The inquiry tumbled from Aira’s lips as they resumed their descent down the spiraling stone stairwell. Her pace slowed, as if she were physically weighing the crushing gravity of the destiny awaiting them upon the morrow.

  "Uncle..."

  Aira tilted her head slightly toward Theodore, who walked beside her.

  "For us... the generation chosen by fate to draw breath in this exact second of crisis..." Aira paused, hunting for the precise phrasing. "To bear witness to a cataclysm of this magnitude... is it to be considered an advantage? Or a cruel stroke of misfortune?"

  Theodore halted his descent. The sputtering torchlight elongated his hunched silhouette, sending his shadow creeping down the steps to swallow the path before them.

  The old man fixed Aira with a piercing stare that transcended his mortal years. He did not offer an immediate reply. He allowed the profound silence of the ancient stone to deliver its own implicit answer first.

  "It is the flip of a two-sided coin, Aira," Theodore finally responded, his voice raspy and utterly pragmatic.

  He raised a single, skeletal finger.

  "A catastrophic loss if we perish," he stated coldly, entirely devoid of sentiment. "If we fail, if we are stripped of everything, and our names are violently excised from the annals of history... then our birth into this epoch was an absolute curse."

  The finger slowly lowered, his hand curling into a tight, white-knuckled fist.

  "However..."

  The corner of Theodore’s mouth twitched upward, carving a thin, wildly ambitious sneer.

  "It becomes an absolute triumph if we endure."

  Theodore’s eyes glinted fiercely in the gloom.

  "Think on it. This cataclysm will scour the old world order clean. International law, the global economy, the military might of every sovereign nation... all of it will crumble into ash."

  Theodore leaned slightly toward Aira.

  "And when that ash settles... the world will be a blank canvas. A scoured chessboard. Carta will be the sole surviving player possessing a full complement of pieces. We will not merely survive, Aira. We will seize absolute dominion over everything."

  Hearing this, Aira’s smile bloomed wide. An intoxicating, overflowing optimism ignited within her chest.

  She reached out, tracing the cold, unforgiving masonry of the tower wall. Walls that had stood unyielding against countless tempests, wars, and the brutal turning of epochs.

  "Carta..." Aira hissed with feral conviction.

  She recalled her historical tutelage. She recalled the sprawling, bloody lineage of the monarchs.

  "This kingdom's age eclipses three thousand years," she murmured with venomous pride. "Three millennia, Uncle. We have watched other empires be born, swell with arrogance, and then rot into the earth, all while the Banner of Heshawara continues to fly with absolute tyranny above Ironseat."

  To Aira, the number 3,000 was no mere statistic. It was the absolute proof of immortality. It was a guarantee underwritten by destiny.

  She looked at Theodore, her eyes burning bright, her conviction unshakable.

  "If three thousand years of storms could not tear us down..." Aira let out a soft chuckle, utterly mocking the terror of the outside world. "Then neither can that black hole festering in Mirror Canyon."

  She continued her descent with a light, airy step, as if the crushing weight of the apocalypse were entirely inconsequential.

  "We shall endure, Uncle. And we shall rise as Gods in that new world."

  Aira’s footfalls slowed as the next question spilled from her tongue. Her voice echoed off the claustrophobic stone walls, sounding slightly provocative yet steeped in genuine curiosity.

  "Uncle..." Aira tilted her head, staring at Theodore's hunched back as he walked ahead of her. "Isn't this exact breed of chaos what the Dukes have been salivating for to seize the throne?"

  Aira visualized the faces of the aristocrats holding court. The sycophants who offered saccharine smiles while concealing poisoned daggers within the folds of their silk robes.

  "They must believe King George is weakened, that William has lost his mind, and the apocalypse is upon us. Is this not the most opportune moment for a coup d'état?"

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Theodore stopped dead in his tracks. His shoulders began to shake.

  "Hahaha..."

  The old man’s dry laughter echoed, sounding like ancient parchment being violently crushed in a fist. He turned slowly, fixing Aira with an immensely amused stare, as if the girl had just recited a hopelessly naive nursery rhyme.

  "Little girl..." Theodore hissed, his sneer exposing yellowed teeth. "From what gutter did you fish this cheap rumor? From a scullery maid? Or from some pathetic penny-dreadful romance?"

  Theodore struck the freezing stone floor with the iron ferrule of his cane. Clack.

  "Do you genuinely believe... that claiming Ironseat is as simple as snatching a park bench from a dozing pensioner?"

  The timbre of his voice hardened, dripping with absolute contempt for anyone audacious enough to harbor such a thought.

  "Hundreds of Dukes are cycled out with every passing major era, Aira," Theodore continued, his voice deepening, carrying the crushing weight of history. "They arrive like summer flies. Noisy, irritating, possessed by an illusion of self-importance... only to drop dead and be swept away by the wind the moment winter descends."

  Theodore raised his bony right hand. He began to tally on his gnarled fingers, each digit representing an unshakeable pillar of history.

  "There are only six names that have endured since Year One of Carta. Since the very first foundation stone of this palace was laid in blood three thousand years ago."

  He extended his first three fingers.

  "The Three Ducal Houses," he announced with solemn reverence.

  "Rhegalia," he stated first, invoking the name of his own bloodline with immense pride. The Grand Advisors.

  "Renville," he continued. The Absolute Law.

  "And the Bani Alhassar," he concluded. The Keepers of Paradise.

  Then, Theodore raised his remaining three fingers, his voice dropping into a sacred, lethal whisper.

  "And the Three Hidden Houses. The bedrock that sustains the shadows."

  Theodore locked his piercing gaze dead into Aira’s eyes.

  "Sanjaya," he said, invoking the name with formidable power. The Pure Blood of True Warriors.

  "Rahessa," he continued, pointing his index finger directly at Aira’s chest. The Spiritual and the Arcane.

  "And Sagara," he whispered, sealing the register. The Wardens of the Secret Keys.

  Aira stood paralyzed, feeling the crushing gravity of the names just spoken. She felt the blood surge through her veins. She wasn't merely a noble; she was one of the six monolithic pillars holding up the very sky of Carta.

  "The rest?" Theodore waved his hand in a gesture of absolute dismissal. "The rest are mere window dressing, Aira. They can be replaced upon a whim."

  The old man turned back and resumed his descent down the stairs.

  "So let those newly minted Dukes harbor their pathetic dreams. This throne... has never once been vacant for them to claim."

  The rhythmic click of their footfalls dueled with the frigid silence of the stone stairwell. Aira remained ravenously curious, her mind churning over the seemingly impossible resilience of this dynasty.

  "Has the Lavin Family ever been supplanted?" she asked cautiously, her voice echoing softly. "They haven't, have they?"

  Theodore let out a harsh, guttural snort, a sound akin to an aging lion irritated by a gnat.

  "Never, Aira. Not once has that bloodline been severed."

  The old man marched onward, his cane striking the floor in a steady, metronomic beat.

  "They... those ambitious new dukes..." Theodore spat to the side in sheer disgust. "They are suffering from collective hallucinations. They perceive the throne of Ironseat as a theatrical stage they can effortlessly conquer with their infantile political games. Flowery speeches, petty bribery, partisan alliances... it is laughable."

  Theodore paused on a landing illuminated by a dying torch, allowing his hunched shadow to entirely swallow Aira.

  "They dare to dream solely because of their own profound ignorance. Because they, these so-called 'new rulers,' did not bear witness to the genesis of it all. They did not see the foundation of blood that was spilled when the first stone was laid."

  Theodore’s eyes narrowed into slits, staring at Aira with an intensity that made the fine hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end.

  "You must understand... they have all been utterly deceived, Aira. This entire world has been deceived."

  Aira’s eyebrows shot upward. A fiercely curious smirk curled her lips.

  "Who deceived them, Uncle?" she demanded.

  Theodore did not answer immediately. He ceased his walking entirely.

  The old man tilted his head upward for a moment, gazing at the curving stone vault above them, as if staring directly into the faces of the ancient ancestors entombed within. His frail, pallid right hand reached out, caressing the coarse, freezing surface of the inner tower wall.

  His fingertips traced the striations of the stone with profound reverence, as if reading a gargantuan braille text that chronicled the absolute truth.

  "House Sanjaya," Theodore finally whispered, his voice heavy with solemn respect. "They actively obfuscated the true history of Carta."

  He slowly turned his head toward Aira, his eyes glinting in the gloom.

  "Not from the citizens of Carta themselves. We know precisely who our king is. The obfuscation was engineered for the outside world. For the entirety of human civilization residing beyond the walls of Ironseat."

  Aira stood rooted to the spot. Her lips parted slightly in sheer astonishment.

  She had always assumed Carta was merely an ancient, isolationist state. But this... this was psychological manipulation on a planetary scale.

  "They conditioned the world into believing we are merely a mundane, archaic monarchy," Theodore continued, his fingers pressing hard into the masonry. "The world looks upon us and thinks, 'Ah, just a lucky old nation that managed to survive.' They remain blissfully ignorant that Sanjaya deliberately allowed them to believe that lie, ensuring they never catch sight of the true fangs of Ironseat slumbering within these walls."

  Aira felt a tremor of absolute awe vibrate up her spine.

  A deception sustained flawlessly for three millennia. A grand illusion cultivated across countless generations simply to keep the world utterly defenseless.

  "Genius..." Aira hissed, her eyes sparkling with worship for the diabolical cunning of her forebears. "They blinded the world by simply allowing them to see exactly what they wanted to see."

  The girl pressed a hand to her own chest, feeling the violent, roaring drumbeat of pride in her heart. She wasn't just an aristocrat from an old country. She was a living component of the greatest, most lethal secret ever buried upon the face of the earth.