CHAPTER 95

  I’M A KNIGHT

  The chill of the stone floor where he had fallen was still on his back. Yet, his eyes opened to see something else.

  “Where am I?” he asked, and silence answered.

  Though he sat upright, back pressed against the damp wall. His wrists bore no chains—no need, not for him. The guards had watched him closely since his capture, wary but respectful. No bruises marred his skin. No torturer’s tools lined the cell walls. Only the constant hum of mana runes etched into the stones betrayed the fact that he was not a guest but a prisoner.

  Footsteps approached—measured, elegant, sharp in their intent. When the cell door opened, no guards entered. Only her.

  Queen Reina of now Western Clandor stepped into the room as though it were a throne hall. Tall, stately, her hair a cascade of silver-gold, her gaze held the weight of her wisdom.

  “Man! She is intimidating.”

  Hans raised a little, his words ready to shoot, but he needed to remind himself that he was not Hans but Theodred, an idealist who never bent the rules, who never killed without thought, and who respected what needed to be respected. And Reina right now was an object of corruption for him, so he had to act like it.

  “So what’s next? Torture?” He said, his sight still hitting the floor.

  “Torture?” She mused, “we are civilised people, aren’t we?”

  “What you did to those people?” Hans asked, living the knight ideals as they cared for others before themselves. “Did you resell them like always?”

  “What do you take me for?” Reina furrowed her brows. An expression Hans couldn’t see.

  “Queen of Corruption, I say. A hypocrite.” He did not rise but met her gaze with unwavering clarity.

  “That’s the way of uneducated beasts. But don’t you think jumping to conclusions is the way of mindless women? You neither see as mindless nor as a delusional woman.—Or tell me if I’m wrong.”

  She paused.

  “We talk, face to face, I ask questions.” She pointed. “And you give honest answers. That’s how things work here.”

  Hans kept a firm stare at her until she broke the silence.

  “You’ve caused quite the stir, Theodred—if it’s your actual name?” she said, her voice calm, refined, like a hidden dagger. “Maimed several mercenaries, including a runaway daughter of House Highborn. Freed more than fifty bonded miners. Then stood alone as my elites encircled you.”

  He remained unwavering, as if he had done no wrong.

  She continued, circling slowly, “you don’t feel like a ruthless person—”

  “I saved those people. People of Clandor,” Theodred said simply.

  “People of Clandor you say?” she said, turning to face him fully now. “From nobles sworn to my crown. From corruption you named me blind to. You called me—what was it?—‘Queen of the Corrupted.’”

  He lifted his chin. “It fits.”

  She gave a faint smile—not warm, but amused. “Do tell me then, knight-wannabe—what makes you think you understand this realm more than its queen?”

  A long silence hung between them. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, but roughened by bitter truth.

  “I don’t pretend to understand everything. I don’t pretend to be more than I am. But I do know this: while you sat in your majestic palace, they carved chains into the backs of your people. While you enjoyed festivities, your husband buried lives beneath stone in search of mana. And you—” his gaze narrowed, “you either didn’t know, or didn’t care.”

  Her expression barely flickered, but he caught it—the briefest wince.

  “Tell me of your power,” she said then, shifting tactics like a wind over ice. “That light… that aura is of my bloodline. No outsider, no male elf has ever born with it. Neither my children. And yet, you wielded it.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I was born with it,” he said. “Or it found me. I don’t know. It came when I needed it most—when I poisoned my captors and thought I’d die in the escape. The light saved me.”

  “You poisoned them?”

  He nodded. “They had no mercy. Why should I? I saved what lives I could and paid for it in blood.”

  “Curious,” the queen murmured, her tone unreadable. “You wield the power of my ancestors. A light bound to royal lineage. And yet you wear no crown. You serve, but not me. Then whom do you serve, Theodred?”

  “The code,” he said at once. “The ideal of what a knight should be. To defend the helpless. To strike down tyranny. To give light where all else is shadow.”

  “Quoting ‘the parable of knight king’ are we?” She moved closer now, close enough that the aura between them hummed faintly. “What drove you, truly?” she asked. “What inspired this suicidal crusade? You could’ve escaped. You could’ve lived free. Why throw yourself against the nobles you could not defeat?”

  He looked up at her, and for the first time, she saw the storm in his gaze.

  “Someone has to because you would not. Because I heard their plights, and I couldn't turn away. Because knights don’t run. Because the crown failed them. And if the queen won’t protect her own people, someone must.”

  There was no anger in his voice—only conviction.

  She studied him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

  “You would stand against the world to uphold an ideal,” she said.

  “I already have.”

  “And you would name me unworthy of my own throne?”

  “I already have.”

  “That too, I already have.”

  He stood now, finally. The aura around him flared brighter for a heartbeat, golden and pure, like a flame that refused to die.

  “I name you blind,” he said. “And I name myself a reminder. That no one is above the code.”

  The queen said nothing, but her eyes burned brighter than they had before. Not with rage. But with something else.

  Respect. Or fear.

  The cell door closed behind her as she left, her mind alight with thoughts more tangled than the court would ever know.

  And Theodred, still pretending unbroken, still shining faintly in the dark, waited. “Man! It was worth reading so many knight stories. I’m even fooling myself. But it felt good. Her crumbling face was the sight to behold.”

  It is a perfect setup. She won’t be able to get a read on me when I truly believe a knight’s code of Parv. The world had forgotten, a knight is not just an aura user. It’s a way of life, a hard yet satisfying one.

  Hans waited, one day, two…or three. He didn’t know how many passed, but he waited. Reina, on the other hand, was dealing with quite a nuisance. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, father-in-law.” She said, looking at the old man kneeling with respect in her court.

  Only a few were there. Her husband, Aredhel, and Bernard, her trusted guardian knight.

  “It seems you are referring to the chaos caused by the illegitimate child of our house. She died hanging herself yesterday. And as it was my negligence, I’ll pay the price of humiliation she caused—”

  “That’s beautiful bullshit you are throwing at my face, father-in-law.” Reina stood firm. It was clear that she wasn’t going to let it slide. “I acquired something pretty interesting in the past days. He called me queen of corruption. I plan to prove him wrong— you’ve taken something precious from those people. I plan to do the same. Give up your right to one of your magic towers. Right now?”

  “Those accusations have nothing to do with House Highborn, that bastard child was acting on her own, your majesty—”

  “Cut the crap, lord Highborn—The parvian brat knows it, doesn’t he? He made you shut up when you were trying to poach Aredhel’s daughter. Ring a bell?”

  Highborn lord said nothing; it was true.

  “Will you hand it over or should I use royal powers to take it away from you? You must atone for your sins. Whether it was caused by you or not doesn’t matter. House Highborn is involved, and if you plan to push your story further. You have to do as I say.”

  Reina warned.

  “Your honour will bite the dust if it becomes known, and so does my husband’s. I don’t want to see it. Do you?”

  The highborn lord became complacent. He was someone whom no one could talk to like this. Yet his sons’ greed for power had dragged him down. Biting his tongue. He summoned a parchment and, signing with blood, he handed it over to Reina.

  “And lastly,” Reina wasn’t finished. She was someone who could turn disasters into opportunities, and this brought her a new magic tower.

  She continued, “It will be publicised that an illegitimate child had stolen the seal and was using your name to conduct illegal mining business. Fabricate everything and put down the people involved. And bear that in mind. To the people who suffered from this—you have to make their lives as cosy as possible. The civil war and the following unrest have made me so busy that I even forgot the internal duties.”

  “Do you have to push that hard, Queen Reina? We are family by bond of marriage. You could have just given a slap in the wrist. It was just a few slaves. Their lives were already miserable—”

  “But instead, you see it right to make it worse. That boy is right. I have turned blind.”

  She ordered her elite captain.

  “Bring me the reports of every illegal deed happening in the kingdom. We begin the crackdown now.”

  She looked at Bernard.

  “Didn’t your son and Delimira come for apprenticeship? Assign them to capture these mongrels—whether thievery, extortion, or local lords turned blind like me. They are to bring them to court for justice.”

  “The nobles are involved. The unrest. Will it be worth going through this disaster, your majesty?”Nym, the elite captain, asked.

  “Yes. Because it will bear us the fruit of prophecy—Theodred.”