Days slipped by as they stay within the princess's temple, their presence masked beneath a convenient guise. To the outside world, they were nothing more than hired mercenaries funded by the temple itself, tasked with safeguarding the Sixth Princess while the capital seethed with unrest.

It was a believable story.

The capital had grown dangerous. Whispers of opportunity and ruin coiled through the alleys like smoke, carried on the tongues of hopefuls vying in the trials of the King's Gambit. Every tavern hummed with speculation about who might claim the throne, and every corner held a spy or informant waiting to sell scraps of information for coin.

The capital below, once bustling with orderly trade and laughter, now bristled with tension.

All the while, he and the others remained hidden in plain sight, cloaked by the temple's authority and the princess's carefully maintained mask. But Keiser knew such disguises could only last so long.

By morning, the capital burst with color and sound, as if no shadow could ever reach its walls.

Streets thrummed with life, merchants calling out their wares, stalls laden with the newest fashions, trays of spiced food steaming in the cool air, polished weapons glinting in the sun. Visitors from every corner of the kingdom poured in, welcomed with practiced cheer by citizens eager to impress.

The arena drew the greatest crowd.

Though the trials of the King's Gambit had not yet begun, the stone coliseum already sang with noise. Those too restless to wait for the real contests packed into the stands, content with smaller spectacles, mock duels, horse races, and, for the day, the spectacle of bull-catching. The laughter, the cheers, the betting, these were fuel to a city eager to forget its growing unrest.

The capital, seated in the kingdom's heart, was a crossroads of all things. Caravans from the north brought fine furs, the southern traders unloaded bolts of dyed silks, villages nearby carried in their produce, livestock, and wine.

By daylight, it felt as though the world itself converged here, each district overflowing with abundance.

Yet as the sun dipped and shadows lengthened, the festival glow dimmed.

Celebration waned into something quieter, uneasy. Shops shuttered early, windows barred, streets emptied beneath the curfew. The guards enforced it strictly: anyone wandering past nightfall was hauled away without question.

It was the rumors that fed this fear, heavier than any decree.

So the people retreated behind locked doors, leaving the capital silent at night, its grandeur drowned beneath the hush of fear.

Over a week before Keiser, Lenko, and Tyron began their journey from Hinnom to the capital, the city had already begun to shift beneath the weight of unrest.

Sir Keiser had been summoned back in haste, recalled to the heart of Aurex not for another subjugation, but for murder. A string of killings had rattled the capital, their motives unclear, their culprits never found. Whispers spread faster than the guards could silence them, feeding panic like dry kindling catching flame.

In response, the crown imposed strict measures. Night watch doubled at every gate and corner. A curfew fell over the streets like iron bars, when darkness came, anyone still wandering outside was seized, dragged away in the name of 'investigation' and 'the safety of the people'.

Doors were locked early, shutters barred tight, and the once-celebrated nightlife of the capital became a memory drowned in silence.

It was an uneasy silence, too, because the city was not empty.

Nobles from across the kingdom had begun to gather, filling the inns, manors, and rented halls. Each came with their retinues, their banners, and their ambitions, all with eyes on the throne. Those bold, or desperate, enough to gamble their lives in the Gambit trials sharpened their blades and whispered their schemes in the shadows of the arena.

But, no one was truly safe now.

Not even the Sixth Princess, who still rose with the dawn and stood at her altar, her voice soft and honeyed as she offered blessings to the endless line of supplicants.

Each morning the temple doors opened, and the masses flooded in, merchants clutching their coin pouches, widows clutching prayer beads, even knights bowing their heads for her touch.

They called her Saint, they whispered her name as if it were a shield, but everyone in the city could see the truth in the silent shadows that pressed close. Armed knights lined the temple halls and crowded the steps outside, their spears gleaming in the sunlight.

Their presence was not simply reverence, but vigilance. A cage of steel, keeping her safe, or keeping her contained.

Nor were the king's other children any safer.

The air in the capital itself felt thick with tension, as if the stone streets remembered the blood already spilled. One by one, the princes and princesses prepared themselves for the King's Gambit, the grand trial of succession.

Yet it was no noble contest, no gilded ceremony of crowns and oaths. It was a crucible, brutal and merciless, where royal blood was poured into the same pit as common folk, mercenaries, and ambitious nobles.

Titles offered no shield, lineage offered no mercy.

The Gambit demanded sacrifice, and it cared little who bore it.

The kingdom dressed it in pageantry, in banners and feasts, but everyone knew the truth, this was not a game. It was a slaughterhouse with rules thinly veiled as tradition. And whether prince or pauper, knight or thief, all who entered were cast in together, as though into the maw of lions.

But this time, something else stirred beneath the surface.

There were whispers, no, declarations, echoing through taverns, markets, and noble halls alike.

'You need not bleed in the Gambit to claim the throne. All you need is the Dragon's Heart.'

At first it had been dismissed as nonsense, a fireside tale spun too wild to be true. But when the relic was shown, when its power was no longer rumor but fact, the kingdom shifted overnight.

And suddenly, the Gambit itself seemed less certain.

'Why fight lions in the pit, if one could hold in hand the heart of a dragon?'

So unrest spread like wildfire. The nobles feared their hard-laid schemes crumbling, the contenders questioned whether the Gambit meant anything at all, and the common folk, terrified and hungry for salvation, looked toward the relic with desperate, dangerous hope.

All hell, it seemed, was about to break loose this time around again.

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