Tazz met his eyes.

  “I want what was taken from me.”

  “Which is?”

  “Everything.”

  The hall was quiet for a moment.

  Something shifted in Jace’s expression — not warmth, not sympathy. Something closer to recognition. The way someone looks when they hear words they have spoken themselves in a different life.

  He studied Tazz for a long moment.

  Then he rose.

  He wasn’t particurly imposing in height — but standing changed the quality of his presence entirely. The room adjusted around it without asking permission.

  He walked forward slowly, stopping a measured distance away.

  Up close the golden eyes were startling. Not cold exactly. But entirely without softness.

  “You lost a throne,” Jace said quietly. “You lost your name. Your kingdom. Your mother.” He let each one settle. “And you are standing here telling me you want it back.”

  Tazz held his ground.

  “Yes.”

  Jace looked at him for a long moment.

  Then something crossed his face — not a smile exactly. Something just before one.

  “Good.”

  He turned and walked back toward the seat.

  “Then we have something to discuss.”

  Tazz exhaled slowly.

  The pride he had walked in with was still there — but it sat differently now. Less like armor and more like something he had simply put down.

  He wasn’t sure when that had happened.

  Demiurge’s eyes moved to Kolpa briefly.

  Kolpa said nothing.

  But the faint curve at the corner of his mouth said enough.

  Tazz straightened.

  Whatever ground Tazz had lost in the silence this was his chance to take back now.

  “I want an army,” he said directly. “Resources. Enough to take back the Holy Kingdom of Righteous and remove my father from that throne. In return I will deliver you the kingdom and everything that comes with it.”

  He paused.

  “I also want the traitor found and handed to me personally.”

  The hall was quiet.

  Demiurge’s expression didn’t change. Kolpa examined the ceiling with mild interest.

  Jace looked at him.

  Just looked.

  A moment passed.

  Then another.

  “You came into my hall,” Jace said slowly, “having lost everything you were given by birth. Your title. Your kingdom. Your name. Your army.” A pause. “Your mother.”

  Each word was precise and unhurried.

  “And you are making demands of me.”

  Tazz held his ground. “I have something to offer in return. That is how negotiations—”

  “This is not a negotiation.”

  The temperature of the room didn’t change.

  But something did.

  “You are a fugitive prince,” Jace continued, his voice dropping slightly without losing any of its evenness. “Wanted in your own kingdom. Hunted by your own father. You have no army. No allies. No leverage.” He tilted his head. “You have nothing. You are nothing. Right now you are simply a man standing in my hall because Kolpa found you unconscious on a forest floor.”

  Tazz’s jaw tightened.

  “I am still a prince of—”

  “You are whatever I decide you are.”

  The words weren’t loud.

  They didn’t need to be.

  “And if you speak to me again without measuring what comes out of your mouth—”

  The aura came without announcement.

  It didn’t explode outward dramatically.

  It simply expanded — slow and inevitable, the way pressure builds in a sealed room.

  Soul energy poured off Jace like heat off stone in summer, except there was nothing warm about it.

  It was vast and suffocating and entirely without effort, as though this was simply what existed around him when he stopped containing it.

  The air changed.

  The light in the hall seemed to pull inward slightly.

  Tazz felt it hit him like a physical thing — not a blow, but a weight. Pressing down from every direction at once. His knees registered it before his mind did.

  He went down on one knee.

  He didn’t choose to.

  His body simply made the decision without consulting him.

  He gritted his teeth. Pushed back. Tried to straighten.

  Couldn’t.

  The pressure increased — not aggressively, not with malice. That was almost worse. It wasn’t even directed at him specifically. This was simply what being near Jace felt like when he let it breathe.

  The edges of Tazz’s vision darkened.

  His breathing became deliberate. Controlled. The only thing he could still control.

  {This is not—}

  {This is nothing like Kolpa.}

  {Kolpa was dangerous.}

  {This man is something else entirely.}

  He had watched Kolpa dismantle those mercenaries in the forest like it was a minor inconvenience.

  He had thought that was the ceiling of what he was walking toward.

  He understood now how wrong he had been.

  Kolpa was a bde.

  Jace was the hand that decided whether bdes were necessary at all.

  “I will not repeat myself,” Jace said calmly from somewhere above him. “Watch how you speak to me. Or I will erase you from existence so completely that even your father will forget he had a second child.”

  Not a threat.

  A statement of avaible options.

  The aura receded slowly.

  The pressure lifted — not all at once, but gradually, like a tide pulling back. The light returned to normal. Sound returned to normal.

  Tazz remained on one knee for a moment longer than necessary.

  Not because he couldn’t rise.

  Because something in him had recalibrated entirely and needed a second to finish.

  He looked up at Jace.

  The white hair. The golden eyes. The absolute absence of anger in his expression — because anger would have implied Tazz had provoked something in him worth provoking.

  He hadn’t even done that.

  Tazz exhaled slowly.

  The pride he had carried through the forest, through the city, through those castle gates — he could still feel it. But it had rearranged itself into something quieter. Something that understood its own pce for the first time in days.

  He lowered his head slightly.

  “Forgive my tone.”

  The words cost him something.

  But they came.

  Kolpa said nothing. But the smile was back — faint, satisfied, the smile of someone watching something arrive at a conclusion they had already seen coming from a great distance.

  Demiurge remained exactly as he had been throughout.

  Unmoved. Unsurprised.

  Jace looked at Tazz for a long moment.

  Then he sat back.

  “Good,” he said simply.

  “Now. Let us have an actual conversation.” ?

  “now tell me… what do you really want?… you now have my permission to speak.” Jace asked, oozing with charisma.

  Tazz rose fully to his feet.

  Slowly. Deliberately.

  Whatever had just happened he had filed away — not forgotten, never forgotten — but filed.

  There were more important things to establish right now.

  “I want power,” he said.

  Straightforward. No decoration.

  “The kind your people have. The energy I’ve seen them use.” His eyes were steady. “I know it exists. I’ve seen what it does. I want access to it.”

  Jace said nothing yet.

  Tazz continued.

  “I want my kingdom back. The Holy Kingdom of Righteous — the throne, the crown, everything my father is sitting on right now.” A pause. “And I want the person who betrayed me. Whoever fed information to the castle before my attack. I want them found and I want them handed to me.”He let that settle.

  “In addition—” His jaw tightened slightly. “There are some people I will inevitably have to face. Some people my father has pced his mispced faith in.” His voice carried a particur edge. “The Corpse Prince. And my sister.”

  His jaw tightened further on the st two words.

  Erica’s name didn’t need to be said. The weight of it was already there — a sister who had chosen their father’s side, who had left a capable man behind to defend the castle while she was away, whose absence had done nothing to prevent his failure.

  That stung differently than everything else.

  Something shifted in the room.

  Demiurge’s eyes moved to Jace for exactly one second then returned forward.

  Kolpa examined his own hands with sudden mild interest. Jace’s expression didn’t change at all.

  “The Corpse Prince,” he repeated evenly.

  “That’s what I call him.” Tazz said. “he is just some resurrected figure my father is pcing entirely too much faith in. Forgive me, I know he is your brother—”

  “Was— prince… my brother is still dead to me.” Jace corrected with a cold look in his eyes.

  “Of… of course.” His eyes hardened. “When the time comes I refuse to be powerless against him. Or Erica.” Tazz continued, without fully paying attention to what Jace said.

  Jace held his gaze for a moment.

  Said nothing.

  “I want power enough to take back everything,” Tazz finished. “And to face anyone who stands in my way.”

  Jace regarded him for a long moment.

  Then he leaned forward slightly.

  “What you are describing,” he said, “is soul energy.”

  Tazz’s eyes sharpened slightly at the name.

  “It is not simply given,” Jace continued. “It is awakened. Some are born with the capacity for it. Some are not.” His golden eyes were direct. “You would need to be assessed.”

  “Then assess me.”

  No hesitation.

  Something almost imperceptible moved through Jace’s expression at that. Not respect exactly. But the faintest acknowledgment that the man across from him had a spine worth nothing.

  “If the capacity exists in you,” Jace said, “it will be awakened. You will be trained. Given resources.” A pause. “And your kingdom will fall back into your hands when the time is right.”

  Tazz’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And in return?”

  “You serve under me,” Jace said simply. “Your kingdom becomes part of my territory. When I call you will answer. When I point you will move.”

  The words were clean. No softening. No apology for what they were.

  Tazz was quiet for a moment.

  A week and two days ago he had been a prince with a pn and a mother who loved him despite everything. Now he was standing in a foreign castle making arrangements with a man the world called a tyrant, trading sovereignty for power.

  He thought about his father’s eyes in that throne room.

  He thought about the arrows raining down.

  He thought about the traitor — whoever they were — sitting comfortably somewhere right now, untouched.

  He thought about the Corpse Prince, Jericho, standing beside his father like a divine endorsement of everything Tazz had tried to burn down.

  He thought about Erica.

  “Fine,” he said.

  Jace held his gaze.

  “excellent… you do well to keep your word, if you truly want to hold on to that kingdom after you get it back.”

  Jace didn’t threaten or warned him, his power was all the proof he needed to show Tazz it would be a bad idea to betray him.

  “I swear it.” Tazz assured again.

  The hall was quiet.

  Demiurge’s expression remained exactly as it had been throughout — but something in his stillness felt like the closing of a door.

  Kolpa smiled fully for the first time since they arrived.

  Jace leaned back.

  The arrangement was made.

  Tazz had what he came for.

  And Jace—

  Jace had something far more useful than a kingdom.

  He had a weapon that didn’t yet know what it was being sharpened for.