The Emperor’s blade remained at Kaiser’s throat for several long seconds.

No one in the reception hall dared move.

Not the guards. Not the Queen. Not Thomas, who had gone very still on Ludwig’s shoulder, wings folded tight and fire dimmed to a nervous glow. Even Kaiser, for all his arrogance, kept both hands raised and his mouth shut. That alone told Ludwig more than the sword did. Kaiser was many things, but careful was not usually one of them. If he had decided not to provoke the man holding the jade blade, then the Emperor’s casual clothes were doing a very poor job of hiding something monstrous.

Slowly, the Emperor lowered his sword.

The pressure in the room loosened by a fraction, though not enough for anyone to breathe freely.

"Quite brave," the Emperor said, "bringing the cause of the mess in the north to my own house."

Kaiser’s lips twitched, but he managed the miracle of not speaking.

Ludwig lowered his raised hand. "Not many options left when he’s the only one who can solve our current predicament."

The Emperor’s gaze did not soften. "You are asking me, the Emperor of the nation that banned dark magic, to use a dark mage to treat my daughter?"

"Yes."

The answer came too easily.

The Queen’s eyes shifted toward Ludwig, worry tightening the corners of her expression. The Emperor was not a man who treated law as decoration. He could bend politics, yes. He could bury grievances beneath compensation and silence. But when it came to imperial rules, especially old laws written in blood and disaster, he had the sort of sternness that made men lose heads for less than a careless sentence.

Ludwig knew that.

He spoke anyway.

"And I expect you to be a good father before being a good emperor."

The hall froze again.

The Queen’s hand tightened slightly at her side.

One guard looked like he had just heard someone slap a sleeping dragon.

The Emperor stared at Ludwig.

Ludwig stared back.

Then the Emperor said, "Fine."

The shock was almost physical.

Everyone tried to hide it.

Everyone failed, if only by a little.

The Queen’s eyes widened. Thomas’s tiny mouth opened. One of the guards blinked too hard. Even Kaiser, whose hands were still raised, looked mildly impressed. They had expected denial, argument, perhaps a command to seize Kaiser, perhaps even a swift execution if the Emperor decided this insult to imperial law had gone too far. Instead, he had agreed in a single word.

The jade sword vanished from the Emperor’s hand.

Not sheathed.

Gone.

"Alright then," Ludwig said after a beat. "Let’s go."

The Emperor turned without another word.

That was command enough.

The group moved through the palace toward Celest’s chamber. The Queen walked close, her composure restored but fragile around the eyes. Ludwig followed beside Kaiser, with Thomas hovering instead of sitting on his shoulder now, as if proximity to the Emperor’s sword had made him reconsider casual perching. Guards came with them, though their formation was looser than before. They were not protecting the Emperor from Ludwig. They knew better than to pretend that made sense. They were there because a former lich had been invited into the royal family’s private wing, and even obedience had limits to how comfortable it could look.

When they reached Celest’s room, the maids straightened immediately.

A priestess near the bedside turned pale at the sight of the Emperor. The guards stationed inside stiffened and lowered their heads. The Emperor rarely visited in person, and every visit became important simply because he had chosen to make it so. His presence made the large room feel smaller. More serious. Even the soft curtains and pale light around Celest’s bed seemed to hold still.

Celest remained asleep.

She looked worse than the last time Ludwig had seen her.

Not dramatically, not in the obvious way of blood or injury, but with that quiet cruelty of wasting illness. The Black Dragon’s Curse continued to pull her deeper into unnatural sleep, letting her body lose vitality while appearing peaceful enough to mock everyone who loved her. Her skin was pale. Her breath was slow. Her hands lay still atop the blankets, too delicate, too lifeless.

Kaiser looked at her for a moment.

Then turned toward the Emperor. "Right. By the way, got any prisoners who are going to visit the gallows soon?"

The Queen’s face tightened.

The priestess inhaled sharply.

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed. "We do. Why?"

"Well," Kaiser said, "pick the most despicable, violent, irredeemable one you have. Someone who actually deserves multiple executions. Bring them here."

The Emperor looked at Kaiser.

Then at Celest.

Then, slowly, understanding entered his eyes.

It did not please him.

But he understood.

He turned his head toward one of the guards and gave a single nod.

The guard ran.

The Queen stepped forward. "What does he mean?"

Kaiser did not answer her immediately. His expression had changed. The lazy mockery was gone, replaced by something focused and old. That worried Ludwig more than any joke would have. Kaiser looked toward the maids, the priestess, the guards, and Thomas.

"We’ll need everyone to leave this room," he said.

The priestess stiffened. "I must remain with the princess."

"No," Kaiser said.

The flatness of the answer cut through her protest.

He pointed toward Ludwig, then the Emperor. "Ludwig and the Emperor can stay. Everyone else leaves."

The Queen’s eyes sharpened. "I am not leaving."

Kaiser looked at her.

"My Queen," he said, "you need to leave."

The respectful tone made Ludwig’s stomach tighten.

Kaiser was never respectful unless he wanted something, feared something, or understood that what came next was too ugly for even him to dress in jokes.

"Why?" the Queen asked. "She is my daughter too."

"I know," Kaiser said. "That is why you should leave."

The Queen did not move.

Kaiser’s voice lowered. "You will not like what you see. So please."

That word did it.

Not because it softened the Queen, but because it made the situation undeniable. Kaiser saying please felt like a temple bell ringing at midnight. Wrong enough to demand attention.

The Emperor’s jaw tightened.

"Leave," he said quietly.

Her eyes flashed.

For a moment, husband and wife stood against each other in silence, not as Emperor and Queen, but as parents at the edge of the same fear. Then the Queen looked at Celest, lifted one trembling hand as if to touch her daughter from across the room, and forced it down.

"Save her," she said.

Kaiser inclined his head. "That is the idea."

The Queen left.

The maids followed, several crying quietly. The priestess resisted until a guard put a firm hand on her shoulder and guided her out. Thomas hovered near Ludwig, clearly uncertain whether spirit status granted him an exception.

Kaiser looked at him. "You too, candlefly."

Thomas frowned. "Candlefly?"

"Out."

Thomas turned to Ludwig. "Are we accepting that nickname?"

"Not right now."

"Fine," Thomas muttered, and flew after the others.

The door closed.

Only Ludwig, Kaiser, and the Emperor remained with Celest.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Kaiser began pulling objects from the spatial storage hidden inside his corrupted branch of the World Tree.

Lanterns came first, small and black, their glass stained a deep smoky red. Then candles, thin and gray, twisted like old fingers. Strange jars followed, each filled with liquid that moved too slowly to be water and too thickly to be wine. Some were dark. Some reddish-brown. One had pale flakes suspended inside it. Kaiser placed everything across the floor with exact care, arranging them around the bed in positions that looked random only until Ludwig recognized the pattern.

His eyes narrowed.

He had seen pieces of this in books Van Dijk kept locked away.

Not the complete ritual. But enough sigils. Enough old diagrams. Enough notes written in margins with warnings that became more severe the deeper the ink changed color.

Nasty level stuff.

Kaiser took one jar, opened it, and dipped his index and middle fingers inside.

The liquid clung to his skin, greasy and dark. It smelled faintly metallic, but there was something else under it. Something sour. Something old. Ludwig’s Living Vessel reacted with quiet disgust.

Kaiser crouched and began drawing on the floor.

Sigils spread beneath his fingers.

Curves, hooks, circles, broken lines, and old symbols that did not belong to the modern imperial script or the simpler dark magic Ludwig had learned. This was older. Meaner. The sort of writing that felt like it had been invented by people who believed mercy weakened results. The candles were placed at intersecting points. The lanterns were turned inward. The jars formed a secondary ring around the bed.

The Emperor watched in silence.

The more Kaiser drew, the heavier the room became.

When he finished the floor, he dipped his fingers into the jar again and approached Celest.

The Emperor’s voice cut through the room. "What are you doing?"

"Need to finish the ritual," Kaiser said without looking back. "Mind not disturbing me?"

The Emperor’s eyes dropped to the greasy blood on Kaiser’s fingers. "Do I need to know where that blood is coming from?"

"I’d rather not say."

"Kaiser," Ludwig said.

The former lich sighed. "All I can say is that I did not personally collect this. I took it from someone who did."

The Emperor’s expression did not improve. "You mean stole it?"

"It is not stealing if the owner is dead."

"It absolutely is," Ludwig said.

"It is inheritance without paperwork."

"Not better."

Kaiser ignored him and leaned over Celest. With surprising delicacy, he painted a small sigil on the princess’s forehead. Celest did not stir. Her face remained slack with unnatural sleep, her body too still beneath the blankets. The curse had made her stiff in a way ordinary sleep never would, as if something beneath consciousness had quietly locked the doors from inside.

Kaiser stepped back and examined the completed mark.

"Right," he said. "This should do it. Where is the prisoner?"

"He should be here any minute," the Emperor said.

They waited.

The wait was not long.

Chains rattled in the corridor first. Heavy ones. Then came the sound of boots, hurried and rough. The door opened, and several guards dragged a man inside before throwing him forward with enough force that he hit the floor and rolled near the edge of the ritual circle.

The prisoner looked like a collection of bad decisions held together by spite.

He had more scars than skin, more tattoos than flesh, and more chains than his scrawny body seemed capable of carrying. Warding collars circled his neck. Shackles wrapped his wrists and ankles. Iron restraints crossed his chest. His hair hung in greasy strands around a face hollowed by fear and cruelty, and across parts of his exposed skin were branded words that needed no translation.

Dark Magic User.

The moment he saw the Emperor standing above him, he tried to crawl backward.

Then he saw the blood on the floor.

The sigils.

The candles.

The lanterns.

The bed.

The princess.

Understanding struck him so hard his face collapsed.

He lunged toward the Emperor’s boots and grabbed them with chained hands.

"Please!" the prisoner screamed. "Please! I don’t want this!"

The Emperor looked down at him.

There was no mercy in his face.

"The children you sacrificed and whose livers you ate did not get that choice," the Emperor said. "Why should you?"

He kicked the man away.

The prisoner tumbled across the floor and landed near Kaiser, sobbing and scrambling at the sigils as if rubbing them could erase what was coming.

Kaiser looked down at him.

"Oh," he said. "You were a Child Eater? Damn. This is perfect. I won’t even have difficulty sleeping after this."

"You don’t sleep anyway," Ludwig said.

"True."

"Also," Ludwig added, looking at the prisoner with open disgust now, "what is a Child Eater?"

Kaiser tapped the jar in his hand with one bloody finger. "Same thing this is made from, sadly. They capture young children, infants, and babies. Slaughter them. Preserve the blood for ritual work. Eat the livers to try and gain longevity. Primitive stuff. Very useless too. You need about ten children to get barely one year of life."

Ludwig’s expression went still.

Kaiser looked at the prisoner again. "And this guy looks like he has at least twenty stolen years on him."

The prisoner’s fear twisted into rage for half a second. "You’re also a dark mage! Why aren’t you in chains?"

Kaiser smiled.

"Must suck to suck. I do not do barbaric stuff like you."

He lifted his red finger.

The prisoner went white.

Kaiser pointed it toward him. "Now hold still."