Chapter : 395

Who was he, really? A man over a thousand years old, his mind a vast, ancient library of political intrigue and strategic maneuvering. A ruler who played the Great Game on a level that made his own father’s machinations look like a child’s game of checkers. A man who had seen the rise and fall of empires, who had weathered a dozen different crises, who had held his kingdom together through strength, through cunning, and through a charisma that could charm the birds from the trees.

And he had summoned Lloyd. Why?

The official reason, the one he had given his father, was to assess the young Ferrum heir. A logical, political motive. But Lloyd’s instincts, the gut feelings of a soldier who had learned to sense the hidden currents beneath the surface of any situation, told him there was more to it. The King’s interest felt… too personal. Too specific. His enthusiasm for the soap, his immediate grasp of the marketing strategy, his easy, almost conspiratorial, rapport… it hadn’t felt like a king assessing a vassal. It had felt like… something else. Like a mentor assessing a promising, if unusual, student. Like a grandmaster enjoying a game with a surprising new player.

The journey continued. The carriage rolled on, carrying him closer to the heart of power, closer to the source of the mystery. The weight of his name, of his family, of the King’s unexplained summons, settled on his shoulders, a heavy, but not unwelcome, burden. He was no longer just the awkward heir, the soap-maker, the accidental warrior. He was a diplomat. An envoy. A piece in a game whose rules he was just beginning to learn. And as the distant, gleaming spires of the royal capital of Bethelham finally appeared on the horizon, a silver promise against the sky, he felt not fear, but a surge of cold, fierce, exhilarating anticipation. The Lion had summoned him. And he was ready to enter the den.

—

The royal capital of Bethelham was a breathtaking, dizzying spectacle. Unlike the more staid, martial grandeur of the Ferrum capital, Bethelham was a city of soaring white towers, of graceful, arched bridges spanning a wide, sparkling river, of gilded domes that caught the sunlight and blazed like miniature suns. It was a city of art, of culture, of ancient, immense wealth, radiating an aura of confident, almost nonchalant, power. It was the heart of the kingdom, and it beat with a strong, steady, and deeply intimidating pulse.

Lloyd’s ducal carriage, with its retinue of immaculate guards, was met at the city gates by a contingent of the King’s own Lion Guard. They were a stunning sight, their armor a gleaming, almost luminous, silver-gilt, their helmets plumed with the crimson and gold of the royal house, their expressions as proud and unyielding as the lions emblazoned on their shields. They formed an honor guard, escorting the Ferrum carriage through the wide, clean, and impossibly crowded, boulevards of the capital. The message was clear, a public declaration for all to see: the heir of House Ferrum was an honored guest of the Crown.

The Royal Palace itself was a city within a city, a sprawling complex of white marble towers, lush, manicured gardens, and colonnaded walkways that seemed to defy gravity. It was a place of serene, almost ethereal, beauty, yet beneath the surface, Lloyd could feel the thrum of immense, ancient power, a magical and political energy that was an order of magnitude greater than anything he had felt even within his own father’s formidable estate.

He was led, not to a public receiving chamber or a vast, echoing audience hall, but through a series of quiet, private corridors, their walls hung with tapestries depicting the long, glorious history of the Bethelham dynasty. He was ushered by a silent, white-robed court official to a pair of tall, sun-drenched doors carved from a pale, almost white, wood. The official bowed low and, without a word, opened the doors, gesturing for Lloyd to enter.

He stepped inside, and his breath caught in his throat.

Chapter : 396

The room was not a throne room. It was a study, but a study unlike any he had ever seen. It was vast, circular, its walls a soaring, unbroken expanse of enchanted glass that offered a breathtaking, panoramic view of the entire capital city spread out below. Sunlight poured in, filling the space with a warm, brilliant, almost divine, light. The air was clean, fresh, smelling faintly of old books, lemon oil polish, and the clean, high-altitude air of the sky itself. Shelves filled with thousands of leather-bound volumes lined the lower half of the walls, and comfortable-looking armchairs were arranged around a low table laden with maps and scrolls. It was not a room designed to intimidate with power; it was a room designed to inspire with knowledge, with vision.

And there, standing by the vast, curved window, his back to the door, silhouetted against the brilliant sky, was a single figure. He was tall, his posture relaxed, confident, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out over his kingdom.

The figure turned as Lloyd entered, and a slow, welcoming smile touched his lips.

It was the King.

And he was not the unassuming, almost forgettable, ‘Lord James’ from the Summit.

The man before him was, without exaggeration, the most breathtakingly, almost inhumanly, handsome man Lloyd had ever seen in any of his three lifetimes. It wasn’t the rugged, sharp-featured handsomeness of a warrior like his father, nor the severe, intellectual handsomeness of a scholar. This was something else entirely. A beauty that was both classical and utterly timeless, as if a master sculptor from some forgotten, more perfect, age had decided to carve a god from living marble and starlight.

His hair was the color of spun gold, thick and lustrous, falling in casual, perfect waves to his shoulders. His face was a study in perfect, harmonious angles—a strong, noble brow, high cheekbones, a firm, sculpted jaw. But it was his eyes that were his most arresting feature. They were not the pale grey of his ‘James’ disguise, but a deep, startling, and incredibly vibrant, shade of sapphire blue, burning with a light that was both anciently wise and startlingly, boyishly, alive. They were eyes that had seen a thousand years of history, yet still held a spark of genuine, infectious curiosity and amusement. He looked to be a man in the prime of his life, perhaps in his late thirties, radiating a vitality, a charisma, a sheer, overwhelming force of personality that was more potent than any display of magic.

He was dressed simply, in a tunic of the purest white linen and trousers of a deep blue that matched his eyes, his only adornment a single, heavy gold ring on his finger, bearing the roaring lion sigil of his house. He was not wearing a crown. He didn't need one. His very presence was a crown.

For a disorienting, jarring moment, Lloyd’s mind flashed back to Earth. To a colleague from his early days in the military R&D labs, a brilliant, charismatic theoretical physicist named Dr. Aris Thorne. Aris had possessed a similar kind of effortless, almost unconscious, charisma, a way of holding a room, of making everyone feel as if they were the most important person in it, a mind that burned so brightly it was almost impossible not to be drawn into its orbit. He had been the only man Lloyd had ever met who possessed a comparable sheer force of presence. It was a strange, unexpected echo, a ghost of a memory from a different world, standing now before a king.

“Lord Lloyd Ferrum,” King Liam Bethelham said, his voice no longer the smooth, cultured purr of ‘Lord James’, but a deep, rich, resonant baritone that filled the vast, sunlit study with a warm, easy authority. “Welcome to the Aerie. I am so very glad you could come.”

Lloyd, momentarily stunned by the sheer, overwhelming charisma of the man before him, remembered his protocol just in time. He dropped to one knee, bowing his head in the formal, prescribed gesture of fealty. “Your Majesty,” he managed, his own voice sounding thin, young, in the face of such ancient, effortless power.

A warm, hearty laugh filled the room. “Oh, none of that, my boy, none of that,” the King said, striding forward and gesturing for Lloyd to rise. He clapped a friendly, surprisingly strong hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. “We are business partners, are we not? And I believe we have already shaken hands on the matter. No need for kneeling between entrepreneurs.”