The monocled nace—because I refuse to call him anything else until forced—stood before us at the plaza’s center, staff gleaming, those violet crystals orbiting like smug little planets.
His laughter still humd in the air, a sound infuriatingly smooth, as though even the apocalypse required a cultured baritone.
I was still trembling with exhaustion from our previous chase, my shirt plastered with Rodrick’s blood and my own, and yet so remnant of wit insisted on bubbling up. Because of course it did. My survival chanism apparently functioned in the sa way rats on a sinking ship decide to form a choir before drowning.
"Salem," I hissed, nudging him with my elbow while my pen twitched in my hand, "tell I’m not hallucinating a magician who thinks the laws of nature are his juggling balls."
Salem grinned back at , the bastard, even as sweat ran into his eyes. "If it’s a hallucination," he panted, his twin blades trembling faintly, "then at least it’s a stylish one."
And then, with a flick of his staff, the monocled mage answered us without words.
The cobblestones beneath my boots buckled as if the street itself had grown weary of my weight. In an instant my body was yanked downward, crushed into a crouch by invisible hands.
My knees scread mutiny, my lungs folded in on themselves, and I felt my ribs compress like I was being fitted into a coffin one size too small. The bastard was grinning beneath that absurd hat of his, violet eyes glittering with calm superiority.
"Oh splendid," I wheezed. "Going for the sa trick twice. Bit repetitive don’t you think?"
Salem, naturally, did not answer. Instead he leapt. Because that’s what Salem does. While the rest of us debate the futility of existence, he leaps headlong into it, grinning like a lunatic.
His swords flared, arcs of silver weaving as his body twisted through the air like a thrown dagger. For one wild mont I thought he had him—his blades slicing true, cutting down into that ridiculous monocle—
But no. Of course not.
With a lazy flick of his staff, the mage tilted gravity sideways. Salem’s leap beca a drunken stumble midair. He flailed and swore before crashing against a battered stall while the mage chuckled like a man who’d just watched his cat fall off the mantle.
I staggered upright, muscles trembling as the weight eased off , and thrust my pen forward. Ink flared against the air, streaking like a cot toward the mage’s chest. For once, I thought I’d managed sothing—
But then the mage raised his staff again and the ink dissolved in an instant. Not with fire, not with wind. Simply... dissolved, my pen’s mark collapsed by a torrent of gravity folding in on itself, rejected, as if the air itself refused to acknowledge its existence.
I froze. My stomach twisted. "Oh. That’s new."
The mage tilted his head, voice smooth, cultured, far too polite for a man currently tossing us around like dice. "Curious tool you wield, boy. Dangerous, but not for ."
The way he said it—boy—made my hackles rise.
I loathe being dismissed, particularly when I’m at least trying to look like a terrifying sorcerer instead of a half-dead con artist clutching his favorite quill.
I snarled, raising my voice. "And who exactly do I have the honor of being flattened by this evening? Surely a man who accessorizes with monocles and planetary fragnts must have a suitably pompous na."
He smiled thinly, lifting his staff as the crystals pulsed brighter. "Arculaus," he said. "House Veyra. One of the seven."
The words landed heavier than any gravity trick he’d tossed at . My stomach plumted. Of course he hailed from one of the seven great houses, one of those ancient lineages that had been breeding mages and nobles alike for centuries.
They were those who stood directly by the king himself, stuffing power into their bloodlines until the rest of us common rabble were expected to simply kneel and admire the pedigree.
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to tell him I didn’t give a damn if he was Arculaus of Veyra, or Barnabus of Bumblefuck. But my voice cracked when I said it: "One of the seven great houses. Oh saints, no wonder you’re insufferable."
Salem, still staggering to his feet, grinned despite the blood on his lips. "Then he bleeds like the rest of them."
Braver words than mine, I’ll admit.
We lunged together. For one shining second, it felt like partnership. Salem’s blades weaving silver, my pen stabbing ink through the air, stopwatch pulsing in my hand. Ti warped, seconds stretching into molasses, and I darted to the mage’s flank while Salem descended from above.
And yet...it was futile.
Salem staggered into the mage’s reach before Arculaus pressed his palm against his side with deliberate slowness, like a lover laying claim. Then the gravity surged. Salem crumpled instantly, his ribs buckling, blood spurting from his mouth as he hit the stones with a guttural scream.
I thought Salem could withstand it again like he had before, but sothing was different this ti.
Then I saw it.
Arculaus was stacking the spells on top of each other now, increasing the pressure with each whispered chant.
I roared, trying to reach him in ti, but Arculaus spun then. His staff struck across the ribs with such force my vision exploded white, and then I was airborne. My body slamd against a nearby wall with a crunch, gravity pinning like an insect to parchnt.
Pinned. Helpless. My stopwatch a dead weight in my pocket.
Above , the nobles began cheering. Yes, cheering. Their voices rang down like bells of mockery, as though the devastation of half a city were nothing but fine entertainnt. As if the lives of the other nobles who’d fallen to their deaths next to them ant nothing at all.
My stomach twisted until I thought I’d vomit.
Hope withered. My hand trembled on the pen, my ribs scread each ti I breathed, and for the first ti in this nightmare I wondered if perhaps the story would end here. Perhaps my legacy would be a sar of ink and sarcasm crushed beneath the heel of a monocled aristocrat with too much free ti.
And then—
The air shifted.
A silence swept the plaza, heavier than Arculaus’s tricks. Every survivor, every noble, every zealot hushed in unison as the figure stepped through the gateway.
The Man in White.
Regal as ever, hands in his pockets again. Steps asured, unhurried.
Arculaus faltered. For the first ti, his monocled arrogance twisted into sothing darker. A shadow across his face. Recognition. Fear.
My ribs ached, my vision blurred, but in that instant I understood: Salem and I had never been the true opponents. We had been the opening act. The warm-up. The real performance was about to begin. Two kings. Two monsters ready to face each other.
Arculaus snarled, lifting his staff high. Violet light exploded outward, sigils blazing across the plaza. Layer upon layer of gravity folded down, each one heavier than the last, pressing into the Man in White with enough force to shatter stone. Tenfold the weight. Twentyfold. The ground cracked open, splitting under the sheer pressure.
And still—
He walked.
Not strained, not even hunched over. Walked. As though gravity were a polite suggestion.
"My, my," he murmured. "Is this all? Flash and spectacle? You tilt the floor, juggle stones, collapse mountains, and yet..." His eyes sharpened. "...you cannot so much as make remove my hands from my pockets. Pathetic."
Arculaus hissed, spittle flying from his lips. His staff shook as he layered another spell, violet light coiling upward, a miniature star of condensed gravity forming in the air above him. The plaza trembled, survivors shrieking, nobles leaning forward with grotesque delight.
But the Man in White didn’t even flinch.
"You remind of a child," he said calmly. "A child who found a hamr and decided everything was a nail. Spells, sigils, gravity—all the sa cheap parlor tricks when wielded without wisdom. Did your House not teach you finesse, Arculaus? Or did you simply prefer tantrums?"
Arculaus’s face twisted in rage at that. He took a step back. For the first ti, he looked less like a predator and more like prey. His monocle glead with sweat. His lips curled around a silent curse.
And then the Man in White moved.
One instant he was strolling forward, the next he was low, faster than sight. His leg whipped upward, boot slamming into Arculaus’s solar plexus with the sound of thunder.
Arculaus folded. The air blasted from his lungs, his body collapsing around the impact like paper crushed in a fist. His staff clattered from his hands, crystals scattering in frantic orbit before sputtering out.
He gasped, wheezing, clawing at his chest, eyes wide in disbelief. He managed one desperate swing of his arm, one guttural cry of fury—
But the Man in White’s second kick silenced him.
It cracked across his jaw with brutal elegance, snapping his head sideways. Blood and spit flew into the dust as his body tumbled to the cobblestones, sprawling limp, defeated, his monocle shattered into glittering shards.
His cry was sharp, painful. He tried to rise. Saints, he tried. One knee under him, his hands clutching at the cobblestones, but the strength wasn’t there.
The mountain of arrogance, the towering illusion of the noble mage, all of it had collapsed in an instant.
The Man in White looked down at him. Not with triumph, not with glee, not even with cruelty. No—he looked at him the way one might look at a broken vase or a dying horse.
"How sad," he said softly. "You strutted behind your puppet, hid in its shadow, and thought the illusion made you untouchable. You spun tricks of gravity like a child spinning tops. But the mont it crumbled, the mont the false flesh was gone, so too was your courage. All that remains is this—" his hidden gaze slid over Arculaus’s trembling fra, voice dripping with contempt, "—a ss of helpless flesh in embroidered robes."
Arculaus whimpered. Actually whimpered. His tears left pale streaks through the dust on his cheeks, and he turned his head as though to hide them. But there was no hiding here, no rcy in the open square.
"Stop..." he croaked, blood bubbling in his throat. "Please... stop."
The Man in White crouched slightly, lowering his voice until it carried the intimacy of a confession, though all of us could hear it. "You think power makes you superior. You think bloodlines and banners give you the right to tilt the world beneath lesser n’s feet. But power without humility is a child with a weapon. And advantage without restraint is tyranny."
I swallowed hard, my back pressed against the broken wall, my ribs aching. His words were knives, and not even ant for . For a second I almost pitied Arculaus. Almost.
"You sneer because you were born above," the Man in White continued, his tone sharp and precise as a scalpel, "but do you think you’re unique? Do you think you alone were born into privilege? I, too, hail from advantage. I, too, carry a na and a weight that could have been used to crush. And yet I do not flaunt it, because I have pity for those who do."
Arculaus turned his wet eyes upward, blood dripping from his lips, voice breaking. "Pity...? For ?"
The Man in White nodded once. "Pity, yes. Because what greater weakness is there than to inherit greatness and squander it? To be handed advantage and turn it only toward oppression, rather than stewardship? You could have regulated. Supported. Elevated the common people with your gifts and brought them a asure of equality. But instead you turned them into insects to be crushed under the weight of your whims."
I couldn’t stop staring. His words weren’t just philosophy—they were accusation, judgnt, sermon, and execution all at once. Around us, the nobles had fallen silent, the survivors still, the air itself waiting on the cadence of his voice.
Arculaus coughed, blood splattering in a grotesque arc across the stones. "Equality?" he spat. "You speak of... equality? Nonsense. Power rules. It always has. Always will."
The Man in White tilted his head, faint amusent tugging at his lips. "Does it? Or is it simply that no one has yet reminded you what rules power itself?"
Arculaus’s voice cracked. "And what would that be?"
The Man in White finally, slowly, drew his hands from his pockets. And in his palm, gleaming faintly even beneath the firelit dust, rested his golden coin.
The sa coin I had seen him flip before the mountain fell. The sa coin that seed to laugh at the world with its weight.
He let it catch the light, rolling it idly across his knuckles, his eyes never leaving Arculaus’s trembling face.
"Fate," he said simply. "Fate rules all. Position, power, bloodlines, tricks of magic—none of it matters when fate is the judge. And I—" he paused, his voice dropping low, reverent, "—I am its arbiter. Not through personal whim. Not through hunger or cruelty. But through impartial judgnt."
Arculaus shook his head weakly, tears streaking down his cheeks. "Wha—What?"
"Allow to give you a demonstration."
The Man in White leaned in closer, whispering words too soft for any of us to fully catch, as if speaking directly into the marrow of Arculaus’s bones. The mage’s eyes went wide with sudden, terrified understanding. He tried to raise a hand, to form a plea, to protest—
But the Man in White was already moving.
The coin rose in his hand and in one fluid motion—
His thumb flicked it skyward with effortless grace.
Reviews
All reviews (0)