Chapter 49: A Storm Pressing Near...
The young man was trembling so badly that Keiser couldn’t tell if it was from nerves... or from something else entirely. His hands clutched at his chest, knuckles white, the fabric of his tunic bunched between his fingers as though he were holding himself together by force.
But Diego seemed to understand. His brow tightened as he stepped forward, voice stern, heavy with the weight of familiarity.
"Tyron, how many times must I say it? Running to the capital just to chase your father isn’t something you can just do on your own." His tone carried the strained patience of someone who had said the same thing too many times before.
He jerked his head toward the procession, already moving a short distance ahead, urging the young man to follow.
Yet Tyron did not move. Instead, he stepped back, his blue eyes flashing with a desperate fire, his fist still pressed to his chest as though guarding something inside. "No! Because of him, Mother was cast out. I can’t just let him be! He’s got Mother’s heart!"
The words cut through the air like a blade.
Keiser’s frown deepened.
A dull ache bloomed in the bandaged socket of his left eye, sharp enough that he nearly winced.
’Mother’s heart’...
The phrase struck something deep inside, scraping against memory like flint against stone. It wasn’t just romantic idealism, wasn’t some boy’s poetic cry. No... it was something else, something he had heard before.
For a moment, he told himself it was nothing. Just a youth speaking with dramatic grief, lashing out in words that sounded grander than they were. But the pain in his eye throbbed again, insistent, dragging him toward the truth.
And then...
Oh.
It was then that memory stirred... the incident in the capital. The very one that had buried the news of Muzio and Lenko’s deaths, snuffing it out before it could ever reach the limelight.
That must have been what Lenko had meant earlier this morning, when he mentioned the royal brigade leaving in haste, summoned back to the capital for some reason.
At the time, Keiser hadn’t pieced it together.
His mind was tangled elsewhere, consumed by the chance he had lost... the chance to confront himself, to warn ’Sir Keiser’ of the betrayals looming ahead and the storm already pressing near.
The thought chilled him. He knew exactly what that storm was. An incident so terrible he had long buried it in the corners of memory, a thing he had no wish to recall, let alone relive.
Yet the path before him was clear... he would have to face it again.
Worse, he would have to face it in this fragile body, one that staggered after only a handful of steps, each breath tugging against broken seams, Lenko barely managed to stitch back together.
He clenched his teeth.
To survive this, to deal with it more cleanly than before, he would need his full strength. No... more than that.
He would need control, precision, a clear head. Because even with his foreknowledge, there was still too much he did not know about Muzio and Lenko’s supposed deaths.
Olga... Lenko’s older sister... had spoken of it often, but even her words had been riddled with gaps and grief. The exact truth was still out of reach, a thread dangling just beyond his grasp.
And so, for now, he would mend what he could.
His body. His endurance. His hold on this time that wasn’t his. Because if he faltered, then the chance to change their fate... Muzio’s, Lenko’s and even his, Keiser’s... would vanish, swallowed by the same tide that had drowned it once before.
"What do you mean you can heal me?" Keiser cut in sharply. He tugged at Lenko’s arm for balance, forcing the young man to hold him steady.
Lenko’s scowl was immediate. "There’s no way he can."
He seized Keiser’s wrist and gestured toward the bandaged limbs, voice rough with irritation. "I already told you... magic doesn’t work on you. Not with all those sigils carved into your skin. If anyone tries to write over them, it could twist the meaning of the runes. Best case, it won’t work. Worst case, it’ll make things far worse."
The words hung heavy, but the young man didn’t flinch. His desperation only grew as he stepped closer, eyes flicking from Keiser to the others.
The princess moved forward then, placing herself between them as her voice cut through the quiet. "Tell us what you meant by healing him." Her tone was firm, demanding, leaving no room for evasions.
Lenko sucked in a sharp breath. "Princess Yona? You can’t seriously be considering this---"
But Yona’s eyes never left Tyron. She only stared.
Diego folded his arms with a weary shake of his head. "Forgive him. He’s still young and doesn’t know what he’s saying." His gaze shifted to Tyron, harder now. "Don’t make this worse than it already is. Go home."
But Tyron didn’t retreat.
He squared his shoulders, fists tightening over the fabric of his tunic as he spoke, each word weighed with resolve. "I can do it. It doesn’t involve runescripting." His eyes... ordinary at first glance, sky-colored and common in these lands... met Keiser’s directly.
And then Keiser saw it.
A flicker. A slitted pupil.
Those eyes were not ordinary at all. That pale-blue iris was marked by a vertical pupil, like a beast peering through human flesh.
"...It’s my mother’s heart," Tyron whispered, voice trembling but unyielding.
Keiser narrowed his eyes. Right. A mother’s heart.
The words clicked into place like a blade sliding into its sheath, and memory rushed back sharp and unyielding. What had thrown the entire capital into absolute mayhem before the Gambit was not rumor nor war nor politics... but a heart.
A sacred beast heart.
A dragon’s heart.
That accursed artifact.
It was said to grant wishes... any wish... as long as one met the conditions it demanded. But wishes were never free. The conditions were cruel, insatiable, and the cost had been blood. The capital had drowned in it.
He remembered the timing clearly, the frenzy had broken out a month before the Gambit began.
News had spread like wildfire, twisting truths into poison. Whispers said that to awaken the heart’s power, one needed the blood of dragonkin. But what most believed is, its just blood.
As if something so simple could tame a dragon’s relic. That misunderstanding alone had driven men mad, turned kin against kin, and stoked massacres in the streets.
And now...
The young man... Tyron... pulled something from his chest, the object he’d been clutching all this time. A necklace. Dangling from it, a small glass vial filled with something dark.
Keiser stared at it. For a moment silence stretched, taut as wire.
Then he laughed.
It wasn’t a bright laugh. It was jagged, cracked, edged with something halfway between bitter amusement and raw exhaustion.
Every eye snapped toward him.
Tyron flushed with offense and confusion.
Lenko stiffened, concern written plain on his face.
Yona froze, her expression tightening into something that read very clearly as ’oh no’.
Even Diego... grizzled, unshakable mercenary... looked jarred. He stared at Keiser like a man remembering far too late who exactly stood before him.
Yes, he looked like a corpse, pale and bandaged and limping. But this was still that boy.
Keiser rubbed at his lone good eye, brushing away a glint of wetness that might’ve been from pain, or laughter, or both. His voice came low, rough but steady.
"You better stick with us," he said, gaze cutting back to Tyron. "Or you’ll get devoured in the capital."