CAIUS: Crown of Threads and Shadows

Inside the Grand Council Chamber of the Royal Capital, the air was cold, thick, and suffocating.

King Alden sat upon the Golden Throne, but the majestic posture he had maintained for three decades was gone. His face was hollow, dark circles bruised beneath his eyes, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the marble armrests. Below the dais, the court was in absolute, unmitigated chaos.

On the central stone table lay a single piece of parchment, a direct rubbing taken from one of the black granite signposts erected along the border of the newly fallen Duchy of Alban.

”He wants my head,” King Alden whispered, his voice cracking with a mixture of rage and terror. ”The bastard son of Cullum Macrae demands the Crown of this realm.”

”It is an outrage! An absurdity!” shouted Chancellor Oswald, his heavy velvet robes shaking as he stepped forward, his face flushed red. ”Your Majesty, he is a dark sorcerer, an outcast! He cannot simply dictate terms to the entire Kingdom! We must rally the remaining provincial levies! Mobilize the grand army!”

”Mobilize with what, Oswald?” sneered Marquis Corvin, his eyes darting frantically around the room like a trapped animal. ”Eighty thousand men marched onto the eastern steppe! Eighty thousand! The Solarian Sentinels were wiped out, High Lord Lorien was turned into a marionette, and Duke Rodrik is rotting in a dungeon! The Duchy of Alban fell in two weeks!”

Silence slammed down upon the chamber like an iron anvil.

Every noble in the room knew the terrifying truth. The royal treasury was depleted from funding the failed campaign, and the loss of Alban, the kingdom’s primary granary and iron producer, had severed their most crucial supply lines. Worse, rumors had already trickled across the border: the commoners in Alban were not revolting. They were thriving under Caius’s zero-tax decree, while the royal refugees fleeing the province told tales of a mind-controlled human legion marching alongside spider-demons and five colossal Orc leviathans.

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”The deadline is one year,” Duke Valerian muttered, his hands trembling as he stared at his own name written at the top of the parchment list. ”Three hundred and sixty-five days, and then he marches on the next province.”

Valerian turned his gaze toward Grand Commander Teryn, who stood rigidly beside the throne, his hand resting on the hilt of his longsword. ”Teryn... your Royal Guard... can you stop him? If he breaches the inner duchies...”

”Stop him?” Teryn let out a bitter, lifeless laugh, cutting the Duke off. ”My Lord, the reports from Alban City confirmed that a high-tier Solar Angel was summoned during the siege. Caius unleashed a winged entity clad in black plasma that destroyed the angel in a single strike. My guards are men of steel and courage, but we cannot fight gods of shadow.”

”So what are you suggesting?!” Chancellor Oswald shrieked, panic breaking through his aristocratic composure. ”You mean to hand us over to him?! We served the Crown! We did what was necessary to eliminate Cullum Macrae when he became a threat to the nobility!”

”Silence!” King Alden roared, slamming his fist onto the armrest.

The chamber fell dead quiet, though the sweat pouring down the necks of the four named men betrayed their absolute terror.

King Alden slowly stood up, looking at the four men who had helped him orchestrate the downfall and execution of Cullum Macrae years ago. Back then, it had seemed like a simple political necessity, cutting down an overly ambitious war hero before he could challenge the throne. Now, Cullum’s ghost had returned in the form of a dual-cored sovereign leading an unstoppable army of shadow and steel.

”We have one year,” King Alden said, his eyes cold, calculating, and desperate. ”Send emergency emissaries to the High Council of Mount Eldoria. Tell them the entity that destroyed their Solarian host now sits upon their doorstep. If they do not send their True Elven Archmages to aid us...”

The King paused, his eyes lingering on Valerian, Corvin, Teryn, and Oswald with a dark, unspoken implication that made the four nobles shudder to their very bones.

”...then we will have no choice but to satisfy the Sovereign’s list.”