Rajendra Sagara felt the texture of the gray fabric spread across his lap. His wrinkled fingers, usually holding prayer beads or ancient manuscripts, now traced the unusual threads.

  This fabric was strange. Truly strange.

  When touched by his rough fingertips, the surface felt gritty, reminding him of old wheat sacks or the hand-weaving of inland tribes untouched by the sin of modern machines. The fibers were thick, dense, and felt primordial.

  However, contrasting with its roughness, the cloth radiated an odd warmth. Not hot, but a constant warmth, as if the fabric had just been sunned all day under a desert sun, even though it had been in his cold private sewing room for hours.

  Rajendra brought the fabric close to his face to thread the needle. His old nose caught a faint scent.

  The smell... he thought, eyes narrowing recognizing the aroma.

  No smell of factory chemicals, no musty flea market warehouse smell.

  This fabric smelled like... the Gate.

  Like the faint scent of ozone before a lightning storm hits the mountains, mixed with the smell of cold iron and crushed stone dust. A masculine, dangerous, and timeless scent.

  "You can't fool this old man, Arka," he muttered lightly, a bitter smile curling his thin lips.

  His only grandson said this fabric was bought at a flea market for a costume party. But Rajendra knew, these fibers were woven from threads grown in soil not lit by our sun.

  His lips began to hum softly, a melancholic Macapat song, a protection spell disguised in melody, trying to balance the dark aura of the fabric. His foot pressed the pedal of the old sewing machine.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat... Rat-tat-tat...

  The sound of the sewing machine dynamo filled the silence of the old temple. Rajendra worked deftly, his hand movements still possessing remnants of youthful dexterity.

  Strangely, even though this fabric looked as thick as rhinoceros hide, the sewing needle pierced it very easily. Thwip. Thwip. As if the fabric fibers moved aside voluntarily, submitting to the hands of the Sagara elder.

  "That kid is something else," he monologued internally, holding back emotion pressing his chest.

  "Asking for a cloak sewn suddenly. Said for a play? A wizard?" Rajendra chuckled softly, yet his eyes were wet. "He thinks his grandfather is stupid. He is preparing his own shroud... or his armor."

  Rajendra’s imagination drifted. He didn't imagine Arka on a theater stage. He imagined his grandson standing in the middle of a black dust storm, wearing this gray cloak, standing tall facing something far greater than human reason.

  "Stupid child. Always trying to protect his grandfather from the truth."

  Though knowing this might be the last stitch he made for his grandson, Rajendra’s hands did not tremble. He sewed with the precision of a Keris master smith.

  Every hem he doubled to withstand clawing. Every seam he locked dead with a prayer. He worked it with the perfectionist standards of a patriarch unwilling to let death touch his grandson. He wanted Arka protected, even if only by a piece of cloth.

  "Done."

  Rajendra cut the thread with small scissors. Snip.

  He rose, taking the gray cloak now formed to the ironing board. He sprayed a little rose water, then applied the hot iron.

  Hiss...

  Hot steam hissed loudly. White smoke billowed, smelling of flowers mixed with the metallic scent of the fabric.

  Rajendra smoothed the wrinkles on the shoulders and collar. Under the pressure of heat and steam, the fabric color seemed to react. The gray was no longer dull, but shimmered faintly like graphite, reflecting the room light in an elegant and mysterious way.

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  He turned off the iron, then lifted the cloak high eye-level for final inspection.

  The cloak fell with a heavy and majestic drape. The cut was perfect.

  "Be strong, Son," he whispered to the cloak.

  The cloak looked authentic. The object in his hand looked like a cloak that could truly be worn to brave sandstorms or walk through rain of fire. Looked comfortable, protective, and somehow... authoritative.

  Rajendra folded the cloak carefully.

  As he was about to place it on the table, the corner of his eye caught something from the open door of the central room. Rajendra’s gaze fixed on the Main Altar—the sacred prayer room of the Sagara family.

  On the sandalwood altar table full of incense dust, there was an antique copper oil lamp dead for decades.

  Suddenly.

  Click.

  The lamp lit by itself. Its black wick burned with a small calm flame without anyone igniting it.

  Rajendra didn't jump in shock.

  As the guardian of Sagara tradition, magical things like this were his daily bread. He understood the language of nature.

  He walked closer, steps shuffling slightly but sure. He stood at the altar doorway, staring at the flame with weary yet devoted eyes.

  "Finally..." he whispered hoarsely. "The call has come."

  The fire in this Sagara Temple was different.

  If King George’s fire was red burning with wrath, and Noah’s fire was blue solidifying to protect...

  The fire before Rajendra was Golden Yellow. Small. Simple.

  Rajendra watched it, the flame looked fragile, swaying played by a slight draft of night wind entering from the temple's loose ventilation.

  The fire flickered weakly. Shrank. Nearly extinguished...

  However...

  With stubborn persistence, the small fire refused to die. It righted itself every time the wind hit. Burning its wick faithfully. Becoming the only point of light surviving amidst the darkness of that temple.

  That was the Sagara family. Not big, not flashy, but would never be extinguished.

  Rajendra Sagara cupped both hands in front of his chest, bowing respectfully to the small fire fighting alone in silence.

  "We are ready," he said softly. "We are always ready."

  The shadow of the gloomy sewing room and the old face slowly faded from William’s mind, but the pain remained, piercing sharply in his left chest.

  William opened his eyes atop the Black Keep wall, but his vision was blurred by a film of held-back tears.

  He had just seen the true face of the Sagara Family Patriarch.

  Not a dashing general figure in gleaming armor. Nor a wealthy noble sitting in a velvet chair smoking an expensive cigar.

  All he saw was a fragile old grandfather. Skin wrinkled like crumpled parchment, back hunched by age, and hands... those rough hands still had to sew his grandson’s cloak himself in the middle of a cold night.

  William’s heart felt squeezed. An overwhelming poignancy seized him, making it hard to breathe.

  "Sagara..." William hissed, voice trembling holding back sobs and anger.

  House Sagara was one of the Three Guardian Pillars. The name mentioned with respect in history books. But the reality?

  They lived in an old temple with a leaking roof. They lived on the fringe of civilization, far from the glittering city lights whose energy they protected. They were forgotten. Ignored. Left to rot with time.

  William clenched his fist on the cold parapet stone. His knuckles turned white, veins bulging tense.

  A dark question crawled up, burning his rationality:

  Is this Carta’s justice?

  He imagined his father, King George, sitting on the throne of the majestic Ivory Bone Hall, surrounded by white marble and magical warmth, playing chess with the lives of these people.

  While his strongest pawn—Rajendra Sagara—was left to live like a beggar in a rickety shack, forced to light his final fire with a frail body.

  "What kind of justice is this, Father?" William’s mind screamed, anger boiling.

  He felt sick. Sick of a system that squeezed the devotion of these old heroes to the last drop of blood, then discarded them into the dark corner of history without gratitude.

  Arka... that wild child.

  William now understood why Arka was so cynical. Why the youth was so obsessive about money and food. Why he wore cheap cargo clothes and ate ration biscuits ravenously.

  Arka wasn't just stingy. He was the product of this broken system. The grandson of a hero betrayed by the country he protected.

  William stared at the empty night sky with a wild gaze. His respect for his father’s throne cracked tonight.

  "You are cruel, Father," he whispered to the night wind. "You are truly a cruel king."

  William lifted his face, staring at the figure walking ahead.

  Crazy bastard. Arka wasn't walking on the safe path. The youth was tightrope walking on the parapet—the narrow lip of the wall bordering the abyss—casually, as if walking on a city sidewalk.

  His balance was constantly challenged by the harsh cold air. The fierce night wind slammed the frail body from the side, making his clothes flutter wildly. One wrong gust, and he would fall into the eternal darkness below.

  William sighed long. White steam escaped his mouth, carrying the remnants of anger he tried to suppress.

  "Oy, Arka..." William shouted, his heavy voice splitting the wind roar.

  "Let's go home to your house."

  Hearing the unexpected call, Arka tried to brake his steps abruptly.

  But the laws of physics couldn't be fought just like that.

  His body momentum still slid forward. His foot slipped slightly on the slick stone covered in thin ice. His body tilted dangerously toward the abyss.

  "Woaaah...!"

  Arka swung both arms spinning wildly like a broken windmill to regain his center of gravity. His feet stomped frantically seeking stable footing.

  With difficulty and a very inelegant style, he finally managed to stop without falling. Breath gasping in shock.

  He craned his neck back, staring at William with a blank face, mouth slightly open, and eyes blinking in confusion.

  "Huh?"