The capital city stretched beneath them, a labyrinth of towering spires and shadowed streets, all bound beneath the Regent’s iron rule. Soren stood in the heart of his father’s domain—the highest chamber of the Tower of Chains, where the air was thick with the hum of magitech conduits and the scent of smoldering mana. Beyond the arched windows, violet streaks of ley lightning flickered in the distance, illuminating the fractured skyline.

And across the room, seated in his throne-like chair of carved obsidian and arcane filaments, was the man who had shaped that skyline into his own vision.

Regent Aric.

The Discussion Begins – The Regent’s Expectations

The Regent’s gaze was sharp as he tapped his gloved fingers against the armrest. “You hesitate more these days, Soren.”

Soren kept his expression neutral. “I don’t hesitate, Father. I calculate.”

Aric let out a quiet chuckle, but there was no warmth in it. “Calculation is a word cowards use before they are cut down.” He leaned forward slightly. “You had them. The rebels. The shipment thieves. And yet, the princess still breathes.”

Soren’s jaw tensed. He had expected this. “The reports are exaggerated. There was resistance, but no confirmation of royal blood.”

Aric’s eyes gleamed like cut glass. “And yet, you let them slip through your fingers.”

Soren’s silence was answer enough.

The Regent stood, slow and deliberate, his long coat shifting around him like flowing ink. “I have ruled this kingdom through knowledge, through order. I have bent magic to my will. But blood,” he murmured, stepping toward Soren, “blood is the one thing that cannot be counterfeited.” His gloved fingers flexed. “You understand why the princess must die.”

Soren forced his shoulders to remain still. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Aric’s voice was silk over steel. “Because if she lives, she will rally the dregs of the old world against me. They will cling to their fairy-tale bloodlines and their sacred magic. And if the people remember what it was like to kneel before Aetheral-born kings, they will forget the future I have given them.”

He turned to the window, watching the ley lightning flicker over the Spires. “You were born into that future, Soren. You have never known a world where magic dictated who was worthy.”

Soren’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “And yet you still divide the worthy from the weak.”

Aric’s smile was slow, like a blade being drawn. “Of course. Because someone must.”

The Regent’s Experimentation – Soren’s Hidden Power Begins to Stir

Aric turned back to him, studying him as if seeing something beneath his skin. “You were my first success, you know.”

Soren stiffened.

“I learned so much with you. What an Innate-blooded body can endure. What it can suppress.”

Cold crept down Soren’s spine. His fingers twitched. “What are you talking about?”

The Regent took another step forward.

Closer now.

Too close.

“I made sure you would never fracture like them. That your blood would serve only one master.” His gloved hand lifted—and before Soren could move, Aric pressed his palm flat against his chest.

Searing cold shot through Soren’s body.

A pulse of something ancient, something deep within him, awoke—reacting to the foreign magic his father now forced through him. His veins burned beneath his skin, not with the calculated precision of Synthic energy, but with something raw, something untamed—

Innate magic.

Soren’s breath hitched. He knew this feeling. He had spent years pretending he didn’t.

His father’s gaze sharpened. “There it is,” he murmured. “Still buried in you, despite all my work.”

The magic beneath Soren’s skin surged—heat pooling in his fingertips, light flickering at the edge of his vision. He clenched his fists harder, forcing it down.

Not here. Not now.

If his father knew—if he truly knew—he would tear it out of him.

The Regent’s expression darkened as the magic in his glove faded, no longer stirring anything beneath Soren’s skin. “Good,” Aric said quietly, withdrawing his hand. “I see my conditioning held.”

Soren forced himself to breathe, to keep his voice steady. “What was that?”

Aric studied him for a long moment.

Then he smiled. “Nothing to concern yourself with, my son.”

The Final Command – A Test of Loyalty

The Regent moved back toward his chair, his gloves faintly pulsing with absorbed energy. “You will leave for Emberhold at dawn. Find the princess. Find her allies.” His eyes flickered with cold amusement. “Burn them, if you must.”

Soren’s body was still thrumming from whatever his father had done. He forced himself to stand tall. “Understood.”

Aric’s lips curved slightly. “And, Soren?”

He paused at the door.

The Regent’s voice was quiet. “Never forget what I made you.”

Soren’s fingers twitched—just for a moment, just enough for a faint, invisible thread of warmth to coil through his veins. Something deep inside him, something his father had tried to smother, stirred.

He swallowed it down.

Buried it.

Like always.

And then he walked out the door.

Because in the Tower of Chains, mercy was weakness.

And weakness was death.