Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Raizen didn't move.

He didn't breathe any louder, either.

The name was echoing through his mind like a bell that had been struck once and would keep ringing for hours.

Alan.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence and the soft, living creak of Ukai around it.

Then the host spoke, and the shock in his voice cracked right through his careful composure.

"Alan!?"

The word came out like he'd misheard. Like he was waiting for the Ruler to correct it, to smile faintly and admit it had been a test.

The Ruler didn't.

Raizen could see only part of the room through the window's gap, but he could imagine the host's face. He'd seen that man before - the polished guide, the voice that welcomed outsiders, the hand that pointed toward bridges, good seats and ceremonies. A man built out of courtesy and control.

That man was gone now.

The one speaking sounded raw in a way that felt dangerous.

"My Ruler" the host said, and the title didn't soften the outrage, it sharpened it. "With all my respect - Alan?"

The Ruler's voice remained calm, even, as if he'd named the weather.

"Yes. Alan"

The host exhaled hard, and Raizen heard footsteps. Pacing. A small circle, maybe, as if the host needed movement to keep from saying something unforgivable.

"That… That's insane" the host said, and then, as if realizing what he'd just said, corrected himself with a strained swallow. "No. Forgive me. It's - it's too much..."

The Ruler didn't respond immediately. He let the host stumble into his own words.

He rushed forward, tone tightening into something that sounded like fear trying to disguise itself as logic.

"You know I don't trust anyone who plays with Eon" he said. "Not after everything we've seen. Not after what those experiments cost. You know what kind of power that is. You know what kind of men it attracts. You know what kind of men it creates."

Raizen's fingers gripped the branch harder. The bark bit into his skin.

Below, the host pressed on, voice rising despite his effort to keep it respectful.

"Alan was the head of those experiments…" he went on. "The one that put luminite stones inside human bodies. Inside living chests."

Raizen's breath caught.

He'd seen Alan's chest. The embedded stone. The way it sat there like a second heart made of something cold and bright.

Raizen expected an answer filled with anger.

He expected the Ruler to defend Alan with heat, to snap, to force the host back into place.

Instead the Ruler cut him off with something worse.

Calm.

"That" the Ruler answered, "is exactly why he is fit."

The host went silent for a beat like he'd been slapped. "My Liege -"

"No" the Ruler said again, and the single syllable shut the room down. "Listen."

Raizen leaned lower, trying to catch every word.

The Ruler's voice softened, but it didn't become kinder. It became sharp in a quieter way.

"Alan has seen battlefields" the Ruler said. "Not the stories people tell about them. The real ones. The pain. The screaming. The places where nations decide what lives are worth. He's been there"

The host tried to speak, but the Ruler continued over him.

"He has watched men with power pretend they are righteous while they step on the weak like they are insects"

The Ruler coughed, but that didn't stop him from continuing.

"H- He has watched leaders smile while they send their warriors to death. He has watched councils that speak of peace while their hands are already bloody."

Raizen's throat tightened.

The Ruler's disdain wasn't theatrical. It wasn't a rant. It was the weary hatred of someone who had looked at the world too long and seen the same ugliness repeating under different flags.

The Ruler's voice turned colder.

"Alan knows the cost of power" he said. "And he never lies about it."

The host's tone came out strained. "You call that honesty?"

"Yes" the Ruler replied instantly. "Because he never pretends his hands are clean."

Another pause.

Raizen could almost feel the host searching for a crack in the logic.

"Do you know what I value most in a man who would rule Ukai?" the Ruler asked.

The man didn't answer.

The Ruler answered himself anyway.

"Truth."

"Truth…?" the man repeated.

"Alan is the most honest man I have seen in my life" the Ruler said, and for the first time, Raizen heard something faint in his voice - not warmth, but a strange, melancholic respect.

"He doesn't flatter. He doesn't posture. He doesn't hide behind fake virtues. When he makes a choice, he accepts that it will hurt someone, and he doesn't lie to himself that it didn't."

The host's breath came out slow. "And that makes him fit to rule?"

The Ruler's response was immediate.

"It makes him safe"

Raizen was confused.

Safe?

He didn't say kind, or wise, or strong. Or any other thing that makes a leader trustworthy

Safe?

The host didn't like that word. Raizen could hear it in the silence that followed. "Safe?"

The Ruler continued, voice steady.

"When I don't give commands" he said, "who takes care of Ukai?"

The host didn't answer.

This wasn't a debate to the Ruler. It was a fact being spoken aloud so the room could no longer pretend otherwise.

"Alan does" the Ruler answered his own question again. "He has for years."

Footsteps shifted. The host's voice came out lower. "He manages operations and projects. That is not the same as ruling."

"It is closer than you think" the Ruler replied.

The host inhaled, then exhaled hard, as if forcing himself to stay respectful. "You're speaking as if he's already your successor."

"He already acts like one" the Ruler said, and that was the first time the statement carried something that looked almost like grief. "And he does it without praise."

The host tried another angle, voice turning more calculated again.

"But the experiments…" he said. "The implants… The luminite stones... You can't deny what it did to people. What it encouraged. What it made possible."

The Ruler didn't deny it.

"I never denied it, and I never will." he said quietly. "I remember the bodies. I remember the numbers. I remember the failure."

The host latched onto that. "Then how can you -"

"Because Alan remembers them too. And he chose to bear that sin" the Ruler cut again.

Raizen's eyes narrowed.

The Ruler's voice stayed quiet, but it carried the kind of authority that didn't require volume.

"He doesn't forget the faces" the Ruler said. "He doesn't call it necessary and move on. He carries it like a weight that does not allow him to pretend he is better than what he has done. He carries it like a stone in his chest. Funny."

The host's voice dropped, almost bitter. "And you think that weight will make him wise?"

"It already has" the Ruler said.

Silence again.

Raizen's fingers loosened slightly on the bark. His ribs ached faintly, but he ignored it. The ache felt far away compared to the weight of what he was hearing.

Then the Ruler's voice shifted, and Raizen heard the faintest trace of something else.

Reflection.

"You remember the fire? The burn outside? The one Alan is fixing right now?" the Ruler asked.

The host didn't answer right away. "Of course I remember. Too vividly."

Raizen's eyes flicked, mind flashing back to his arrival in Ukai, to the massive burned patch he'd seen from above - a scar in the living mass of green.

"That burn was not from negligence" The Ruler continued. "It was not from carelessness. It was from an uncontrolled beast."