William shifted his body in the plush leather seat, searching for a comfortable position that was impossible to find. His eyes were closed, but his brain was blazing bright.

  "Sleep..." he cursed at himself. "Sleep, fool."

  But the more he tried to shut off his mind, the louder the voices screamed.

  Heading to Ramsas.

  The irony slapped him. All of Carta was on high alert facing an ancient apocalypse. His father was burning magic energy in a white room. House Sagara was lighting their final fire. Thousands of soldiers were preparing at the border walls.

  While he? The heir to the throne?

  He was sitting pretty inside a luxurious aluminum tube, flying away to a neighboring country to attend... what? A diplomatic meeting? A cocktail party with ambassadors?

  Guilt crawled coldly in his stomach, mixing with the alcohol that was starting to taste sour.

  "While the kingdom fights ghosts," he thought bitterly, "I am running away."

  Behind his twitching eyelids, the political map of Carta unfolded not as a homeland, but as a deadly game board currently on fire.

  The Spider Web of Power.

  In his mind, he saw those faces revolving around his father.

  The Three Marquis.

  The gatekeepers.

  Montezar in the East with his rivers. They were loyal, at least for now. But the other two? The Marquis ruling the southern and northern trade routes? They were pure merchants. Their loyalty flowed where gold flowed. If Salomos or another enemy offered a higher bid, would they open Carta’s back gates?

  The Seven Dukes.

  The land-owning giants.

  Ghandarvya with his sweet and poisonous sugar.

  Ferdinand with his ambitious iron fleet.

  Alhassar and Renville—two sincere grandfathers in the south, but old and far from the center of power.

  Rhegalia—Theodore the old snake in the center of the nest.

  And two other Dukes in the central region who were always silent, a silent majority waiting to see who the winner was before taking a side.

  William gripped the armrests.

  This structure was too fragile. If King George fell—or if the "darkness" breached the defenses—these Dukes would not unite to save the people. They would eat each other to grab the biggest slice of pie from the kingdom's carcass.

  And here William was, flying straight away leaving that chaos.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Why?"

  The question haunted him.

  Was Theodore discarding him?

  Was this a subtle exile? 'Remove the critical prince so we can take over when the King dies?'

  Or...

  William opened his eyes, staring at the dim cabin ceiling.

  Or does Theodore want to trap me?

  Assassination on foreign soil, amidst the hustle and bustle of Ramsas, far from Carta’s magical protection? A death that could be blamed on terrorists, or an accident, or a sudden heart attack.

  "Clean. Without a trace," William hissed.

  At an altitude of 40,000 feet, William felt he wasn't flying toward freedom, but being sent in a neat package to a slaughterhouse.

  He reached for the scotch bottle again. To hell with sleep. He had to stay awake. In Salomos later, closing his eyes meant death.

  His right index finger tapped the mahogany leather armrest.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The rhythm was irregular, fast, and neurotic. An unconscious SOS signal sent by his tense nerves.

  In his mind, William was assembling the true political chessboard of Carta. And the more he assembled it, the more he realized his position was already checkmated even before the game began.

  Three Marquis. Seven Dukes.

  They were feudal monsters ruling the land. Who allied with whom? Did Ghandarvya’s sugar money fund Ferdinand’s iron fleet? Was Marquis Montezar truly loyal, or just waiting for the right price from Rhegalia?

  "But that's just the surface..." William thought, cold sweat soaking his back.

  There was another layer of power. A more invisible yet often sharper layer.

  Powerful Families Without Territory.

  Ancient families possessing no provinces on the map, but having influence rooted in the kingdom's spinal marrow.

  House Sanjaya and House Rahessa.

  William closed his eyes, cursing his own stupidity.

  "Zero," he hissed.

  At his current age—the age where a Crown Prince should already have his own faction, have loyalists ready to die, have secret tactical funds—William had nothing.

  He had never approached Sanjaya personally. He didn't even know who the current head of the Rahessa family was.

  "Damn it, where have I been all this time?" he cursed, pounding his fist softly onto his thigh.

  He knew the answer. All this time he was busy sulking. Busy playing frontline soldier to prove himself to his father. Busy hating "politics" because he considered it dirty.

  He thought being a "noble knight" was enough to be King.

  "Naive," William cursed at his own reflection in the window. "You are a fool, William. You think you're a hero in a fairy tale? Without political support, you are merely a corpse with a crown."

  Tonight, above foreign skies, William realized his greatest sin wasn't physical weakness, but negligence. He had abandoned his own throne, leaving it wide open to be taken by anyone more cunning than him.

  The private jet continued devouring distance, slicing the night sky at near-sonic speed.

  Down below, the darkness of wild nature had long vanished.

  William looked down, and for the first time, he truly understood the scale of the Republic of Salomos' power.

  The view below him was no longer forests or deserts interspersed with one or two feudal castles like in Carta. Here, civilization stretched without pause.

  He passed the State of Oakhaven in the east.

  From high above, this modern agrarian region looked like a giant glowing circuit board. A precise grid of streetlights divided vast industrial wheat fields. William saw the sweeping lights of autonomous combine harvesters working 24 hours non-stop, like a swarm of mechanical fireflies crawling the earth.

  Then, the jet crossed the State of Ferrum.

  The center of heavy industry. William saw the sky below wasn't black, but glowing reddish-orange. Thousands of factory smokestacks spewed smoke, steel smelting complexes vaster than the city of Porto Royale, and endless cargo railway lines, snaking like blood vessels pumping logistics across the country.

  "Insane..." William hissed.

  In Carta, night was a time for rest and mystery.

  In Salomos, night was merely a shift change.

  He saw interstate highways ten lanes wide. Rivers of white and red light from thousands of container trucks and private cars flowed ceaselessly, connecting one satellite city to another.

  The clusters of city lights were unbroken. They connected, merged, forming a brightly lit megapolis.

  William rested his forehead against the glass. His sleepiness was gone, replaced by an intimidating feeling of smallness.

  If Carta was a beautiful and mystical ancient painting...

  Then Salomos was a roaring, efficient, brutal, and unstoppable giant machine.

  And at the western edge there, at the center of this machine, Ramsas awaited him.