how honest that felt.

  Rhen leaned closer, voice low enough that even the guards nearby wouldn’t catch it.

  “Watch what spreads,” he said. “Not what’s true.”

  Sei’s stomach tightened again.

  Then Rhen stepped back, as if the conversation was finished.

  And in the distance—beyond the palace walls, beyond the city’s lattice of rebuilding and whispered fear—something shifted.

  Not a roar.

  Not a cry.

  Just the faintest sense that a thread had been pulled somewhere far away, and the web had begun to tremble.

  Sei stared out over Toradol and felt the shape of the coming day settle over him like a surgeon’s gloves.

  Clean.

  Necessary.

  Cold.

  And once it began, there would be no stopping it.