Three years in a cell had taught Matthias Corvain many things.
How to count time by the changing light through the single barred window. How to recognize the footsteps of different guards. How to silence the voice in his head that whispered he’d made the wrong choice.
He hadn’t. He would make the same choice again.
The Emperor had ordered him to execute everyone in the conquered city—men, women, children. A warning, he’d said. A demonstration of Imperial power.
Matthias had refused.
He’d expected execution. Had been prepared for it. Instead, the Emperor had thrown him in a cell and left him to rot.
Three years of darkness. Three years of silence. Three years of wondering if death might have been kinder.
So when the guards came one morning—not with the usual stale bread and water, but with buckets of hot water, clean clothes, a barber—Matthias didn’t know what to think.
“What’s happening?” he asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.
“Emperor’s orders,” one guard said curtly. “You’re to be made presentable.”
The Emperor. Still alive, then. Still on the throne.
Perhaps he’d finally decided to grant Matthias that execution after all. At least he’d die clean.
They scrubbed three years of grime from his skin. Cut his tangled hair and beard. Dressed him in simple clothes—not a prisoner’s rags, but not the uniform of a General either. Something in between.
Then they led him through corridors he’d once walked freely, past courtiers who turned to stare and whisper. His legs trembled with weakness after three years of confinement, but he forced himself to walk steadily.
They were taking him to the throne room.
This was it, then. A public execution. Perhaps the Emperor wanted to make an example of him after all—better late than never.
The great doors opened.
Matthias’s eyes, still adjusting to full light after years of dimness, took a moment to focus on the figure seated on the throne.
Not the Emperor.
Prince Lucian.
No—Emperor Lucian now, wearing the crown, the royal robes.
The old Emperor was dead, then. And the Crown Prince too, from the look of things.
Matthias’s last fragment of hope crumbled to ash.
Prince Lucian had always resented him. Had hated him with a quiet, simmering intensity that Matthias had pretended not to notice. The brilliant General who overshadowed the second son at every turn—of course Lucian had hated him.
And now Lucian was Emperor, and Matthias was at his mercy.
There would be no forgiveness here. No second chance.
Only revenge.
The guards pushed him forward. Matthias dropped to his knees at the base of the steps, bowing his head low.
“General Matthias Corvain,” the Emperor’s voice rang out, cold and formal. “You kneel before us a prisoner, convicted of disobedience to Imperial command.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” Matthias said quietly.
“Do you acknowledge your crime?”
“I acknowledge that I disobeyed an order.”
“And do you regret this disobedience?”
Matthias was silent for a moment. Then: “No, Your Majesty. I do not.”
Whispers rippled through the court. Even now, even facing certain death, he couldn’t lie about this.
“Interesting.” The Emperor’s tone gave nothing away. “Then why should we show you any mercy?”
“I don’t ask for mercy, Your Majesty. I ask only that whatever punishment you decree be carried out swiftly.”
More whispers. Matthias kept his head bowed, his eyes on the marble floor.
“You will swear loyalty to the throne,” the Emperor said. “Swear it now, before this court.”
Matthias’s throat tightened. A final humiliation before death—to make him swear loyalty to the man who hated him, who would kill him anyway.
But he spoke the words. “I, Matthias Corvain, swear loyalty to the Imperial throne, to the Empire, and to Emperor Lucian. I pledge my service, my sword, and my life to the Crown.”
“So witnessed,” the Emperor said. “Rise.”
Matthias stood on shaking legs.
“We have considered your case carefully,” Emperor Lucian continued. “And we have decided on an appropriate position for you.”
Here it comes, Matthias thought. The execution order, dressed up in formal language.
“You will serve as our personal attendant.”
The throne room went dead silent.
Matthias’s mind went blank. Personal attendant? That was a position for—for servants. For low-born men. Not for a General who’d commanded armies.
It was worse than execution. It was deliberate, calculated humiliation.
“Your Majesty,” someone in the court protested—Duke Hendrick, by the sound of it. “Surely such a position is beneath a man of General Corvain’s rank—”
“General Corvain no longer holds rank,” the Emperor said coolly. “He is a convicted criminal who serves at our pleasure. If we choose to make him our personal attendant, that is our prerogative.”
Silence.
“Do you accept this position?” the Emperor asked, looking directly at Matthias.
What choice did he have? At least he’d be alive. At least he’d have food, a bed, even if it came with crushing humiliation.
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” Matthias said, bowing his head again.
“Good. Report to the Master of Household. He will instruct you in your duties.”
And that was it. Dismissed. Not to execution, but to service.
The first week was a nightmare.
Matthias had commanded thousands of men. Had made strategic decisions that affected the fate of provinces. Had been treated with respect and honor.
Now he fetched wine. Carried messages. Helped the Emperor dress. Stood silently in corners during meetings, waiting to be needed.
The courtiers whispered. Some looked at him with pity. Others with satisfaction—schadenfreude at seeing the mighty brought low.
Matthias endured it all with his head down and his mouth shut.
Because this was his punishment. This was what he deserved for defying the Emperor.
And because somewhere, deep down, he still believed he’d made the right choice. Those people in that city—they’d lived. That was worth any humiliation.
But as the days turned to weeks, something strange began to happen.
Matthias started paying attention.
Standing silently in corners during council meetings, he heard things. Saw things. Noticed patterns.
Emperor Lucian wasn’t what Matthias had thought.
The second son, always dismissed as scholarly but not particularly sharp, was proving to be anything but ordinary.
He manipulated the nobles with surgical precision, playing factions against each other so smoothly that none of them seemed to realize they were being controlled. He made decisions that seemed harsh or unusual at first, but within days proved to be exactly right. He knew everything—who was plotting what, who had which alliances, where the real power lay beneath the surface protocols.
When someone needed to be punished, the Emperor didn’t rage or act impulsively. Instead, he calculated. Planned. Executed his decisions with cold precision.
And he was brilliant at it.
Matthias found himself watching the Emperor with growing fascination. This wasn’t the man he’d thought Lucian was—the resentful second son, the scholar who’d been overshadowed. This was someone completely different.
Someone formidable.
He’d underestimated Lucian. Catastrophically underestimated him.
And Matthias began to wonder—had everything he’d believed about the second prince been wrong?
Six weeks after Matthias had knelt in the throne room, the Emperor called him into the private study one evening.
“Pour two glasses of wine,” the Emperor said without looking up from the document he was reading. “And bring them here.”
Matthias obeyed, setting one glass on the Emperor’s desk.
“Now sit.” The Emperor gestured to the chair across from him. “There, by the fire.”
Matthias hesitated. That wasn’t—that wasn’t appropriate. Not anymore. He was a servant. Servants didn’t sit with the Emperor.
Emperor Lucian looked up, his eyes glittering with something Matthias couldn’t identify. “That’s an order, Matthias.”
Slowly, Matthias moved to the chair and sat, holding his wine glass carefully.
The Emperor settled back in his own chair, studying him. “How are you?”
The question was so unexpected that Matthias didn’t know how to answer.
“I…” He stopped. Started again. “I’m well, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor waited, still watching him with that unnervingly perceptive gaze.
“I’m well,” Matthias repeated, more firmly this time.
Emperor Lucian nodded slowly. “And are you ready to take up command again?”
Matthias’s hand jerked, wine sloshing in his glass. “Your Majesty?”
“Your command. Your position. Are you ready to resume it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You weren’t ready before,” the Emperor said calmly. “After three years in a cell, you needed time to recover. So I gave you time.”
Matthias stared at him. “Recovery? Your Majesty, I was a servant—”
“Yes. And in that time, you’ve rested. Eaten well. Regained your strength. And—” The Emperor’s lips curved into a slight smile. “You’ve had the opportunity to observe. To watch me, watch the court, understand the political landscape in a way you never could have from a position of command.”
Matthias’s mind was reeling. “That was intentional?”
“I accomplished three things,” the Emperor said, ticking them off on his fingers. “First, you recovered from your imprisonment. Second, you learned—really learned—how this court works, how I work, what my priorities are. You understand me now in a way you never did before.” He paused. “And third, I got my revenge for all those years you were better than me at everything.”
The last words were said lightly, almost playfully.
Matthias couldn’t breathe. “That was your revenge? Your Majesty, you could have done anything—”
“I could have,” the Emperor agreed. “But this was sufficient.” He leaned forward, his expression turning serious. “You defied my father because he ordered you to massacre innocents. That took courage, Matthias. Genuine moral courage. I wasn’t going to punish you for that—not truly.”
He reached into a drawer and pulled out a sword—Matthias’s sword—and a set of rank insignia.
“Take them,” the Emperor said, holding them out. “Take your position back. And I promise you this, Matthias—I will never order you to kill innocent people. When I give you commands, they will be ones you can follow with honor.”
Matthias’s hands shook as he reached for the sword. His fingers closed around the familiar hilt, and something in his chest unlocked.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Your old chambers are prepared,” the Emperor said gently. “Rest tonight. Report to court tomorrow morning. I expect the nobles will be quite shocked.”
He stood, and Matthias quickly followed, still holding his sword like a lifeline.
“Dismissed, General Corvain.”
Matthias walked through the palace corridors in a daze, his sword at his hip once more, his rank insignia clutched in his free hand.
His mind raced, replaying the past six weeks in light of this new understanding.
The Emperor—Lucian—had orchestrated all of it. Every moment. Every humiliation that Matthias now realized hadn’t been humiliation at all, but education.
He’d watched Lucian transform into the Emperor over these weeks. Had seen his brilliance, his strategic mind, his careful manipulation of the court. Had witnessed decisions that proved, again and again, that this man was nothing like the second son Matthias had dismissed years ago.
Lucian was brilliant. Ruthlessly intelligent. Capable of playing games within games.
Matthias had always thought Lucian was ordinary. Not suited for combat, not clever enough for court intrigue, not strong enough for the demands of rule.
He’d been catastrophically wrong.
The man he’d just left—the Emperor who’d given him back his sword and his honor—could be one of the greatest rulers the Empire had ever seen.
And tomorrow, Matthias would stand before the court as General once more. They would be shocked. They would wonder. They would realize, slowly, that the Emperor had played them all.
Matthias reached his old chambers—cleaned, prepared, waiting for him as if he’d never left.
He set his sword on the table and looked at it for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
He had served the old Emperor out of duty. But this Emperor—this brilliant, calculating, unexpectedly honorable Emperor—he would serve out of something else entirely.
Loyalty. Genuine, freely given loyalty.
Lucian would be a great Emperor. Perhaps the greatest.
And Matthias would help him become it.