The speech square.

  The surrounding buildings had clearly been groomed with care. Even the iron fencing that once ringed the Marshal’s Rostrum had been removed. But the constables and soldiers posted as guards had not been reduced in the slightest—if anything, there were more of them than ever. After all, many of the Kingdom’s most important figures were coming to hear this address. One misstep, and it would become a catastrophe.

  Directly before the rostrum, in the best possible position, a raised dais had already been erected.

  Earl Lunder. Duke Argai. Marquis Russell. Marquis Cavendish… dignitaries and grandees rarely seen in public sat upon that platform—yet the two most central, most honored chairs remained empty.

  Tap. Tap.

  Footsteps rang out. Royal Guards rode into the square, and King Arthur VI descended from his carriage with his Queen.

  Everyone rose at once and bowed.

  Arthur VI smiled, lifting a hand in acknowledgement. Each motion was flawless, as though drilled by tutors for a lifetime. With the Queen on his arm, he seated her and himself in the place of honor.

  Winter had not yet relinquished its grip. Cold wind swept the square in gusts, and with nightfall approaching the temperature dropped abruptly. Many listeners began to shiver and stamp their feet, silently regretting they had not brought their thickest fur coats.

  Even on the dais, the nobles frowned. Pontiff Feret’s choice of hour felt arrogant—ill-judged.

  Just then, a plain carriage rolled to a stop at the edge of the square, surrounded by clergy.

  An elderly steward in a crisp white shirt and black waistcoat—every hair in place—opened the door himself. At once a red carpet was unrolled to the carriage step.

  Pontiff Feret emerged in a purple robe of extravagant dignity. On his head was a triple-symbol crown of sun, moon, and stars. A scepter rested in his hand.

  He walked the length of the carpet and ascended The Marshal’s Rostrum.

  “Your Majesty…”

  Feret looked as if he had been prepared down to the last detail. He was the archetype of an Inves beauty—like a golden lion. Many ladies and young women flushed, hearts racing, and felt a private, regretful sigh.

  “Children of the Holy Spirit…”

  Feret’s gaze shifted out over the square.

  His voice was deep and resonant, steeped in a gravity so thick it seemed to clot in the air.

  “The sun… is about to fall.”

  It was dusk. The dying light of the day gilded the rostrum, turning Feret into something like a god cast in gold. His voice carried across the entire square—and the faithful froze, faces blank with shock.

  On the dais, Arthur VI called a retainer in surprise.

  Because Feret’s opening lines were nothing like the approved manuscript.

  Duke Argai’s expression tightened. He looked to the captain of his guard and gave a slow, sober nod.

  Inves was not a Kingdom ruled by the King alone. The military, the parliament… each held enormous power.

  And Duke Argai was a pillar of the military—also the Speaker of the Upper House.

  At his signal, the military intelligence agents maintaining order began to move, quietly placing Feret’s accompanying bishops under watch.

  “We have lived all our lives upon an island,” Feret continued, “and around that island lies an ocean named mystery and fear. We dread the deep. We fear that the moment we leave the shore, our reason will be drowned by waves called madness—and so some insist we must never set sail!”

  “But from this day onward, everything is different!”

  His speech rolled on, his words hammered out with force—yet the nobles felt a creeping unease with every sentence.

  In the crowd, however, excitement stirred. Faces brightened. Breaths quickened.

  “By His Majesty’s gracious permission,” Feret declared, “as Pontiff of the Holy Spirit Church, I hereby announce… announce…”

  His expression became subtly wrong. His muscles went stiff. A flicker of struggle surfaced in his eyes.

  He turned to Arthur VI—who was watching with concern—and offered an apologetic smile.

  Then, at last, Feret shouted:

  “I announce: bloodline brothers who have drunk of that blood—hereby we welcome the Savior’s descent!”

  Across the square, many believers looked dazed, murmuring as if in a trance.

  “I have drunk that blood. We are all bloodline brothers.”

  As though Feret’s words had turned a key, they dropped to their knees. Their lips moved in fervent unison, chanting the true name of the one they served:

  “Master of Thorns and Blood, Patron of Corruption and Crimson—

  Great God of Suffering!”

  “We speak Your holy name and call for Your coming!”

  …

  There were more than ten thousand of them.

  Fathers stared at their children in disbelief. Wives stared at husbands. Brothers looked at sisters.

  Everyone suddenly found the person beside them… unfamiliar.

  More than ten thousand Cult of Desire believers—men and women, old and young—were doing the same thing.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Kneeling. Praying. Calling.

  And without anyone realizing it, they made up a full fifth of the audience—perhaps more.

  Arthur VI’s expression shifted. He saw black, viscous fluid spreading across the ground. He saw something deep and ominous stirring in the earth—an Essence that carried ill fortune like a stench.

  That was the power of the God of Suffering.

  “Your Majesty,” Duke Argai urged, “the time for decision has come.”

  The Holy Spirit Church’s problem was not noticed only by the Bureau.

  But under pressure from the King’s side, all investigation had remained covert—no one dared act openly.

  Now Pontiff Feret had laid an ambush, led a mass prayer to an evil god, on a public square.

  It was treason beyond dispute.

  “Fulfill your duty as King,” the Queen said at the same time, her voice cold as steel.

  Arthur VI—his features slightly delicate, almost soft—lifted a hand with weary reluctance.

  “Ah… I never wished to believe it…”

  Royal Guards surged up the rostrum and seized Feret, hauling him down.

  It was so smooth, so effortless, that the ease itself made people uneasy.

  “Feret…”

  Arthur VI stared down at the Pontiff—his crown knocked away, hair disheveled, dignity shattered—and could not hide his confusion.

  “I trusted you. Why betray me?”

  “I’m sorry… I have drunk that blood!”

  Feret’s face contorted. He spat out a mouthful of black, clotted gore and laughed miserably.

  “We are all bloodline brothers… and now we gather here to welcome the descent of the God of Suffering. Arthur… I’m sorry… be careful… be careful of my—”

  Pfft.

  Before he could finish, a figure began to appear upon The Marshal’s Rostrum.

  A man in a white shirt and black waistcoat. Silver hair combed precisely. A warm, gentle smile.

  Feret’s elderly steward.

  But in his hands was a weapon—long, slightly broken—

  The Spear of the Sun King.

  He lifted it high. Upon its tip was skewered a body made of countless twisted, writhing shadows.

  The military commander who had secretly overseen security for this event.

  A Crowned One.

  “Protect His Majesty!”

  “Now!”

  “Clear the crowd!”

  Panic detonated.

  Screams broke out across the dais.

  On the rostrum, the steward—having used Pontiff Feret to draw the eye, and successfully ambushed the military Crowned One—let his smile widen, his mouth splitting just a little.

  The next instant, black, viscous fluid surged up and drowned the entire rostrum. His body sank into it like a stone into oil.

  A thorn tree burst into being, growing wildly.

  And on the trunk, a massive blood-red giant began to take shape.

  This time, the giant’s face was no longer blurred.

  Its features sharpened into clarity—

  They were the steward’s.

  —The God of Suffering finally revealed His true face.

  “My Lord!”

  The Cult of Desire faithful cried out in rapture.

  At the same time, among the guards of the nobility, within the bishops of the Holy Spirit Church, transcendent practitioners suddenly turned on their companions.

  Crimson blood sprayed across the platform.

  They were Cult of Desire members—or cultists warped by Blood Pact LAW.

  In truth, the difference was negligible.

  Order collapsed. Noblemen and celebrities lost all composure.

  The square was no better: too many cultists, too much confusion. Those who were not in on it did not know what to do.

  “Silence!” Duke Argai roared.

  A soundless door seemed to open in the air.

  Beyond it, a living metal fortress could be seen. Mechanical dolls poured out, forming a wall around Arthur VI, the Queen, and several great nobles.

  This was a royal alchemist—a guardian specialist among the Kingdom’s Crowned Ones.

  Runes glowed across the dolls’ bodies, knitting into a protective barrier.

  Outside the square, disciplined footsteps thundered in formation. Professional soldiers sprinted into place, raised barricades, and set up machine guns, sealing each avenue.

  From the windows of surrounding buildings, gun barrels extended.

  Above, vast airships drifted, their cannon muzzles angled down like predatory eyes.

  They were the Royal Guard units stationed in Wynchester.

  If the Kingdom chose to be ruthless, erasing everyone in the square would be only a matter of time.

  “We knew there would be many cultists,” Duke Argai said, gaze fixed and grim, “but not this many…”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “If we kill them all, then whatever plot the Cult of Desire has prepared… it fails, doesn’t it?”

  He suspected the God of Suffering’s rite depended on the speech and the mass of people. He lifted his hand high, ready to bring it down—

  “No.” Arthur VI’s voice trembled with restraint. “They are the Kingdom’s subjects. There are innocents among them.”

  …

  On The Marshal’s Rostrum, the pierced Crowned One slowly unraveled, leaving not a trace of life.

  The blood-red giant withdrew The Spear of the Sun King.

  Above the giant’s head, a small iron-black crown appeared.

  It was ruined, pitted with rust—yet it seemed more dazzling than the jeweled crown on Arthur VI’s brow.

  —Iron Crown.

  In the blood-red giant’s other palm, a pale eyeball rose into being.

  As large as an adult’s fist. No whites—only a green so deep it felt bottomless, packed with countless rotating black specks.

  Angel-grade Eldritcha—The Eye of Gumo.

  A holy object of the Bruce school, possessing the transcendent ability of Historical Reversal.

  The moment it appeared, it was as if Spirit Language was being chanted from the void:

  “Through the long ages, I shall keep the Secret; unto death, I shall not cease; thus today, thus every day…”

  A gray-white historical mist formed without warning, veiling the entire rostrum—then spreading outward to engulf the square. Only when it reached the dais did it stall, blocked by the LAW of protection radiating from the mechanical host.

  The dolls raised their shoulders. Their arms had been altered: some unfolded into six-barreled rotating guns; others became artillery tubes outright.

  Boom!

  Rat-tat-tat-tat!

  Bombs and storms of steel plunged into the historical mist—

  And vanished without a sound.

  Only flakes of rust rained down to the ground.

  The platform and the square had become two different worlds.

  Arthur VI and the others had—at some point—already moved into a steel castle.

  They stood on the best balcony, overlooking the entire speech square.

  Arthur VI watched the blood giant and the thorns within the historical mist twist and churn.

  Light and shadow overlapped, forming countless retreating silhouettes. They began to merge, reversing toward the front edge of history.

  “This is…” Arthur VI’s royal education made him recognize it. His breath hitched. “A Historical Reversal rite?”

  “But that false god—He isn’t purely of the Secret Path. He’s Sanguis and Umbral!”

  Under such conditions, even with The Eye of Gumo forcing the rite forward, no one could predict what it would become.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” A mechanical face surfaced from the metal fortress. “The Cult of Desire’s master has no inherent Secret aspect. Using an Eldritcha to drive a Historical Reversal rite—if it succeeds at all—it will be difficult to leave a permanent imprint upon him.”

  “The more likely outcome is a one-time effect. When the rite ends, the power will vanish immediately…”

  “Uncle,” Arthur VI said with a small nod of respect.

  This royal alchemist had fused his body with the entire steel fortress in the Ethereal Realm, becoming a new kind of metal life.

  “A one-time power… Historical Reversal, the Iron Crown, the Spear of the Sun King…”

  Duke Argai’s voice shook as he forced the thought into words—an answer that made everyone’s blood turn cold.

  “He… that traitor—he intends to reverse to…”

  “The Sun King’s Oathbreaking War?” he whispered.

  In that war, the Sun King Arthur—backed by the Night-Mother—used The Spear of the Sun King to betray The Breaking Dawn, preventing the Divine Child from being born into the mortal world.

  He shattered The Breaking Dawn’s plan to interfere with the world.

  “That was power on the level of a Velthyr—if only for a single instant…” Duke Argai’s voice trembled. “No—then why has no one in the Kingdom ever succeeded?”

  With a mere eye of Gumo, the God of Suffering could seize this much. For Sodoma’s royal line, acquiring similar relics—or cultivating a Historian of All Ages—should be easier still.

  If such a rite were replicable, it would belong to the Sodoma crown.

  “Because,” the mechanical face said, bitter and reverent at once, “the rite’s components are not merely the correct time, the correct place, and the Iron Crown with the Spear of the Sun King.”

  Its voice slowed.

  “The most important component…”

  “—is Her permission.”

  “Her…?”

  The special weight of that pronoun struck Duke Argai like a plunge into abyssal darkness—an eldritch deep no mortal language or tool could ever describe.

  He shuddered. Then, as if compelled, he lifted his head toward the sky.

  A black night had fallen without warning, swallowing Wynchester’s heavens.

  Velthyr—

  Night-Mother.

  Descended.