Chapter : 1705
He had manipulated her grief to save his own skin. He had weaponized her love to force her into exile. It was efficient. It was brilliant.
Lloyd pushed himself up. The cold stone was leeching the heat from his body, and he knew he couldn't stay here. If he passed out now, he would freeze to death, and the irony of that would be too much to bear.
He needed to move. He needed to secure the town. He needed to check on the civilians. He needed to formulate a cover story before the spies of the other noble houses started asking questions.
He limped toward the stairs. Every step sent a jolt of white-hot agony through his left leg. He gritted his teeth, forcing his body to obey.
Move, he commanded himself. You don't get to rest. You broke it, now you fix it.
He descended the spiral staircase of the Clock Tower. The stone steps were slick with ice. The walls were cracked from the sonic booms.
He erged from the base of the tower into the ruined square.
The devastation at ground level was even worse than it looked from above. The town square was a cratered wasteland. The beautiful cobblestones were gone, replaced by mud and black ice. The air slled of sulfur and fear.
The townsfolk were just beginning to erge from their shelters. Cellar doors creaked open. Shutters were pushed back tentatively.
They looked around with wide, fearful eyes. They saw the smashed stalls. They saw the sliced buildings. They saw the lingering spikes of black ice.
And then they saw their Lord.
Lloyd walked into the center of the square. He was battered. He was bloody. He was limping. But he walked with his head up.
"Lord Ferrum!"
The shout ca from the foreman, a burly man nad Miller. Miller rushed forward from the doorway of the blacksmith shop, his face covered in soot.
"You're alive!" Miller yelled, stopping a few feet away, afraid to approach too closely. "We thought... when the witch scread... we thought it was over."
Lloyd raised a hand to stop the man. He didn't want to be touched. He felt fragile, as if one friendly pat on the back would shatter him into a thousand pieces.
"It is over," Lloyd said. His voice was rough, like sandpaper.
Miller looked around, his eyes darting to the sky. "And... the Queen? Lady Rosa? Is she... is she dead?"
Lloyd looked north again. He felt the weight of the lie settling on his shoulders.
"She is gone," Lloyd said.
"Gone, my Lord?"
"She was... unwell," Lloyd said, choosing his words with surgical care. He couldn't tell them the truth. He couldn't say, My wife went insane because I got her sister pregnant. That would cause a civil war.
"She has departed to seek healing," Lloyd lied. "She realized her cultivation had beco unstable. She left to protect you."
Miller blinked. He looked at the ruins of his town. He looked at the ice spikes. It didn't look like protection. It looked like a massacre that barely missed.
"Protect us," Miller repeated, clearly unconvinced but too scared to argue.
"Yes," Lloyd said, his voice hardening. He activated a fraction of his [Black Ring Eyes], pushing a subtle wave of intimidation into the air. "And this incident... never happened."
Miller stiffened. "My Lord?"
"This was a training accident," Lloyd said firmly. "We were testing a new defensive array. The magical feedback caused a weather anomaly. Do you understand?"
Miller swallowed hard. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the freezing cold. He looked at the destruction. It was an absurd lie. A training accident didn't slice buildings in half.
But Miller was a smart man. He knew who signed his paychecks. He knew who kept the Devils away. And he looked at Lloyd’s eyes—eyes that were cold, serious, and dangerous.
"Yes, my Lord," Miller whispered. "An experint. Of course. That explains the... the ice."
"Good," Lloyd said. "Organize a damage assessnt. Get the healers to the injured. I want a full report in an hour. Anyone who talks to the press or sends letters to the capital will be dealt with personally by . Is that clear?"
"Crystal clear, sir."
Lloyd dismissed him with a wave.
He watched Miller run off, shouting orders to the workers. The town began to co alive again. People started clearing the debris. Healers rushed to the injured. The machinery of the empire began to turn, grinding over the tragedy as if it were just another bump in the road.
Chapter : 1706
Lloyd walked to the edge of the square. He found a crate that had miraculously survived the devastation and sat down heavily.
He put his head in his hands.
He was exhausted. His mana core was empty. His body was screaming in pain. But his mind wouldn't stop racing.
He had won. He was alive. Mina was safe. The secret of the pregnancy was still, theoretically, safe from the wider public, though Rosa knew.
But the cost.
Rosa was out there. Alone. Thinking she had killed him.
The psychological damage that belief would inflict on her was incalculable. She was a Sovereign-level entity with a fractured psyche. She was a ticking ti bomb of grief and guilt.
And he was the one who had lit the fuse.
He thought about chasing her. He could track her. He had satellites. He had Ken. He could find her in a few hours.
But what would he say?
Surprise, I'm not dead. I just tricked you into a ntal breakdown so you would leave alone?
She would kill him for real this ti. Or she would break even further. The betrayal of the affair was bad enough; the betrayal of the fake death was a cruelty that went beyond forgiveness.
No. She needed ti. She needed distance. And frankly, so did he.
He couldn't deal with her right now. He had a war to fight against the Devils. He had a pregnant mistress to protect. He had an empire to run. He didn't have the emotional bandwidth to fix a broken Sovereign.
Rosa had removed herself from the board. It was, strategically, the best possible outco.
Strategically, his mind sneered at him. You sound like a machine. You sound like the cold-blooded monster she accused you of being.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his communication stone. It was vibrating. It had been vibrating for ten minutes.
He activated it.
"Master?"
Ken’s voice ca through instantly. It was tense, sharp, and alert. Ken never sounded panicked, but this was close.
"I felt a massive energy spike," Ken said rapidly. "The sensors in Serrum went off the charts. Sovereign-level discharge. Ice and Void signatures. Are you compromised? Do I need to deploy the Wraiths?"
Lloyd stared at the stone. He could tell Ken. Ken was loyal. Ken would understand.
But Lloyd found that he couldn't speak the words. He couldn't admit what had happened. It was too ssy. Too shaful.
"I'm fine," Lloyd lied. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
There was a pause on the other end. Ken knew Lloyd better than anyone. He could hear the exhaustion. He could hear the pain.
"You don't sound fine, sir," Ken said quietly. "The energy signature... it matched Lady Rosa."
"It was a sparring match," Lloyd said. "It got out of hand."
"A sparring match that leveled a town square?" Ken asked skeptically.
"We are powerful people, Ken," Lloyd said. "Accidents happen."
"And Lady Rosa?" Ken asked. "Where is she? I am not detecting her signature anymore."
Lloyd closed his eyes. He pictured Rosa flying north, crying, her heart broken by a lie he had crafted.
The silence stretched for a long ti. The wind whistled through the ruins.
"Lady Rosa is on sabbatical," Lloyd said finally.
"Sabbatical?"
"She has gone on a private pilgrimage," Lloyd said, the lie tasting like ash on his tongue. "She realized she needed solitude to process the... changes in her cultivation. She is not to be disturbed. By anyone."
"Understood," Ken said slowly. He didn't believe it. Lloyd knew he didn't believe it. But Ken was a good soldier. He followed orders. "And if the Siddik family asks?"
"Tell them she is safe," Lloyd said. "Tell them she is training. Tell them she will return when she is ready."
"It is a plausible cover," Ken agreed. "Sovereigns are known to be eccentric. A sudden retreat into the mountains is not unheard of."
"Make it official," Lloyd said. "Release a statent from the House. Control the narrative, Ken. I don't want rumors."
"I will handle it, sir. Do you need extraction?"
"Yes," Lloyd said. "Send a carriage. And a cleanup crew. Serrum needs resources for rebuilding."
"On my way."
The connection cut.
Lloyd lowered the stone. He sat alone in the wreckage of his own making.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo lighter. He flicked it open.
Click.
The fla flared up, small and orange against the grey backdrop of the ruins. It wavered in the wind, struggling to stay lit.
Lloyd stared at the fire. It was the only warmth in the frozen town.
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