(Alvron's P.O.V.)
The envoy from the League of Mages departed the palace before dawn, their robes trailing like whispers across the marbled steps. I watched them from the shadows beneath the rooftop terrace at my traditional family's house, the wind tugging at my cloak as if trying to warn me to flee while I still could. But I could not leave—not yet. Not while the memory of the twin princes still lingered like incense in these desecrated halls.
Xaldron and Xayon.
Their names were once spoken with reverence, invoked in songs, engraved in gold above the palace gates. Karadia had never known leaders so young, so gifted, so devastatingly united.
They had been more than brothers—they had been destiny made flesh.
Xaldron was the homely one, though that word hardly did him justice. He was elegant in stillness, sharp-featured with a silver-black mane that framed his face like a crown. His eyes, icy blue and piercing, could silence an entire court with a glance. He was a portrait of refined cruelty even in his youth—a strategist whose swordhand was just as quick as his mind.
Xayon was the storm.
Raven-haired, amber-eyed, and sculpted like a war god from the old stories. Where Xaldron walked with precision, Xayon moved with unrestrained grace—each step a whisper of speed, each gesture full of unspoken promise. His smile was rare, but when it came, it made nobles forget protocol and princesses forget pride.
I remember one banquet clearly: three princesses from rival empires arrived in gowns enchanted to shimmer like constellations. Each had come to win the heart of a twin, but their rivalry turned to chaos. One tried to poison the other with a smile. Another challenged the hall's chandeliers to outshine her. Xayon danced with all three—and none. Xaldron, ever the manipulator, used the distraction to broker a treaty between their fathers. The brothers turned courtship into conquest.
They loved each other fiercely then.
As boys, they trained together. Being a young girl then, I watched from the edge of the old training grounds as their wooden blades clashed with laughter. By adolescence, they could disarm veteran soldiers. By seventeen, they had put down two rebellions without drawing more than a hundred swords.
Xaldron had taken naturally to the palace—appointed first as overseer of the inner courts, then as Minister of Internal Affairs. He mapped every noble house like a warfront, mastering Karadia's fractious elite with a precision that terrified even his allies. Behind closed doors, it was whispered he knew the bloodlines of every courtier back seven generations, and their secrets ten generations forward.
But he was more than a mind. His telekinesis grew sharper than steel—surgical and brutal. I saw him once split a warhammer in flight, then drive its shards through four armored enemies without lifting a blade.
Xayon's power was something else entirely. Adventure drove him—beyond the palace walls, beyond diplomacy. His strength bloomed early: breaking training dummies by accident, outrunning horses before he could read. The Mage Academy took him in, fascinated by a prodigy who reached Level 10 in less than three years. Others took three decades. He took three winters.
And yet, he shared what he learned.
Xayon taught others the Mind Seclusion Method, a shortcut to power. It worked—too well. Dozens of mages reached Level 10 in record time, but their bodies lagged behind. They were brilliant minds in fragile vessels, unmatched in theory, but vulnerable in battle. Xayon had made legends, but at a cost he hadn't foreseen.
His international fame grew. His strength became a symbol. His diplomacy kept wars at bay, and his fury ended those that dared begin.
I remember the massacre at Dawnwell. A vassal state rebelled. Xayon responded. After the rebellion was crushed, news came of northern raiders attacking a defenseless Karadian village. Though his official duty was done, he disbanded his legion and took only a centenary—a hundred men—against a force of 3,000.
At sunrise, the village was silent. The only sound was Stormrender—his axe—ripping through steel and bone. Survivors? There were none. Xayon did not leave enemies alive. Yet among the people, he was a savior. The sword of the poor, the shield of the forgotten.
His father named him Commander of the Karadian Military that same year.
But Xaldron... Xaldron was no lesser warrior. As General of the Southern Front, he waged wars with words before blades. He'd offer peace talks, disarm suspicion, then strike with precision. His sword technique was colder, more exacting. When he, too, reached Level 10, it was said the twins had become gods among men.
There was none their age who could match them, save perhaps the Luna stage mages—those ageless beings who had spent lifetimes on the path of cultivation.
And through it all, the princes remained inseparable. They made policy over sparring duels, drafted laws while patching each other's wounds. Their harmony was Karadia's heartbeat.
But something changed.
Power shifts silently, like a tide. I saw it in the way Xaldron began watching his brother's back a moment longer. In the way Xayon's smile became rarer, his departures from court more frequent. The bond was still there, but fraying, like silk worn thin from too much wear.
Now, Xaldron wears a crown of shadow, and Xayon walks a path unseen.
And I, Alvron—once their student and idol, now their secret witness—am left to wander the ruins they once called home, wondering when the thread that held them together will finally snap.
The envoy is gone. The League of Mages has delivered its warning. But I fear the Emperor has already made his choice.
And if he has, then the day of reckoning is not far behind.
Not far at all.