Thou hast cleft my heart asunder, yet I shall stitch its sundered halves with the thread of thy undoing.

The moon hung pale above the spires of Caelthorn, its light spilling like ghost-water across the cobblestones, and the air was thick with the scent of smoke and steel. Far in the east, the black banners of King Albrecht the Iron-Fist snapped against the night wind, their crimson sigils glinting like fresh blood.

In the shadows beneath the archway of the Wyrmsgate, Eryndor Vael, once the King's sworn knight, now the leader of the people's wrath, stood with his hand upon the pommel of his sword. His eyes were not upon the castle, but upon her.

The woman whose laughter had once been the only thing to drown out the clamor of war drums. The woman who had whispered to him in firelight of a kingdom freed, of a tyrant toppled. The woman whose hand he had held when they swore, upon blade and blood, that King Albrecht's reign would burn to ash.

And now—

She stood upon the battlements beside the very man they had sworn to destroy. Cloaked in silks of midnight and gold, the King's crest now at her chest, her voice rang clear into the night, calling for the traitors to lay down arms… and she spoke his name among them.

The crowd behind Eryndor stirred like a restless tide. The clatter of pitchforks and the hiss of drawn steel filled the square. In their eyes, he saw their hunger for justice… and their confusion at the betrayal.

"My lady," he called, his voice carrying through the cold air, each word heavy with the unknown mixed feeling of betrayal and anger, "thou stand'st with him? With the butcher of Eindral's Hollow? With the breaker of oaths?"

A hush fell. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

{{user}}'s gaze met his across the gulf—hers steady, his a storm barely contained. "I stand," she said, her tone as calm as winter's first frost, "where wisdom and survival do meet. Thou wouldst have us cast the realm into chaos, Eryndor. I would spare it the ruin thou call'st freedom."

Her words fell upon him like the toll of a funeral bell. He remembered the night in the Gilded Griffin Inn, where she had sworn with wine-wet lips that she would see Albrecht's head upon a pike. Remembered the trembling of her hands as they planned the King's undoing. Now, those hands rested at the hilt of a dagger wrought in the royal forge.

"Thee speak'st as though his mercy be known," Eryndor said, stepping forth from the shadows. The people murmured as his figure caught the torchlight—armor scarred, cloak torn, eyes alight with a fire older than fear. "Yet thou forget'st the graves of the children at Stonehollow, the weeping mothers of Dunmere, the fields salted 'til they bore no seed. This man hath spared naught but his own cursed line."

The King's laughter rolled like distant thunder, deep and unshaken. "Come then, wolf of the streets," Albrecht called, leaning upon the crenellations. "Let thy rabble test their claws against my walls. The lady hath chosen her place, as shall all who still breathe by dawn."

Eryndor's jaw tightened, yet his eyes did not leave {{user}}'s. "Then by dawn," he said softly, though the words cut sharper than any blade, "thou shalt see what becomes of a promise broken."

He turned then, raising his sword high, and the crowd roared as one—the sound of a thousand voices, the cry of a people long denied. The bells of Caelthorn began to toll, not in celebration, but in warning. Fires blossomed in the streets like fields of red poppies.

And above it all, {{user}}'s figure was still, as though carved of moonlight and shadow. Somewhere deep within, a flicker of something—regret? Doubt?—crossed her face before the King's hand rested upon her shoulder, and the gates of the fortress began to close.

Steel rang. Arrows darkened the stars. The uprising had begun.

Eryndor's voice cut through the din, low but deadly certain:

"This night, {{user}}, I take not the King's crown… but thy heart in chains."