The marble corridors of the Imperial Palace had always felt colder than the mud of the Eastern Marches, but today, they felt like the interior of a tomb.
General Matthias Corvain walked with the measured stride of a man heading toward his own gallows. To his left and right, the Crimson Guard—Lucian’s newly appointed personal protectors—marched in silence. Their armor didn’t clank; it hummed with the soft, terrifying precision of a trap being sprung.
For eighteen years, Matthias had been the “Undefeated General.” He had cracked the fortifications of the Iron Cities; he had outmaneuvered the nomadic horse-lords of the Great Steppe. He had looked into the eyes of death a thousand times and found a way to win.
But as the Great Hall’s doors loomed ahead, Matthias felt a sickening hollowness in his chest. In war, there was always a strategy. A flank to turn, a supply line to cut, a hill to hold.
Here, there was only the whim of a man who had spent a lifetime nursing a grudge.
The Throne of Silence
The doors swung open. The court was a sea of lowered heads and hushed whispers. At the far end, beneath the towering stained glass of the Primarchs, sat Lucian.
He looked different. The crown of the First Empire sat heavy on his brow, but it didn’t look burdensome. It looked like it had finally found its rightful place. Lucian wasn’t the petulant second son today; he was the predator who had finally cornered the lion.
Matthias reached the center of the hall and knelt. The stone was unforgiving.
“General Corvain,” Lucian’s voice drifted down the dais, smooth and sharp as a razor’s edge. “The ‘Undefeated.’ The man who never meets a wall he cannot climb, or a foe he cannot break.”
Matthias kept his eyes on the floor. “I am but a servant of the throne, Your Majesty.”
“A servant?” Lucian let out a short, dry laugh that echoed off the vaulted ceiling. “A servant who commanded more love from my brother than I ever did. A servant whose name is whispered in every tavern while mine was forgotten in the archives.”
Lucian stood up, the silk of his midnight robes hissing against the gold of the throne. He descended the steps slowly, circling Matthias like a wolf inspecting a wounded stag.
The Invisible Blade
“Tell me, General,” Lucian whispered, leaning down so only Matthias could hear. “How does it feel? To have all those legions at your back, all those brilliant tactics in your head, and find yourself… helpless?”
Matthias’s jaw tightened. This was the true defeat. Not a loss of territory, but the total stripping of his agency. He could kill a hundred men in this room before he was taken down, but that would only prove Lucian right. It would be a traitor’s death. To stay loyal was to die at Lucian’s feet. Either way, the “Undefeated” was finally beaten.
“I am at your mercy, sire,” Matthias said, his voice straining under the weight of his own powerlessness.
“Mercy?” Lucian stepped in front of him, forcing Matthias to look up. The Emperor’s eyes weren’t filled with the madness Matthias expected. They were filled with a terrifying, cold clarity. “You think I want your blood, Matthias? Blood is easy. Blood makes you a martyr. The soldiers would weep; the songs would grow longer.”
Lucian reached out and placed a hand on Matthias’s shoulder. The grip was surprisingly strong.
“I don’t want your life. I want your legend. I want the Undefeated General to be the man who kneels when I whisper. I want the world to see that the greatest weapon the Empire ever forged belongs, heart and soul, to the man you once thought was nothing.”
The New Campaign
Lucian straightened his back, addressing the entire room now.
“General Matthias has returned to us not as a conqueror, but as a testament to the transition of power. He has recognized that the era of my father and brother has passed. He remains ‘Undefeated’ because he has the wisdom to know when he has met his master.”
Matthias felt the air return to his lungs, but it tasted like ash. He wasn’t going to be executed. He was going to be kept. He was to be the living trophy of Emperor Lucian the First—a golden bird in a cage made of duty and old guilt.
As Lucian turned back toward his throne, he spared one last glance over his shoulder.
“Get up, Matthias. We have a world to remind of who wears the crown. And you… you shall be the shadow that walks behind me to prove it.”
Matthias rose. His sword felt like a lead weight at his hip. He had survived the encounter, but as he looked at the back of the young Emperor, he realized the truth:
The wars he had won were simple. This new peace, governed by a man who knew exactly how to use Matthias’s own honor against him, would be the hardest campaign of his life.
The golden halls of the Imperial Palace had become a labyrinth of quiet cruelty. For Matthias Corvain, the transition from the mud-stained glory of the front lines to the suffocating opulence of the capital was a slow, agonizing strangulation.
He walked the corridors not as a hero, but as a ghost. Lucian kept him close—too close. At every banquet, every council meeting, and every public reception, Matthias was commanded to stand exactly three paces behind the throne. He was a living ornament, a silent testament to the Emperor’s absolute dominion. He was the “Undefeated General” who had been broken without a single drop of blood being spilled, and Lucian savored that irony like a vintage wine.
The court, ever sensitive to the shifting winds of power, sensed the Emperor’s silent approval of Matthias’s degradation. The nobility, who had once groveled for a mere nod of recognition from the Great General, now found their courage in his silence.
The Whispers of the Vultures
The court functions were the worst. Matthias would stand rigid, his gaze fixed on a distant point on the wall, while the air around him grew thick with the poison of the aristocrats. They didn’t speak to him—that would imply he was still a peer. Instead, they spoke at him, their voices pitched just high enough to ensure the barbs hit their mark.
“Look at the ‘Unconquered’ now,” a Count murmured, fanning himself as he strolled past. “He looks more like a statue than a man. I suppose it’s easier to stand still than to think.”
“Unconquered?” a Baroness replied with a sharp, trilling laugh. “Hardly. He was a master on the battlefield, perhaps, but look at the wretched state he’s brought himself to. To think he ignored the second son for decades. What a lack of foresight.”
“He is a butcher, nothing more,” came another voice, dripping with disdain. “A man of the sword with no culture, no finesse. He thought he could survive on grit alone, never realizing that the real war is fought in the drawing rooms. He is a fool who made an enemy of a God.”
Matthias heard it all. Every word felt like a tiny, stinging insect landing on his skin. He watched Lucian out of the corner of his eye. The Emperor’s lips would twitch—a tiny, mocking spark of amusement that never quite reached his eyes. That twitch was all the encouragement the court needed. It was a signal: The General is fair game.
The Physicality of Failure
Soon, the verbal barbs turned into physical provocations. It began with “accidental” collisions in the narrow hallways. A Duke would lurch into him, trying to knock him off balance. A young heir would stick out a polished boot as Matthias marched toward the dais.
Physically, Matthias was unshakable. His body was a temple of honed reflexes; he could sense the shift in a man’s weight before they even moved. He bypassed the tripping feet with a grace that frustrated his tormentors and absorbed the shoves without swaying an inch. His soldier’s skin was thick, and he had survived spear-thrusts and arrow-wounds; a shoulder-check from a pampered lord meant nothing to his flesh.
But his mind was a different matter.
In the silence of his quarters at night, the whispers returned to haunt him. They were right. The realization was a cold, heavy stone in his gut. He had been arrogant. In his devotion to Emperor Adrian and the Crown Prince, he had looked at Lucian—the bookish, frail, quiet second son—and seen nothing. He hadn’t just disliked Lucian; he had dismissed him as irrelevant. He hadn’t wanted to feign a friendship with a boy who had no stomach for the march or the blade. He had valued strength, and in his narrow-mindedness, he had failed to see the different, sharper kind of strength Lucian was forging in the library.
I am a fool, he thought, staring at the ceiling. I am exactly what they say I am. A man of violence who forgot that the world is built on more than just victories.
The Drowning of a Legend
The escalation reached its peak during the midsummer gala. The heat in the ballroom was oppressive, the scent of lilies and expensive perfumes cloying.
It started “gracefully.” A Duchess, draped in heavy silks, feigned a stumble as she passed Matthias. With a delicate cry, she tilted her crystal goblet, sending a splash of dark, red wine across his dress uniform’s sleeve.
“Oh, General! How clumsy of me,” she chirped, her eyes dancing with malicious glee. “I suppose I’m just overwhelmed by your… presence.”
Matthias didn’t blink. He didn’t even look at the stain. “It is of no consequence, Your Grace,” he said, his voice a hollow rasp.
Lucian watched from his elevated seat, leaning his chin on his hand, his expression one of bored fascination. He said nothing. He didn’t offer a cloth; he didn’t rebuke the woman. He simply waited for the next act.
It came an hour later.
Matthias was standing near the buffet, the center of a circle of mocking gazes. A young Lord, emboldened by a night of drinking and the Emperor’s silent permission, approached with a wide, unstable grin. He held a large, silver chalice brimming with chilled white wine.
“A toast!” the Lord shouted, drawing the attention of the entire room. “To the General! May his future be as bright as his past was… loud!”
As he stepped forward, the Lord’s foot “slipped” on the polished marble. He didn’t just spill the drink; he launched it.
The impact was shocking. The full weight of the wine hit Matthias square in the face.
The cold, sharp liquid splashed into his eyes, blinding him for a moment. It drenched his hair, the strands clumping together and dripping onto his forehead. It soaked his collar, the chilled moisture seeping through the thick fabric of his tunic and sticking to his chest like a shroud.
The room fell into a terrifying, expectant silence.
Matthias stood there, frozen. He could feel the wine trickling down his nose, dripping off his chin and onto the medals pinned to his chest—medals for battles that felt like they belonged to a dead man.
Then, the first giggle broke the silence. Then another. Soon, the ballroom was filled with the sound of muffled tittering and sharp, cruel laughter.
“Oh dear,” a voice whispered loudly. “The Undefeated General… conquered by a grape.”
Matthias didn’t wipe his eyes. He stood in the center of the mockery, wet and shivering in the draft of the open windows, finally understanding the true depth of his defeat. He was no longer a threat. He was a punchline.
And from the throne, he felt Lucian’s gaze—heavy, satisfied, and utterly cold.
The laughter of the gala was still ringing in Matthias’s ears as he stood in the Emperor’s private solar. He had not been allowed to change. He stood on a priceless Persian rug, the white wine having sticky, his damp uniform clinging to him like a second, shameful skin. Each drop that fell from his hair to the floor sounded like a drumbeat in the oppressive silence.
Lucian sat behind a desk of dark obsidian, the flickering candlelight casting long, dancing shadows across his face. He wasn’t wearing his crown now, but he had never looked more like an Emperor. He let the silence stretch for a long, slow minute, watching a single droplet of wine trail down Matthias’s cheek.
“You look pathetic, Matthias,” Lucian said finally. His voice was soft, devoid of the theatrical mockery he had displayed in the ballroom.
“I am as Your Majesty wishes me to be,” Matthias replied, his voice dead.
Lucian stood up and walked around the desk. He stopped inches from the General, the scent of expensive sandalwood clashing with the vinegary odor of the spilled wine.
“Is that what you think?” Lucian tilted his head. “You think I enjoy the company of a man who allows himself to be a footstool for drunken counts? You think I kept the greatest military mind of a generation so that he could serve as a target for a Duchess’s boredom?”
Matthias finally shifted his gaze to meet Lucian’s. His eyes were bloodshot from the wine and the lack of sleep. “You let them do it. You smile when they whisper. You watched that Lord throw his drink as if it were a play staged for your amusement. Why bring me here to ask why I permitted it? I am your prisoner in all but chains. I have no right to strike a nobleman of your court.”
“I did not make you like this!” Lucian’s voice suddenly snapped like a whip, the volume rising for the first time. “Where is the fire, Matthias? Where is the iron? I spent my childhood watching you stride through these halls like a god of war. I watched you look through me as if I were a ghost. You were so certain of your place, so convinced that your brilliance made you untouchable.”
Lucian reached out, his fingers gripping Matthias’s wet collar, bunching the fabric.
“I didn’t let them humiliate you,” Lucian hissed, his face inches from the General’s. “I never told you, you needed to take it.”
He pushed Matthias back slightly, a look of profound disappointment crossing his features.
“You started to believe them, didn’t you? I see it in your eyes. You’ve let their whispers become your own inner voice. You think you deserve this because you didn’t ‘play the game’ when my brother was alive.”
Matthias felt a tremor in his hands. “I was wrong about you, Lucian. I was wrong for eighteen years. I treated you like a shadow, and now I am the one living in yours. Is that not justice?”
“Is it justice? Truly?” Lucian asked back, turning his back to gaze out at the dark capital city. “I don’t want your penance, Matthias. I don’t want a broken man standing behind my throne. I wanted to break your old loyalty—the loyalty to my brother’s memory—so that I could forge a new one. ”
The Emperor turned around, his expression turning cold and businesslike once more.
“The Duke of Valerius will be at breakfast tomorrow. He was the one who tripped you yesterday. If you do not make him regret his existence—within the bounds of courtly ‘accidents,’ of course—then I will know that the General I once respected is truly dead. And if he is dead, there is no reason to keep the body in the palace.”
Lucian gestured toward the door.
“Go. Wash that smell off yourself. And tomorrow, try to remember that you are the man who held the Eastern Marches against ten thousand. A glass of wine should not be a thing that defeats you.”
Matthias returned to his quarters like a man walking through a heavy fog. His skin felt tight where the wine had dried, and the smell of fermented grapes followed him like a persistent insult.
He entered his bedchamber, expecting the same cold, neglected atmosphere he had imagined existed there for weeks. But as he closed the door, the fog began to lift.
The room was bathed in the soft, warm glow of a dozen beeswax candles. A copper tub stood in the center of the floor, steam rising in gentle curls from water that had clearly just been poured. Beside it, on a mahogany stand, lay fresh linens of the finest weave and a silk robe dyed in the deep crimson of his old command.
Matthias stopped, his hand still on the door handle. He looked around—really looked—for the first time since his arrival.
Matthias returned to his quarters in a daze, the door clicking shut behind him with a finality that usually brought him dread. He moved toward the bathing area, intent only on scrubbing the sticky residue of the wine from his skin.
But as he reached the copper tub, he stopped.
For the first time since his arrival at the capital, he actually looked. The servants had already been here; they had brought fresh, steaming water without a word being exchanged. The fire in the hearth was stoked perfectly, casting a warm, golden glow over the room. His chambers were vast and magnificent, far beyond what any prisoner or disgraced officer would ever be granted.
He moved to the sideboard and felt the weight of his dress uniform. The fabric was of the highest quality. Beside it, his weapons were meticulously cared for—the steel polished to a mirror finish, the leather supple and oiled.
Matthias stood frozen, the realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. He had been so trapped in his own conviction that Lucian wanted to humiliate and punish him that he had never bothered to look around. He had lived in a nightmare of his own making, never noticing that his physical reality did not match the misery in his mind.
As he slowly began to wash, the steam clearing his head, the truth became undeniable.
The Architecture of a Prison
It was never Lucian.
The thought was so sharp it made him catch his breath. Lucian had never issued an edict forbidding the court from speaking to him. Lucian had never commanded him to keep his head bowed or his voice silent. Lucian had never told him he was a prisoner.
Matthias had built his own cage, stone by stone, from the moment he read that first letter with the black wax seal. He had walked into the capital expecting a scaffold, and when he found a throne instead, he had simply turned his own mind into a dungeon. He had acted like a broken trophy, so the court had treated him like one. He had projected the aura of a man who deserved to be shoved, so they had shoved him.
He leaned his head back against the rim of the tub, staring at the ornate ceiling.
“I did this,” he whispered to the empty room. “I made myself a shadow.”
It was never Lucian who had turned him into a shadow. It was never Lucian who had commanded him to remain silent, to make himself small, or to refuse to defend himself. Lucian had never told him he had to endure the insults of the nobility in silence.
He had done it all to himself. In his own mind, he had cast himself as the humiliated trophy—and he had acted the part with such perfection that the court had simply followed his lead.
But if Lucian hadn’t intended that at all… everything shifted.
The General’s Purpose
If Lucian’s intent was not to humiliate him, then the Emperor’s test was far more complex than a simple display of power.
Lucian didn’t need a broken man to stand behind his throne. Lucian was a strategist; he understood assets. A general who couldn’t command respect in a ballroom could never command it on a battlefield. Lucian had been watching him fail not out of malice, but out of a desperate, frustrated need to see if his greatest weapon was still functional.
He wants the Undefeated General, Matthias realized, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. He doesn’t want a servant. He wants the man who can win his wars.
Lucian didn’t want to break Matthias’s spirit; he wanted to break his ties to the past. He wanted Matthias to stop mourning Emperor Adrian and start seeing the man who actually held the reigns of the world.
If Matthias could reclaim his fire—if he could prove he was still the iron-willed commander the legions loved—then Lucian wouldn’t keep him here to be mocked by dukes. He would send him back out. He would give him the banners, the horses, and the steel. He would give him back his life.
Matthias stood up, the water cascading off his scarred body. He felt a sudden, violent surge of adrenaline. His knees felt weak, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer weight of the opportunity before him.
His situation wasn’t hopeless. It was a tactical opening.
He reached for a towel, drying himself with quick, aggressive motions. He looked at the polished sword in the corner. Tomorrow, the Duke of Valerius would expect a silent, dripping statue at the breakfast table. The court would expect a man who took his “accidents” with a bowed head.
Matthias felt a grim, familiar coldness settle in his chest—the same coldness he felt before a cavalry charge.
Lucian wanted the Undefeated General?
By the gods, Matthias thought, his grip tightening on the silk robe, I will give him exactly what he asked for.
The Taste of Steel
The morning sun bled through the high, arched windows of the breakfast pavilion, casting long, sharp shadows across the white linen tables. It was an informal setting, but for the court, it was a prime arena for the sport of social bloodletting.
The Duke of Valerius sat at the center of a small circle of sycophants, regaling them with a story from the gala. He was a man of soft hands and loud waistcoats, the kind of noble who had never seen a battlefield but considered himself a master of ‘conquest.’
“And there he stood,” the Duke chuckled, spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. “Dripping like a drowned rat. I half expected him to start rusting on the spot.”
The laughter around the table was cut short—not by a command, but by a sound.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rhythmic, heavy strike of iron-shod boots against the marble floor.
The nobles turned. Matthias Corvain was approaching. He was not wearing the stained gala uniform. He was dressed in his full, blackened combat leathers, his medals struck clean, his silver hair pulled back in a tight, warrior’s knot. He didn’t walk with the hesitant stride of a courtier; he moved like a storm front crossing a plain.
Behind him, three paces away, Emperor Lucian entered. The court rose in a flurry of rustling silk, but Lucian merely gestured for them to remain seated. He took his place at the head table, his expression unreadable, his eyes fixed on the General.
The Calculated Accident
Matthias did not take his usual place behind the throne. Instead, he walked directly toward the Duke of Valerius’s table.
The Duke paled slightly, his smirk faltering as the shadow of the General fell over his breakfast. “General,” the Duke stammered, trying to regain his composure. “I didn’t think you’d have the stomach for breakfast after such a… spirited evening.”
Matthias didn’t answer. He stood like a monolith of dark iron.
“General?” the Duke prompted, his voice rising in pitch. “Is there something you—”
Matthias moved.
It was a blur of motion that no one in the room could follow. His hand shot out, not to strike, but to “adjust” a heavy silver carafe of boiling tea that sat near the edge of the Duke’s table.
With a flick of his wrist, the carafe tipped.
The Duke shrieked as the scalding liquid poured directly into his lap. He scrambled backward, his chair catching on the uneven rug, and he went tumbling over. He landed in a heap of tangled limbs and damp silk, the hot tea soaking into his expensive breeches.
The pavilion went deathly silent.
The Return of the Lion
Matthias looked down at the sprawling nobleman, his face a mask of cold, professional indifference.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” Matthias said. His voice wasn’t a whisper anymore. It was the deep, resonant growl of a man who commanded legions—a voice that could be heard over the roar of a thousand shields. “I seem to have lost my footing. A tragic accident. I suppose I’m just overwhelmed by your… presence.”
He used the exact words the Duchess had used the night before. The mockery was so sharp it was practically a blade.
The Duke looked up, his face red with pain and fury. “You… you dared! Sire!” he turned his desperate eyes toward Lucian. “The General attacked me! In your presence! This is an outrage!”
Lucian didn’t look outraged. He was leaning back in his chair, swirling a cup of dark coffee, a tiny, genuine spark of fire in his eyes.
“Attacked you, Valerius?” Lucian asked smoothly. “I saw nothing but a clumsy stumble. Perhaps the General is out of practice with the polished floors of the palace. Just as you were ‘clumsy’ yesterday, were you not?”
The Duke’s mouth snapped shut. The silence that followed was heavy with the realization that the rules had changed. The Emperor’s protection had shifted.
The New Command
Matthias didn’t wait for the Duke to get up. He turned his back on the fallen noble—the ultimate insult—and walked toward the Emperor’s table. He stopped exactly three paces away, but this time, he didn’t bow his head. He stood tall, his shoulders broad, his hand resting naturally on the hilt of his sword.
“Your Majesty,” Matthias said, his voice ringing through the pavilion. “I find the air in the capital is becoming stagnant. It breeds… accidents.”
Lucian set his cup down with a deliberate click. “I agree, General. Stagnation is a slow death for an Empire.”
The Emperor stood up. He walked over to Matthias, and for the first time, he didn’t look at him as a trophy. He looked at him as a partner in a dangerous game.
“The northern border reports suggest the barbarian tribes are restless,” Lucian said, loud enough for the trembling nobles to hear. “They think the Empire is soft. They think our ‘Undefeated General’ has retired to pick flowers in the garden.”
Lucian reached out and adjusted the collar of Matthias’s leather tunic.
“I think it is time we corrected that misconception. Don’t you?”
Matthias felt the blood rushing through his veins, hot and vital. The “shadow” was gone. The “prisoner” was dead.
“I live only to serve the Empire, Sire,” Matthias replied.
“Then go,” Lucian commanded, a predatory smile finally touching his lips. “The legions are waiting. Bring me the heads of the tribal kings, and perhaps then the court will remember why it is wise to keep their wine in their glasses.”
Matthias saluted—the sharp, fist-to-heart strike of a Roman commander. As he turned to leave, the nobles scrambled out of his path, pressing themselves against the walls to avoid even the brush of his cape.
He didn’t look at them. He didn’t need to. He was the Undefeated General, and he had a war to win.
Epilog: Six Month later
The heavy oak doors of the Great Hall swung open with a resounding thud.
Matthias Corvain marched down the center of the hall. The scene was a mirror of his arrival months ago, yet everything had shifted. To his left and right, the Crimson Guard of the Emperor marched in perfect synchronization with him. Their armor didn’t hum with the threat of a trap anymore; it rang with the cadence of a vanguard escorting a conqueror.
Matthias held his head high. His stride was powerful, purposeful, the heavy click of his greaves echoing against the marble like a rhythmic promise kept. He wore his full battle-plate, scarred by the northern campaign and stained with the dust of distant roads, but polished to a fierce, dark gleam. At his hip hung the Sword of Lucian, its golden filigree catching the afternoon light.
The court was no longer a sea of lowered heads and mocking whispers. As he passed, the nobles pressed forward, their faces illuminated by a mixture of awe and desperate sycophancy. The whispering was there, as it always would be, but the poison had been replaced by a frantic, electric excitement.
“Look at him,” a Duke breathed, the very same who had once scoffed. “Six months, and the Northern Tribes are broken. He didn’t just win; he dismantled them.”
“The Undefeated General,” a Baroness murmured, her fan fluttering with newfound respect. “He looks as if he has carved the Empire out of the very wilderness. How did we ever doubt his place at the Emperor’s side?”
“He is the iron of the throne,” another whispered. “The Emperor’s most lethal instrument. To think we once thought him a mere butcher. He is the legend reborn.”
Matthias heard it all, but this time, the words did not cling to him. They were merely wind against the hull of a great ship. He did not look at them; his gaze was locked on the far end of the hall, where a single figure sat beneath the stained glass of the Primarchs.
The General’s Return
He reached the foot of the dais and came to a sharp, disciplined halt. Without hesitation, Matthias dropped to one knee. The sound of his armor hitting the stone was a declaration of iron-clad loyalty. He struck his fist against his breastplate in a perfect military salute, bowing his head not in shame, but in profound honor.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Matthias’s voice boomed, deep and steady, reclaiming its rightful place in the rafters of the palace. “I return to report the conclusion of the Northern Campaign. The tribal kings are vanquished. The borders are secure. The Empire’s peace is absolute.”
Lucian sat upon the throne, the crown of the First Empire gleaming. A slow, genuine smile played at the corners of Lucian’s lips.
“Rise, General Corvain,” Lucian said, his voice carrying to every corner of the silent hall.
The Emperor’s Faith
Matthias stood, meeting Lucian’s eyes. Matthias gave his report, detailing the maneuvers, the sieges, and the ultimate submission of the North. He spoke with the clarity and finesse of a man who finally understood that his sword was an extension of the Emperor’s will.
When he finished, a profound silence fell over the court.
Lucian stood and descended the steps. He stopped before Matthias and placed a hand on the General’s scrapped shoulder-plate. It was a gesture of public favor so immense it practically silenced the hearts of every noble in the room.
“You have done more than secure a border, General,” Lucian said, his voice ringing with authority and a rare warmth. “You have reminded this world that the Empire does not merely survive; it triumphs. You have proven that the legend of the Undefeated General is not a relic of the past, but the cornerstone of our future.”
Lucian leaned in slightly, his eyes locked onto Matthias’s with absolute clarity.
“I am glad, you finally rememberd, who you are. I never doubted you.”