The royal Gulfstream jet engine purred smoothly, slicing through stratospheric clouds, carrying William further from the political clutches of the capital.

  Down below, the expanse of Crownbelt lights slowly faded. William saw the territorial border—the imaginary line where the suffocating influence of the Rhegalia family ended. It felt like just breaking free from a giant sticky spider web.

  The pilot made a slight corrective maneuver to the north to avoid thermal turbulence, and there the grand sight was presented.

  In the distance, Black Keep was clearly visible.

  From an altitude of 40,000 feet, the legendary fortress didn't look like a building, but like a giant serpent of light sleeping coiled. Its massive black walls snaked following the mountain contours, illuminated by thousands of spotlights piercing the eternal blizzard.

  William pressed his forehead against the window.

  "The Black Serpent..." he whispered.

  He could see how that "serpent" dammed the tide of darkness from the Larrus Highlands. That savage northern territory looked pitch black, contrasting with the blinding wall of light of Black Keep. There stood Mistress Cheng and Prince Wang as gatekeepers, holding back the wave of barbarians from spilling blood to the south.

  William turned his head slightly back, toward the increasingly distant east.

  There, the flickering lights of Fort Rivermarsh towers looked faint like angry fireflies.

  William imagined Marquis Montezar there. The water fortress didn't sleep. The muzzles of their coastal artillery cannons, as big as factory smokestacks, must currently be aimed straight across the Great Seine River—pointing at the heart of the Latham Theocracy. A mute threat from Carta to the religious fanatics over there: move an inch, and we will drown your god.

  The plane straightened its course again, piercing deeper to the west.

  The view below changed drastically.

  City lights vanished, replaced by the darkness of wild nature. Until then, a giant flat surface caught the moonlight.

  Lake Crystalfell.

  The largest freshwater lake on the continent lay calm, its almost ripple-less surface reflecting the perfect orb of the full moon in the sky. From up here, the lake looked like a giant silver mirror placed by a god in the middle of a dark forest. Beautiful, cold, and mysterious.

  However, the calmness of that lake was guarded by something terrifying on its shores.

  Porto Royale.

  The fortress city belonging to the Ferdinand family.

  William held his breath seeing it. Even from the air, Porto Royale radiated an intimidating masculine aura.

  The city didn't grow organically; it was built with iron will. Brutalist concrete walls, a military port filled with neatly docked destroyer warships, and air defense silos on standby.

  Dashing. Fierce. Merciless.

  Porto Royale was the physical manifestation of Ironseat’s will in the southwest region. The Ferdinand family there weren't merely nobles; they were the most loyal guard dogs, the iron fist ready to crush anyone daring to rebel against the King.

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  "This chessboard..." William mumbled, his eyes sweeping the military landscape below with mixed feelings.

  He flew above military power capable of destroying the world, yet he himself felt so small and helpless inside this quiet plane cabin.

  Piercing further west, the pilot again made a smooth maneuver, tilting the plane's wings slightly to the south.

  Down below, the landscape changed drastically. Forests and lakes vanished, replaced by a sea of sand stretching limitlessly.

  The Goldenpalm Desert.

  Under the full moon's light, the desert didn't look arid yellow, but shimmered pale silver like an expanse of giant bone dust. However, amidst that barren death, life exploded in a striking and arrogant way.

  William saw it.

  A majestic fortress stood in the middle of the desert, surrounded by clusters of dense green artificial oases.

  It was the Fortress of House Ghandarvya.

  From this height, giant irrigation patterns looked like glowing spider webs, flowing precious water from underground aquifers to the surface. That water wasn't wasted just for drinking, but to feed the true source of the family's wealth.

  Desert Sugarcane.

  William stared at the plantation plots stretching for hectares around the fortress. The sugarcane plants grew tall, dense, and lush, creating emerald green color blocks contrasting with the white sand.

  That wasn't ordinary sugarcane. It was an ancient hybrid variety whose stalks stored triple the sugar content of ordinary tropical sugarcane.

  "Sugar..." William hissed softly.

  In Carta, sugar wasn't just tea sweetener. Sugar was a strategic commodity. Sugar was a food preservative for war logistics. Sugar was the base material for medical alcohol. And most importantly, sugar was liquid cash.

  House Ghandarvya monopolized this "White Gold."

  William saw the distillery factory smokestacks inside the fortress still billowing thin smoke at night. Their money machine never stopped spinning.

  The wealth generated from these oases was so massive it could buy the loyalty of half the parliament, hire the best mercenaries, or...

  William’s eyes narrowed sharply.

  ...or pay assassins to eliminate a Prince at the border.

  The beauty of the oases down there suddenly felt sickening to his eyes. The green view was a symbol of ambition supported by limitless money.

  "Sweet on the tongue..." William mumbled cynically, staring at Ghandarvya’s headquarters slowly left behind the plane's wing. "...but poison in politics."

  William rested his heavy head against the cold plane window glass. The condensation of his breath formed a thin fog that quickly disappeared, as fast as the memory now flashing in his mind.

  His eyes glanced far to the south.

  Behind the darkness of that horizon, his heart painted a different emotional map. Not a military or political map, but a map of memories.

  There, stretched the territory of House Alhassar. High lands where the air was always clean and the people honest and stubborn. William remembered the smell of rolled tobacco and the heavy laughter of Patriarch Alhassar who always welcomed him without stiff protocol.

  And further south... at the furthest edge of Carta’s map...

  The territory of House Renville. Fertile and peaceful land.

  William exhaled a long breath, white steam escaping his nose.

  "Those two grandfathers..." he sighed softly, eyes dimming with longing. "...always the best."

  Among all the rotten intrigues of Ironseat and the mad ambitions of the Dukes in the north and west, only those two old men in the south treated him like a human grandson, not a state asset. They never talked about war strategy or sugar prices. They only asked if William had eaten, or invited him hunting deer in the autumn forest.

  Those were the simplest times in his life. Times that felt like they had passed a century ago.

  Ding-dong.

  The warm reverie broke instantly. The intercom sounded, followed by the pilot's formal and emotionless voice.

  "Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen. We have just crossed the territorial airspace border of the Kingdom of Carta."

  The plane shook slightly breaking through the border cloud layer.

  "Welcome to the airspace of the Republic of Salomos. Flight time to Ramsas remaining is six hours and fifty minutes."

  William squeezed his eyes shut tight.

  He had left home. He had left the protection—and threat—of his homeland. Now he was in foreign skies, above a noisy and ownerless republic.

  His body felt pulled by gravity to the bottom of the leather seat. Physical and mental exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave. The diplomatic documents on the table in front of him looked blurry.

  He didn't care anymore about Theodore, about Ghandarvya, or about the apocalypse coming the day after tomorrow.

  Tonight, at an altitude of 40,000 feet above a foreign desert, William only had one simple wish.

  "Sleep," he mumbled, letting darkness take over his consciousness.