I woke up in a cathedral of silence.

  It wasn't a dungeon. It was too clean for that. The walls were soaring cliffs of polished black obsidian, rising hundreds of feet into darkness. There were no bars. No chains. Just vast, empty space and a floor made of cold, white marble that reflected my own broken face.

  I tried to sit up. My body screamed. The [Grand Gravity] from the village had bruised my soul.

  "You are awake," a voice said. "Good. Time is money."

  I turned.

  There was the desk. The oak desk.

  Duke Dankmar Ironvine sat there, illuminated by a single, floating orb of white light. He was reading a ledger. He looked as comfortable here in this void as he did on the battlefield.

  "Where..." I croaked. My throat felt like it was filled with sand.

  "The Vault," Dankmar said without looking up. "Deep beneath the Ironvine Keep. Sound does not escape here. Magic does not work here. It is a place for... private transactions."

  He closed the ledger.

  He stood up and walked around the desk. He held something in his hand.

  A simple, rusted iron knife.

  He tossed it onto the marble floor. It skidded, spinning, and stopped at my feet. Cling.

  "Pick it up," Dankmar ordered.

  I looked at the knife. Then I looked past him.

  In the center of the room, bound by glowing green ropes of energy, knelt Liora and Ember.

  Fenris’s wife and daughter.

  They were terrified. Liora was shielding Ember with her body, her russet fur matted with dried blood. Ember was shaking, her big blue eyes wide with the kind of fear that breaks a child forever.

  "No," I whispered, staggering to my feet. "No, Dankmar. I won't do it."

  "You are a Master of Coin," Dankmar said, walking slowly toward me. His voice was calm, educational. "But you do not understand value, Wilhelm. You think value is gold. You think it is saving a life."

  He pointed at the mother and child.

  "They are liabilities. They are redundancy. They are a weakness that allowed you a rational actor to be compromised in the field."

  He gestured to the knife.

  "Remove the liability. Cut their throats. And I will teach you the first rule of ruling."

  "I'm not a butcher," I spat. "I'm not you."

  Dankmar sighed. He reached into his pocket.

  "Everyone is a butcher, Wilhelm. They just haggle over the price."

  He snapped his fingers.

  The air beside him shimmered. A mountain appeared.

  Gold. Coins. Bars. Gems. It was a pile of wealth so massive it hurt to look at.

  "Ten Million Gold," Dankmar stated. "Real gold. From the Ironvine deep reserves."

  I stared at it. 10,000,000 Gold. I could buy the Royal Guard. I could Buy Anything. I could feed the city for a decade. I could save Brandan. I could save everyone.

  All for the price of two Beastkin.

  "Do the math, Accountant," Dankmar whispered. "Two lives. Versus a Kingdom. Kill them, and the gold is yours. Instantly."

  My hand trembled. The logic was cold. It was perfect. It was utilitarian.

  But then Ember looked at me. She whimpered. "Mr. Bastard? Please?"

  I looked at the gold. Then at the girl.

  "Keep your money," I rasped. "I don't sell people."

  Dankmar didn't look angry. He looked... intrigued.

  "Gold is insufficient," he mused. "Interesting. You are not greedy. That is rare."

  He waved his hand. The mountain of gold vanished.

  "But you are hungry, Wilhelm Storm. I can see it in your posture. In the way you flinch when you hear your own name."

  He reached into his tunic.

  He pulled out a crystal.

  It wasn't a normal gem. It was a prism of swirling, liquid red light. It pulsed like a heartbeat. It felt... heavy. Like it contained a universe.

  My breath stopped.

  "You know what this is," Dankmar said softly. He held it up. The red light reflected in his cold green eyes.

  "The System recognizes blood, Wilhelm. It branded you 'Bastard'. It locked your potential. It gave Desmus the right to whip you every week in the public square."

  He took a step closer.

  "Kill the fox-woman. Kill the child."

  He held the crystal out.

  "And I will give you this."

  He leaned in, his voice a silky whisper that slid into my ear like poison.

  "No more whippings, Wilhelm. No more spitting in the street. No more 'Bastard'. You will be Wilhelm Stormsong. A Prince. A true heir. You can claim Kaledon. You can marry. You can be... whole."

  I stared at the crystal.

  It was everything I ever wanted. It was the end of the pain. The end of the shame. The end of the scars on my back that never healed.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Just two lives. Two "redundant" lives.

  I looked at the knife in my hand. I looked at the crystal.

  I looked at Liora. She was crying silently. She knew. She saw the hunger in my eyes. She pulled Ember closer, closing her eyes, waiting for the end.

  I could be a King, a voice in my head whispered. I could be real.

  I gripped the knife. My knuckles turned white.

  I walked toward them.

  Dankmar watched, his face impassive. Waiting for the transaction to close.

  I stood over them. Ember looked up at me.

  "Please," she whispered.

  I looked at her eyes.

  And I saw myself. A scared little kid, bleeding in an alley, begging the world to be kind.

  The hunger in my chest died. Replaced by something else. Something colder than the vault, but harder than diamond.

  I am a Bastard, I thought. And that means I don't follow your rules.

  I turned around.

  I looked Dankmar in the eye.

  "No."

  I threw the knife.

  It spun through the air. Clatter. It hit the desk.

  "Keep your crystal," I said, my voice shaking but loud. "I'll keep my name. It’s a trash name. But it’s mine."

  Dankmar stood there. The crystal pulsed in his hand.

  For a long, terrifying moment, I thought he was going to kill me. The pressure in the room spiked.

  Then... he shrugged.

  He put the crystal back in his pocket.

  "Disappointing," Dankmar said flatly. "But... consistent."

  He snapped his fingers.

  The green ropes binding Liora and Ember dissolved.

  "Get out," Dankmar commanded them.

  Liora blinked, hugging Ember. "What?"

  Dankmar reached into his pocket and tossed a small bag of gold at Liora’s feet.

  "Severance pay," Dankmar said. "Take the servant's exit. Go to the port. Leave the city. If I see you again... I will not offer a deal."

  Liora grabbed the gold. She grabbed Ember. She looked at me one last time a look of pure, bewildered gratitude and ran. They vanished into the shadows of the vault exit.

  I stood there, stunned.

  "You... you let them go?" I asked. "Why? You said they were liabilities."

  "They are," Dankmar said, walking back to his desk. "But killing them now serves no purpose. The test was for you, Wilhelm. You failed."

  He sat down. He picked up his quill.

  "You chose morality over efficiency. You chose a feeling over a kingdom."

  He looked at me with those dead, shark-like eyes.

  "You are weak. And because you are weak... you are dangerous."

  He stood up again. He gestured to a heavy iron door at the back of the vault.

  "Come with me, Master of Coin."

  He walked toward the darkness.

  "You refused the theory," Dankmar said. "So now... I must show you the practice."

  He opened the door. A cold, metallic wind rushed out, smelling of ozone and ancient machinery.

  "I am going to show you why we are cruel, Wilhelm. I am going to show you what lies beneath the floorboards of the world."

  I hesitated. Then, I limped after him.

  Because Duke Dankmar just spared a family. And that terrified me more than if he had killed them.

  The heavy iron door didn't lead to a dungeon. It led to a freezer.

  The air inside was so cold it burned my lungs. Frost coated the black stone walls in intricate, fern-like patterns. In the center of the room, bathed in a solitary beam of pale light, stood a sarcophagus.

  It wasn't made of stone. It was carved from a single, massive block of Green Amber.

  Inside the amber, perfectly preserved, lay a girl.

  She couldn't have been more than sixteen. She wore a dress of white silk that rippled as if she were floating in water. Her hair was the color of spun gold, and her face... her face was kind. It lacked the sharp, predatory angles of the Ironvines. She looked soft.

  She looked like she was sleeping.

  Duke Dankmar Ironvine walked up to the amber coffin. He didn't stride with his usual arrogant efficiency. He walked slowly. Quietly.

  He placed a hand on the cold surface, directly over the girl's face.

  "Relara," Dankmar whispered.

  The name hung in the freezing air like a ghost.

  "Your sister?" I asked softly, my breath pluming in the cold.

  "My twin," Dankmar corrected. He didn't look at me. He stared into the amber. "We were the same age. Born minutes apart. She was the light. I was the shadow. It was... a balanced equation."

  He traced the curve of the amber.

  "You remind me of myself, Wilhelm. Back when I was young. Back when I still believed that honor was a currency that could buy peace."

  He turned to look at me. His green eyes were no longer dead. They were haunted.

  "The Red-Vine Rebellion. Forty years ago. I was a young Captain. Idealistic. Foolish."

  He walked around the coffin, his fingers trailing on the rim.

  "We had the rebel leader Count Aron Ashvine. I captured his family. His wife. His infant son. Just like the fox-woman and her child."

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

  "My advisors told me to execute them," Dankmar said. His voice was a flat, monotone rumble, but underneath, I could hear the cracking of tectonic plates. "They said it would break the rebellion's spirit. They said it was efficient."

  He stopped. He gripped the amber hard enough that his knuckles turned white.

  "But I looked at the mother. I looked at the baby. And I saw innocence. I saw humanity. I thought... 'I am not a monster. I do not kill civilians.'"

  He looked at me, and for the first time, Duke Dankmar Ironvine looked vulnerable.

  "So I let them go. I gave them gold. I told them to run."

  "What happened?" I whispered.

  "The wife didn't run," Dankmar said softly. "She went back to her husband. She told him where our perimeter was weak. She gave him the The Passwords I had written on the back of the gold pouch to ensure her safe passage."

  He looked back at the girl in the amber.

  "That night, assassins slipped into the keep. They bypassed my guards. They came for me."

  He closed his eyes.

  "But I wasn't in my room. Relara was. She was waiting to give me a birthday gift."

  The silence in the room was absolute. Heavy. Crushing.

  "They cut her throat," Dankmar whispered. "Slowly. To send a message."

  He opened his eyes. They were wet. Not crying. But wet.

  "She died screaming my name, Wilhelm. She died because I wanted to feel good about myself. Because I wanted to be 'moral'."

  He turned to me. The sadness vanished, replaced by the cold, hard iron I knew.

  "I killed her," Dankmar stated. "Not with a knife. But with my mercy. I traded my sister's life for a moment of self-righteousness. That was the transaction."

  He walked toward me. He loomed over me, terrifying and tragic.

  "That day, I learned the truth. The truth you refuse to see."

  He poked me in the chest.

  "Ruthlessness is not evil, Wilhelm. It is protection. If I had killed that woman and her child... Relara would be alive. She would have grown up. She would have married. She would have had children."

  He gestured to the empty air.

  "Every act of mercy toward an enemy is an act of cruelty toward those you love. That is the math. That is the only math that matters."

  He stepped back. He adjusted his cuffs, composing himself. The Duke Dankmar mask slid back into place.

  "I offered you the crystal," Dankmar said quietly. "I offered you the chance to kill the fox-family. Not because I hate foxes. But because I wanted to armor you."

  He looked back at the amber coffin.

  "I wanted to kill the part of you that hesitated. Before it kills someone you love."

  He walked to the exit, his footsteps heavy on the stone floor.

  "You saved the fox today, Wilhelm. You feel like a hero. Good for you."

  He paused at the door, half in shadow.

  "But one day, an enemy you spared will come back. And when they burn your house... when they hurt your King or your brother..."

  Dankmar looked at me over his shoulder.

  "Remember Relara. And remember that I tried to warn you."

  He walked out.

  I stood alone in the freezing vault, looking at the sleeping girl in the green amber.

  "Efficiency," I whispered, the word tasting like ash.

  I looked at my hands. They were shaking. Not from fear this time. But from the terrifying realization that he might be right.

  I had saved Liora. I had saved Ember.

  But who did I just doom?

  I turned and walked out of the cold, leaving the girl who died for kindness behind. And for the first time, I understood why Dankmar Ironvine sat at a desk in a burning village and felt nothing.

  He had simply run out of tears forty years ago.