The great hall of IrasVal was a cathedral of opulence: golden chandeliers ablaze with alchemical light, marble floors polished to reflections sharper than mirrors, grand pillars carved in reliefs of past kings and saints. Long tables of marble and oak stretched beneath silken banners, nobles glittering in velvet finery, their laughter like polished bells.
Servants glided like trained phantoms.
Music drifted—harps, viols, soft horns.
Wine flowed like ritual.
Politics sharpened as naturally as knives.
Inside a carriage some distance away, the world felt smaller.
Logos watched Kleber silently as the city lights slid past the window.
"You look nervous."
Kleber's laugh was strained. "It's just… surreal. Ten years ago, I watched my parents die. Then almost two years of waiting for the world to end. And now—" He looked down at the polished armor he wore, ceremonial cloak draped over his shoulders. "Now I'm riding to the palace. Me. At a royal banquet. As part of your entourage."
"The world didn't change overnight," Logos replied calmly. "It was always there. Waiting."
"Is that how you think?" Kleber frowned. "Just… waiting for the right arrangement of pieces?"
"From what I see, yes," Logos said. "Though it would take anyone else far too long."
"That's…" Kleber shook his head. "That's insulting to those who fought and bled. To those who died. To the people who tried."
"It is factual," Logos answered. "Achievements are like beautiful women. Knowing how they were born will make you puke."
Kleber stared. "You… did not just compare bloodshed, effort, national survival, and humanity to vomiting over childbirth."
"Yes."
Kleber dragged a hand down his face. "You are impossible."
"Accurate."
"That's the problem! You always are!"
The carriage rattled over the marble avenue leading to the palace. Grand braziers burned along the road. Trumpets sounded somewhere in the distance. Nobles stood along balconies, eager to glimpse power, fame… or danger.
Inside, it felt colder.
Kleber exhaled slowly. "So that's how you see it, huh? All of this. The miracle that saved us. The hope people clung to. Sous leading knights like a symbol. People believing."
Logos tilted his head slightly. "Not miraculous. A sequence of correct decisions."
"But those decisions were made by people," Kleber insisted. "With fear. With faith. With trembling hands but unbroken resolve. You talk like they were coins you shuffled on a board."
"I do not dismiss them," Logos said quietly. "I simply refuse to romanticize them. When you do, you start worshiping effort instead of demanding results."
Silence settled.
The crowd outside the carriage began to roar as another group of nobles arrived. Laughter. Clinking glasses. Life.
Kleber's jaw tightened.
"That's why people can't breathe around you," he murmured. "You stand next to hope… and call it arithmetic."
Logos's eyes shifted toward the palace. Gold. Chandelier light. Warmth. A world far from siege walls and factories of steel.
"I call it repeatable," Logos said.
Kleber blinked. "What?"
"If we call something a miracle, we accept that it cannot be reproduced. That we were lucky once and may never be lucky again." Logos's voice dropped to something softer, something almost human. "If we call it calculation… then we admit it can be built again."
Kleber went still.
"And again," Logos continued. "Until survival is not hope… but expectation."
For the first time since the carriage began moving, Kleber didn't have an argument.
He laughed instead.
A quiet, disbelieving sound.
"Sometimes," he said, "when you talk like that, I forget you're sixteen."
"That is your mistake."
Another pause.
"Still," Logos added, almost as if remembering a conversation thread he had temporarily set aside, "you were correct earlier."
"Which part?"
"That this feels surreal to you," Logos said. "That your life changed."
Kleber blinked.
Logos did not look at him when he spoke next.
"You stood," he said simply. "And you did not break. Therefore… you are here."
Kleber swallowed.
"…That was a compliment?"
"An observation."
"Right," Kleber muttered. "Of course it was."
The carriage slowed.
Music swelled louder.
Light washed brighter.
Voices rose like a tide.
The world of steel, chalk circles, maps, and cold logic… was about to collide with the world of crowns and applause.
Kleber flexed his fingers, gauntlets creaking. "You ready?"
Logos fixed his collar with mechanical precision. His mana, which had been quietly radiating pressure since morning, hushed into restraint.
"Prepared."
"Not the same thing."
"I have never claimed to be ready for people," Logos replied. "Only for outcomes."
The carriage stopped.
The driver rapped twice.
The door opened.
Warm golden light poured in.
A palace servant in immaculate attire bowed deeply, voice ringing with ritual reverence and thinly veiled tension.
"Baron Logos Laos," he announced.
Conversation in the hall dimmed.
Eyes turned.
Noble ladies paused with fans halfway raised.
Men set down their goblets.
Courtiers leaned forward.
Whispers rippled like silk.
The black crow on a Baron's banner had arrived.
Kleber smirked faintly. "Let's go make everyone uncomfortable."
Logos stepped down.
Black against gold.
Silence walking into sound.
For an instant, the entire hall simply stared.
Not because of his rank.
Not because of his age.
But because he did not belong to their rhythm.
Sous had walked into cheers.
Princes walked into reverence.
Dukes walked into expectation.
Logos walked into calculation.
And the hall felt it.
A noble whispered, "That's him…"
Another murmured, "The Crow…"
A lady's fan trembled. "He looks like the room offends him."
A priest watching from the upper terrace lowered his gaze slowly.
And at the far end of the hall, near the dais where the King would soon sit…
Sous turned.
Blue eyes met black.
For the first time…
The Flame of Gab and the Crow of Laos stood under the same ceiling.
And the kingdom… held its breath.