Ezio did not return to the Pavilion that night.
He walked.
He didn't know where he was going—only that standing still felt unbearable.
Grayhaven's outer streets were quieter than usual, the lamps dimmed, the taverns closed early. Word of the shifting war had already reached the trading houses, and fear traveled faster than armies. Merchants pulled shutters down as if closing their eyes might keep the future from finding them.
Ezio felt it.
The Casanova Ring no longer just read desire.
It read unease.
People did not yet know why they were afraid.
They only knew they were.
Lucifer's voice whispered through his skull, softer than before.
"Kiddo… when the board moves, the rats always feel it first."
Ezio stopped beside a canal where black water slid between stone walls. He stared at his reflection—white hair, elf ears, eyes that no longer quite belonged to a boy.
He touched his chest.
The Casanova Ring pulsed warmly.
Outside it, something colder pressed inward—a tightening circle of logic and inevitability that had not yet fully formed.
He knew what it was becoming.
And he didn't know if he wanted it.
Rosa summoned him before dawn.
Not to the Strategy Hall.
To her private office.
The room was spare: one table, one chair for her, one for him, shelves lined with ledgers and ancient treatises. A single window looked out over the Academy's gardens, where perfectly trimmed hedges hid the fact that nothing wild was allowed to survive.
Ezio stood before her.
Rosa slid a stack of documents across the table.
"Your move is complete," she said.
Ezio sat slowly.
"What happened?"
Rosa did not look at him when she answered.
"Three cities will starve next season," she said. "Two border provinces will revolt. The empire will claim them in the name of stability. The king will live."
Ezio's throat tightened.
"And his allies?"
"Broken," Rosa replied. "They trusted him. He did not choose them."
Ezio closed his eyes.
Rosa's voice was not cruel.
It was accurate.
"You changed the outcome," she continued. "Not because you were stronger. Because you were closer."
Ezio opened his eyes. "I didn't want them to die."
Rosa met his gaze.
"No one ever does."
She leaned forward slightly.
"But they will. And from now on, every time you use that path… you will feel it."
Ezio swallowed.
"Why tell me this?"
Rosa's lips curved faintly. "Because the Machiavelli Ring is forming inside you."
Ezio froze.
"You felt it," she said. "That cold tightening. That certainty."
He nodded slowly.
"It is not punishment," Rosa continued. "It is structure. It will allow you to hold outcomes without breaking. But it will also demand you accept them."
Ezio stared at the papers.
Numbers.
Names.
Cities he would never see.
People who would never know him.
"All this," he whispered. "From one conversation."
Rosa's gaze sharpened.
"That is why true power is not loud."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, Rosa spoke again.
"Vesper will not disappear," she said.
Ezio looked up.
"She tasted what you offered her. Meaning. Influence. She will not be content to return to small missions."
Ezio felt the Casanova Ring pulse.
"She may become an ally," Rosa continued. "Or a threat."
Ezio nodded.
"What should I do?"
Rosa studied him.
"Decide," she said. "Whether you want to rule people… or be haunted by them."
Ezio left the office with the sun just beginning to rise.
The world felt heavier.
Not because it hated him.
Because it now belonged to him in ways he had never asked for.
Lucifer's voice whispered gently.
"Kiddo… welcome to the bill."
Ezio walked into the light, unsure if he was becoming a king…
…or something far worse.