Alexander stood at the window of Bondrea’s keep, watching the evening fall like slow-moving ash. The light dimmed across the wasted plains, staining everything in pale hues that seemed more suited to a graveyard than to a governed territory. The landscape outside was dead in every direction. Fields that refused to grow, hard soil cracked like old bone, roads that led nowhere except to other ruins, and a riverbed that split the land in a long gray wound rather than in a flowing vein of life. The wind that passed through it carried no scent of water or harvest, only dust. Dust from the earth. Dust from broken homes. Dust from hopes that had long since been abandoned.
He had known Bondrea was failing long before he arrived. Reports had been clear; emissaries had apologized in carefully measured language. But knowing something from a distance and living inside its hollowness were two different things. The emptiness carved itself into him with each week that passed. A governor without revenue was a governor without leverage, and a governor without leverage was a man waiting for execution. The keep’s stone walls had begun to feel less like fortification and more like a throat closing around him.
Alexander drummed his fingers against the chilled stone sill, a soft rhythm that carried more agitation than sound. He listened to it the way one listens to their own heartbeat when fear grows too large. Still no word from Phillip. No confirmation that Lexordo had finally left Preta. No sign that the web he had spent years crafting was holding steady or collapsing in silence, thread by thread.
He needed Phillip back. Phillip was the only one who could move freely, the only one among his few loyal pieces who could speak openly without raising suspicion. Phillip knew how to blend in where Alexander could not. He was nimble, light-footed in a way Alexander had never been. Alexander needed a report. He needed confirmation. He needed to know if the first domino had fallen in the exact spot it was meant to. Strategy without information was not strategy at all. It was prayer, and Alexander had no god left to pray to.
Before his thoughts could spiral deeper, the door behind him creaked open.
He did not turn immediately. He recognized the pattern of the footsteps that followed. Lukas Drier always walked with a stiffness that suggested he believed posture could replace intelligence. He stopped several paces behind Alexander, as if unsure how close he was permitted to stand in moments that were not explicitly defined by protocol.
Alexander let the silence drag one second longer before he finally turned.
“Lord Alexander,” Lukas said, standing stiffly, one hand on the pommel of his sword as if expecting an attack at any moment. “You have a visitor.”
Alexander’s frown creased before he could stop it. “Who?”
Lukas hesitated. The pause was slight, but unusual. Lukas never hesitated unless something had knocked him off the script of obedience he followed so carefully. His eyes flicked toward the door before returning to Alexander.
“He says it cannot wait. And he says you will want to look presentable.”
Alexander felt his chest tighten. His instincts, honed over years of deception and counter-deception, sharpened to a point. He straightened his collar almost without thinking, smoothing the lines of his dark coat as a tremor of unease crawled along his spine. His breath steadied by force of habit rather than calm.
“Let him in.”
Lukas nodded once and stepped aside.
Jacobo walked in.
Not a projection. Not a messenger. Not a priest speaking in his name or carrying his seals. Jacobo himself. The King of the Light. The First Father of the Sanctum. The man Alexander had spent years studying, flattering, resisting, deceiving. A figure who preferred to rule from a distance, who rarely moved without a procession or an announcement.
Here. In Bondrea. In person.
The shock hit Alexander’s body like cold water, but he allowed himself only a single heartbeat before dipping his head in a practiced bow. “Your Holiness. This is unexpected.”
Jacobo’s smile was thin, carved without warmth and without effort. “Unexpected for you. Not for me.”
He stepped further inside. His robes brushed the stone floor with the soft sound of silk passing over steel. He didn’t take a seat. He didn’t need to. His presence alone seemed to fill the room, making the walls feel suddenly narrower.
“Lukas,” Jacobo said without turning. “Stay.”
Lukas stiffened, but obeyed instantly. Alexander’s pulse thudded once, heavily, as if to mark the moment the door to escape had been sealed.
Jacobo clasped his hands behind his back and studied Alexander with an expression that made Alexander feel like a specimen being assessed rather than a governor being addressed. “You seem surprised to see me, Alexander.”
“I… Bondrea is honored,” Alexander said carefully. “I only wish I had been notified sooner. Your presence is…”
Jacobo raised a hand. The rest of Alexander’s sentence died before reaching air.
“We will not waste time on formalities,” Jacobo said. “I am here because I have discovered something remarkable.”
Alexander felt the bottom of his stomach drop, as if someone had cut a line inside him.
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Jacobo’s eyes, faintly luminous in the dim room, locked onto him. “Lexordo,” he said softly, “was in Preta.”
Alexander swallowed. He felt the need to steady his jaw. “Are you certain?”
Jacobo stepped closer, expression sharpening. “Quite certain.”
Alexander forced his voice to remain steady. “Your Holiness, if Lexordo was there...”
Jacobo cut him off with a tone that sliced the air in half. “Alexander. Think. Do you truly believe I would have shared my suspicions of Lexordo’s location if I were not already completely, irrevocably sure?”
Alexander felt his breath hitch. That had been the trap. That single moment Jacobo had “confided” in him earlier, offered him a sliver of vulnerability. A calculated sliver. A probe. A test.
“I was not aware,” Alexander murmured. “You seemed...”
“Concerned?” Jacobo finished for him. “Yes. I was. About you.”
Alexander’s fingers curled behind his back, hidden from view. He did not trust his face to remain still if he allowed any emotion to rise.
Jacobo turned away briefly, examining the banners of Bondrea, the cracks in the stone, the details that Alexander had learned to ignore. When Jacobo faced him again, the faint softness had vanished. What remained was the bare face of authority unmasked.
“When I placed you here,” Jacobo said, “I had certain expectations. Expectations that, I see now, were na?ve.”
Alexander felt his heartbeat pounding against his ribs, loud enough he worried Lukas might hear it.
“I always suspected you could not be fully trusted,” Jacobo continued. “But what I did not foresee was that you would align yourself with the murderers of your brother Valeo.”
Alexander’s blood went cold so quickly he felt lightheaded.
“That accusation is...” he began.
“Do not insult me,” Jacobo snapped. “Every lie out of your mouth right now is another finger I will take from your brother Phillip.”
Alexander’s composure cracked. “Where is Phillip?”
Jacobo’s smile was small and cruel, like something found preserved inside ice. “Safe,” he said. “For now. He has been brought to the Sanctum. He will work there from this moment forward. And every breath he takes will depend entirely on the obedience of his loving brother.”
Alexander felt the room tilt. The air thickened, heavy enough to choke. He dug his nails into his palm, seeking pain to anchor himself.
“Your Holiness, I have done nothing against...”
“Alexander,” Jacobo said quietly. “Stop.”
Silence followed, thick and suffocating.
“Let me explain how this unfolded,” Jacobo continued, voice soft again, which somehow made it worse. “Your little friend Rethal was quite cooperative. It is astounding how cheaply men can be bought when they believe they have been left behind.”
Something ruptured violently inside Alexander’s chest. Not physically, but emotionally, as anger, fear and humiliation surged together. Rethal had cracked? That easily? After everything?
Jacobo continued, savoring the unraveling. “He provided details. Your involvement. Your coordination. Your manipulation of the attack at Sbelto. All of it. But of course, testimony is only testimony until confirmed.”
Alexander felt panic clawing for a way up his throat.
“So,” Jacobo said, “I gave you the rumor of Lexordo’s presence. And then I waited.”
Alexander’s stomach twisted.
“You did not warn me,” Jacobo said. “You did not petition for aid. You did not summon reinforcements. You did not alert any priest or soldier.”
His eyes glimmered with predatory satisfaction.
“But Lexordo left Preta.”
Alexander felt his throat close.
“Yes,” Jacobo whispered. “He fled because you warned him.”
Alexander’s silence was the only answer left.
Jacobo smiled with victory. “That was all the confirmation I needed.”
Beside the door, Lukas shifted uncomfortably, but he kept his gaze forward. Loyal. Simple. Exactly the kind of man Jacobo trusted.
“And so,” Jacobo continued, “the moment Lexordo fled, I dispatched a force to Preta. As of midday, the attack is complete. The Knights of Light have been neutralized.”
Alexander felt his knees weaken. He forced himself to stay upright.
“Phillip,” he whispered.
“Phillip is alive,” Jacobo said lightly. “Unlike many others.”
A chill crawled down Alexander’s spine like a wet finger.
Jacobo’s tone became almost paternal. “Do not misunderstand me. If not for your surname, if not for the sentimental weight the people place on the lineage of Dromo, I would have had you executed today. Slowly.”
Alexander’s hands trembled, despite every effort to keep them still.
“But public backlash can be inconvenient,” Jacobo said. “So instead, I will strip your life of comfort, power and safety. You will drown under obligations you cannot fulfill, tributes you cannot pay, alliances you cannot break and threats you cannot act against.”
He leaned close enough that Alexander could feel the chill radiating from him.
“And you will wake every morning knowing that if you falter, even once, Phillip dies screaming.”
Alexander’s vision wavered with fury and terror, but he kept his spine straight.
Jacobo turned to leave.
“Lukas,” he said, “you will remain in Bondrea. Report everything. If Alexander so much as breathes in a suspicious direction, you will inform me.”
Lukas bowed. “Yes, Your Holiness.”
Jacobo looked back at Alexander. “Be grateful that mercy still exists in me. Even if only as a corpse of what it once was.”
Then he left.
The door closed with the finality of a tomb seal.
Alexander remained motionless, breath trembling, until Lukas shifted.
“What did you do?” Lukas asked quietly.
Alexander did not look at him.
He stared at the window, at the dead horizon, at the faint reflection of a man whose future had been torn from beneath his feet.
His voice, when it finally emerged, was ice.
“Leave me.”
Lukas obeyed.
When the door shut again, Alexander released the breath trapped inside him. It escaped as a shudder, like a wounded animal crawling from a snare.
He pressed both hands against the windowsill to keep upright.
He had lost Phillip. He had lost Bondrea. He had lost Jacobo’s trust, if such a thing had ever existed. He had lost the rebellion’s secrecy. He had lost the board he had spent years building.
And now Jacobo would choke him with his own bloodline.
Alexander closed his eyes.
Slowly, the trembling inside him faded.
In its place rose a different emotion.
Cold. Clean. Focused.
Jacobo had made a mistake.
He had left Alexander alive.
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