Chapter 1: C — The Vote

  Everyone was lying to Kayode.

  What he didn’t know, yet, was why.

  A voice came from the other side of the door. Polite. Measured. Afraid. “Are you ready, my lord?” it asked.

  “I’d be more ready if I knew what I was walking into,” Kayode replied.

  Silence answered him. As expected.

  He turned back to the mirror. The man staring back at him wore the black-and-gold of Ancient Ayéda—traditional, immaculate. A covering of long-sleeved cloth fell from the shoulders to just above his knees, gold threads tracing its edges. Beads rested at his neck and wrists.

  He exhaled once. He was as ready as he would ever be.

  Kayode stepped out of his chamber and into the halls of Asoburgh Palace. Waiting for him stood Mister Henry Smokes—the voice from behind the door, wearing a meek concern across his face. “Y-you look lovely, my Lord.”

  “Why has the King summoned me, Henry?” he asked the man, and saw how the servant’s cheeks turned red with distress—the way only a native’s pale skin could.

  “I—I don’t know, my Lord,” he lied, badly. Just like the maids, the gardeners, and the guards had when he asked them any questions—all they did was usher him to his room and ask that he get changed. Surely they knew something was going on, if not exactly what that was, so their complete silence was more a testament to the severity of the news than anything. “If you may, please come with me.”

  And Kayode and Henry were walking through the halls of Asoburgh.

  To either side of them, paintings of the conquests and triumphs of long-dead monarchs hung, glowing Gem Stones beside them, and marbled floors inlaid with gold sigils lay beneath. It was all meant to evoke feelings of awe, but it only brought back memories he’d much rather leave buried.

  Memories of isolation. Of suffocation while being raised in the biggest palace in the kingdom, and of pitying eyes staring when anyone walked past the orphan boy bearing a curse from the ancestors themselves.

  Of powerlessness. Because what use was it to be the head of one of the Seven Great Houses if you had no family, no authority, no land, no wealth, no subjects and not even a Class?

  Blightedness was what they had called it. It didn’t matter how many Class stones he tried to use, or how desperately he urged them to work, he would be without one until the day he died.

  And one year ago, he had left the palace in search of a cure for his ailment—his curse—and found the world wanting.

  Now he was right where he’d started, barely an hour back in the palace and feeling somehow even more out of place than he had when he’d left it.

  “We’re here,” Henry said.

  Kayode looked up at the door before him and felt his guts twist. It was an oak thing, tall and dark. Seven symbols were carved into it—an axe, a quill, a key, a shell, an eye, a hammer, and a dove. The marks of the Great Houses of the kingdom.

  Behind this door was the Hall of Seals, a room the King used to convene the Great Houses when matters reverberated through every corner of Velúndé—be it famine, floods, or… great conflict.

  It had been used only once in Kayode’s lifetime, to declare war on the Northern Kings. He had been too young to attend back then, his guardian standing in his place and bearing his Lordly duties for him.

  Kayode did not like the sound of that at all. A Classless Lord already had limited opportunities in times of peace—he did not want to imagine what his prospects might look like in war.

  Enough stalling.

  Steeling himself, Kayode twisted the door handle, entered the hall and shut it behind him, leaving Henry on the other side.

  He had braced himself for a room filled with arguing nobles wearing grim faces and slinging grimmer words. Instead, Kayode found something that made him almost wish he had met that instead.

  Leaning against the window was a man Kayode knew all too well. He wore his House’s colours—red and green—similar to Kayode’s in style, though with far more embroidery, pads, and excess worked into the garment than he could ever have the patience or stomach for.

  Like Kayode, he was twenty years of age—older by a month—and carrying a restless, youthful energy that made the empty space around him feel animated. As if he had something to prove and was daring the world for a chance to.

  Lord Oluwafemi Edward Adegoke the Younger, was the nephew of the King, the son of his guardian, and the boy that Kayode had grown up with, lived alongside, and perhaps could have called brother.

  “Hello, Blight Lord!”

  Were he not a cunt.

  The cunt in question grinned, his face filled with the kind of glee that could only come from first being disappointed that someone you had hoped to die was still alive, followed up by the joy from the realization that they were still miserable.

  “By the Kingdom Maker,” he exclaimed. “I’m surprised you haven’t drank yourself into a hole yet—” he continued, shaking his head in faux contemplation “—perhaps you really aren’t your father’s son?”

  Kayode clenched his fist, ignored the idiotic impulses that told him to punch the Level 50+ Ether Sworn in the face with his Classless arms and nodded cordially at his fellow noble before redirecting his anger into more fruitful inquiries. “It’s been too long, Lord Femi. Glad to see you again. Can you tell me why the King summoned us?”

  Instantly, the Noble’s smile faded and his expression soured. “Oh, you really don’t know anything do you? The fucker’s dead.”

  Ah. That didn’t make much sense, principally, because it would not have been an exaggeration to say that Seyi Adegoke was one of—if not the most—well-protected Kings in history. As a puppet King of his brother—Femi’s Father— Grand Duke OluwaFemi the Elder Adegoke, he rarely ever needed to leave the safety of Asoburgh for anything diplomatic, or put himself at risk in any way.

  In fact, despite quite literally growing up in the Palace, Kayode could count on one hand the number of times he had actually seen the man, and each time was through a crowd of Oathguards.

  “But he sent me a summons?” Kayode asked carefully.

  Femi hissed. “He sent one to all Great House Leaders. The last thing the selfish prick did before he killed himself.”

  Oh. Oh. Fuck.

  There was one more reason the leader of a Great House might be summoned to the Hall of Seals. And that was to choose the new Monarch. To wear the crown one had to have been above the age of twenty and below thirty as of the time of the previous King’s passing, be a member of one of the Great Houses, and they required all Great House leaders to vote in favour of their coronation.

  Femi was at least two of those things, and given that he was not a particularly empathetic person, Kayode could only assume that the reason why he was so furious was because his father had not been in a position to ensure he was the third one as of the time of the King's death.

  That meant there was a rival candidate at play.

  As if to punctuate Kayode’s words, the door opened and another man entered.

  Dark-skinned even for the Great Houses, hair cut short and severe, Lord Okechukwu was only a few years older than Femi—and yet he carried himself like someone born to a different generation entirely. He wore perfectly articulated lamellar plates that wrapped his body in a rattling wall of steel, each piece fitted for function and mobility. No jewels. No excess. Only the faintly glowing glyphs etched into the metal, keeping the armor bound and ready, and the cold blue-and-silver of his House marking him as its instrument.

  Lord Okechukwu’s attire was not meant to be admired.

  It was made for killing.

  “You showed your face here?!” Femi snarled at the older noble. “I’m not sure if you’re brave or just stupid."

  The Sword Singer’s gaze narrowed on the noble like a giant weighing the thought of squashing a bug. And if Femi had skin as pink as a native’s, Kayode was certain he would have had the pleasure of seeing it pale. But he settled for the wide eyes and the trembling lips instead. “Y—you think I’m scared of you!” Femi snapped. “Just because you just entered your Eighth Awakening! My Father is in the Tenth, and he will have you and your band of upstarts hanging in the market square within weeks!”

  Okechukwu did not bother with a reply. He walked past Femi and Kayode, not acknowledging either of the two and made his way towards the Great Seats. They were eight, seven to represent the Houses and one, higher than all others, to represent the King.

  Okechukwu settled in the House seat marked with the symbol of a Hammer—House Okafor’s.

  So he was the rival candidate. Kayode wondered how many Houses he had backing him, not that it would change the outcome of the vote. Unanimity was needed to wear the crown no matter who you were. He knew the Old Duchess Gimba would certainly be on his side—that lady hated the Grand Duke with a passion. That left five votes more, several of which were all but guaranteed for Femi.

  Kayode was driven straight out of his thoughts by the doors opening once more.

  He turned and felt the air of the room change in its entirety.

  The new figure was dissimilar to all three present in more ways than one. He had wrinkles and greying hairs that told a story of five decades spent living hard, worn fingers calloused with the weight of spells. His brown eyes were dull with age but sharp with a keen intellect, slicing the world ahead of him up to pick through its carcass for information. Draped around him were clothing of an old Ayédan style that favoured long, overflowing fabrics over the conservative cuts that Kayode wore.

  Though he wore the same red and green colours as his son, they somehow seemed more appropriate on him. Like they were an extension of the man himself. Grand Duke Oluwafemi Edward Adegoke—brother to the late King, Leader of House Adegoke, father to Lord Femi the younger, and Guardian of Kayode, entered.

  And Kayode felt all the memories he’d rather have kept at bay slam into him with the force of a ballista bolt. Living in a home that was never truly his, sitting at a table set apart from his guardian’s, treated not as family but as an obligation at worst and a pawn at best—all while the man responsible for him wielded what little power his House had for himself.

  Luckily for Kayode, he wasn’t the only one staring. All eyes were upon the Grand Duke. Kayode himself felt his breath hold, as if waiting for something. He was the Arch Arcanist—the definitive article, for S tier classes were not a thing that existed in multiples. As long as he was alive, he and only he was the Master of the Arcane arts.

  The Duke’s eyes scanned the chamber, looking as comfortable as he might have been in his own living room. Those brown orbs ignored the other pair of nobles and settled on Kayode, a warm smile that almost looked genuine flowing along the man’s lips. “Kay, you’re back.” he walked over and put an arm around him. “Come here my boy. It’s been too long” he said, guiding him to the side of the room. “I apologize for this terrible news dragging you away from your quest.”

  “You need not—it was already a failed thing,” Kayode replied, keeping his tone and words measured.

  The man looked at him as if he were a wounded bird.

  “I see. That is a shame,” the Grand Duke said. Kayode was about to reassure him when the man continued. “But we must focus on what lies before us. Rather than unite in our trying times, our enemies have chosen to sow destruction. Still, I can assure you their resolve will take a blow—however shallow—if we all vote correctly.”

  He used words like we and our as though Kayode were an equal, while carefully framing Kayode’s support as useful but limited—just enough to serve his designs without ever inflating Kayode’s importance within them.

  The man spoke in such a way to have him certain this was nothing more than an opportunity to get in the good graces of the Grand Duke, but it was here that Kayode saw something powerful, something that not even the Arch Arcanist could stop; he saw a civil war, and underneath that he saw leverage. Leverage to become something other than a pawn.

  “You’re right,” Kayode said. “Having more votes than the opposition will boost morale and make Femi’s bid for the throne appear more legitimate in the eyes of the people and the lesser Houses, even if he eventually requires all Houses to approve of him before he wears the crown. It is why historically, though not always, the candidate with the greatest number of votes to start with often ends up winning the crown.” He finished, letting the Grand Duke understand that Kayode was aware of exactly how much power he had here, and that he wasn’t going to easily squander it. Now time to name his price. “Perhaps you could assure me—”

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  “Now is no time for politics.” the Grand Duke snapped, less in rage and more like an elder cautioning his child. “You know right from wrong—vote right, boy.” He patted the side of Kayode’s head, as if he were some child—no, as if he were a dog—and walked away.

  Kayode felt his hands spasming into fists as he watched the Duke take a seat. His blood boiled with frustration, left him nearly vibrating, and for a moment he felt like nothing more than a powerless child in a massive Palace.

  “Great Nobles of Velúndé!” came a voice, and Kayode’s head snapped toward the door. A man stood there— one who’d entered so quietly that Kayode hadn’t even noticed it. He was dressed formally, though in the suit-and-belt style of the natives of which he was clearly one, if his pale-pink skin, oddly straight hair, and blue eyes were anything to go by. His features marked him at around forty years of age, making him senior to at least half the room, and yet he did not dare meet a single noble’s gaze. He bowed. “I am Adjudicator Benedict Woodwick,” he said. “And I have been tasked with the great honour of overseeing the vote for our new Monarch.”

  Adjudicators legally had to be individuals with absolutely zero blood ties to any Noble House. This almost always led to them being native Velúndians—descendants of those who existed in this land before Abayomi the Kingdom Maker’s arrival on their shores.

  “Get on your feet and let's get this bloody over with!” Femi the younger snapped at the man.

  Mister Woodwick was clearly a man used to working around nobility, for he barely flinched at Femi’s petulance , rose to his feet, and made his way to the King’s seat, where he stood dutifully at its side.

  “Could all heads of Great Houses present please take a seat,” he asked.

  Kayode, realizing that he was the only House Leader still standing, found the chair with the symbols of an axe carved into it and settled down. The seat was an uncomfortable thing—perhaps made that way to keep the Houses unbalanced when in the audience of the King.

  All eyes were on Woodwick now—the Duke’s calm and measured—like he’d been through all of this before, Okechukwu’s ready, like a tiger on the hunt, and Femi’s eager—overly eager, he was a ball wound too tight with energy. The only noble present who was not a House head, Femi paced as the other three remained seated.

  Woodwick cleared his throat, a faint tremor betraying his nerves. He reached into his pocket and produced seven envelopes, each sealed with the insignia of a House. Moving with practiced care, the adjudicator slid one to the Duke, one to Okechukwu, and one to Kayode. “To cast a vote,” he said, “each House leader must hold their envelope while thinking of their chosen candidate. Those not present”—he gestured to the remaining four envelopes resting before him—“have already cast their ballots by absentee vote. You may change your vote as often as you wish, up until a candidate receives unanimous support.”

  So that meant that Okechukwu did not explicitly need to be here to vote for himself—this was likely a show of strength to his camp, proof that their preferred candidate had the spine to look the Grand Duke in the eye while he crossed him. Fair enough on that end, it was not a thing that many men could manage.

  The Adjudicator reached into his pocket once more, and revealed another envelope, this one with the royal seal melted into it. “Before we begin, I would like to read the final address of our late King.”

  From the way the room stiffened, Kayode could only guess this was as much news to him as it was to everyone else. Had the King endorsed a potential candidate? That would definitely strengthen the position of whoever it was.

  Woodwick cleared his throat. “Hello, you bastards,” he began. “I am certain that by now you’ve heard of my glorious exit. I grew sick—tired—of being used, of being paraded as nothing more than a puppet for your ambitions. I grew disgusted by the curse of wearing a crown while holding no power within my own nation. You all thought you could use me. Friends. Cousins. Even my own brother. You believed I was nothing. So now, I hope you burn in the vacuum of my absence. Tear each other and Velúndé itself apart, scrambling for a crown none of you venomous snakes deserve to carry.” Woodwick drew in a measured breath before continuing. “And to my baby brother—here is a secret I once promised to take to my grave. Well, I’m in that grave now. Here it is. That common girl you loved when we were boys—Marie I believe it was? The one you nearly ran away with. The one you mourned for a year after she vanished without a word—you thought she left you. She didn’t.” The Adjudicator’s voice wavered.“I found her first. I promised her I would convince Father and Mother to let you both be together, if only she gave herself to me. And when she did—under the cover of night, in old man Frederick’s farm—I slit her throat and fed her to his pigs.” A pause. Then, softly: “She died scared and confused, Femi. Scared. And confused.”

  Not an endorsement then…

  The room was filled with a deafening silence after that, and yet if the Duke was bothered by his brother’s last words, his eyes did not show it.

  “Vote casting may begin,” the Adjudicator announced.

  The Duke pressed a finger against his envelope and slid it over to the Adjudicator—not a moment later, Okechukwu did the same.

  The Adjudicator opened the first envelope. “House Adegoke votes in favour of Lord Oluwafemi Edward Adegoke the Younger.” Then the second.

  “House Okafor votes in favour of Lord Okechukwu Marcus Okafor.” He did not pause after that. Names followed in quick succession—Gimba, Maduka, Kwari, Ojo—until the count settled.

  Three for Okechukwu.

  Three for Oluwafemi.

  That left them equally split in the eyes of the people.

  And Kayode could change that.

  He felt all eyes fall on him now. Okechukwu, who had never noticed him before, and Femi who loathed him, and the Duke who held power over him.

  He could vote for Femi and try to claw leverage by threatening to change his vote later—but that would only expose weakness. Obedience, even when strategic, was still obedience, and if he chose that route here the Duke would never take him seriously again.

  He could vote for Okechukwu—but that was a devil he barely knew, and one whose circles he doubted he could survive.

  “Lord Kayode,” the Adjudicator said expectantly. “Your vote?”

  Kayode pressed a finger against the envelope. This was going to be his only chance to make something of himself. He would not let it go to waste.

  Kayode thought of his candidate and slid the envelope over to the Adjudicator.

  The man picked up the envelope, opened it up, frowned a moment and showed the room the empty piece of paper. “House Balógun has decided to abstain from voting.”

  “You fucking worm!” snarled Femi. And the man was storming towards him with a face full of wrath. “I’m going to turn you into a smear on the floor—”

  “You will do no such thing.” His father raised a hand and the boy stopped where he stood. “The House of the Kingdom Maker himself is allowed to vote however it wishes,” said the elder. His eyes calm, his voice and tone steady—as if this was all just a minor misunderstanding.

  Femi’s face spasmed in a million places,but he did not move from where he was standing.

  “Well,” the Adjudicator began. “Thank you for having me, Great Lords of Velúndé.” he bowed, and then made his way out of the room.

  Okechukwu’s eyes were locked on the Duke like a soldier ready to draw his blade. And yet he had the sense not to. Without a word, he got to his feet and made his way out.

  That left Kayode alone in a room with the Grand Duke of Etentra and his sociopath of a son.

  It would be a lie if Kayode told himself that he knew exactly what would happen. But he was certain that no matter what the outcome may be, he wasn’t going to leave this room as anyone’s dog.

  The older man’s eyes fell on Kayode now, weight like a guillotine. “You moved against me,” the Duke noted. Well technically he didn’t move at all, Kayode thought. A move against him would have been a vote for Okechukwu, but Kayode doubted the Duke saw that difference. “Why?”

  “It was the only time I was going to have the ability to, so I took it,” he told him, choosing honesty. The Duke raised an eyebrow but did not reply, so Kayode pressed on. “The village of Belsa, I want it.”

  The Duke’s eyes narrowed now. “Why would I give you that?”

  “Because it’s a random village with—”

  The Duke shook his head. “No,” he interrupted. “Why would I give you anything when you just publicly crossed me. Why would I want to signal to my allies in such a delicate time that I can be pushed around.”

  Kayode continued. “Belsa has no value. It’s a dying town—brutal winters, few natural resources, and constant raids from the Beastlings. Matters are so dire that its own Lords are locked in a domestic crisis, each sibling trying to offload responsibility for the settlement onto the other. Sending me there would not be a concession.” He met the Duke’s gaze and winced. “That, coupled with—” Kayode brought his face crashing down as hard as he could manage against the table and felt something crunch. Blood and hot pain poured from his broken nose. “This,” he hissed, “would make it clear to anyone that I am not a man that forced the hand of the Grand Duke, but a pawn who stepped out of line and paid the price both personally,” he gestured to his deformed nose, “and politically.”

  Of course, no Velúndian present knew that Kayode’s year out in the Kingdom had given him an understanding of the Beastling tongue, and the knowledge that they were willing to sell their furs for even low quality ores, such as the kind that were found in great abundance beneath Belsa’s ground.

  It would have been an easy secret to figure out if the native lords bothered to talk to them rather than kill them. But as things were, it was Belsa that he would start from. A dying village on dying land, lost in the middle of nowhere.

  Kayode did not yet know exactly how he would do it—but he knew this much: whatever power he built there would be his. And once he had it, he would never surrender it.

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever fucking heard,” Femi spat.

  But his father saw the logic in it.

  The Duke was weighing Kayode’s words, which was good, but as he saw the man turn his suggestion in and out in his head, searching for loopholes and trickery that he might have missed, Kayode felt more and more unsure of his gamble. Well, he’d had barely a minute to come up with it—he could only hope it would hold up under scrutiny. Finally, the Duke delivered his verdict.

  “You’re right,” he decided.

  “What?!” Femi snapped. “You can’t actually be considering letting him go scott free! Giving the bastard a village too?!”

  The Elder ignored his son’s ramblings entirely. “In truth I believe your actions have put me in a better position than when I was stepping into this room.” he nodded. “You can have your village.”

  Kayode let out a long breath while the room grew louder with Femi’s incessant screeching.

  Kayode got to his feet. “I’m glad we could come to an understanding, Grand Duke Adegoke,” he bowed. And then he was making his way to the door. To freedom, to a world where he could decide what tomorrow held for him.

  “Did I ever tell you, that you remind me of myself when I was younger?” The Duke asked.

  Kayode turned and gave a polite smile. “No, thank you.” But the Duke wasn’t smiling back. There was just a coldness behind his eyes, one that threatened to swallow the whole room and left even his spoiled son silent.

  “Oh, I was a terribly smart lad… genius actually. And I remember being…so…so frustrated at seeing these inept, drooling, morons step over me simply because of power the world had just handed them. You feel it too, don’t you.”

  “The ancestors give to all what they deserve in this realm,” Kayode replied, feeling that there was no right answer. The Duke didn’t seem to even hear his response either way.

  “You see, one thing I knew about myself was that I wasn’t going to live my life shackled by these cow-eyed simpletons,” he noted, voice hollow. “You see, I don’t think you’re going to let yourself be shackled either,” the Duke added, with the tone of a man coming to some decision. “I don’t know how, but I can’t shake the feeling that a decade from now, this choice to grant you a sliver of domain, is going to come back to haunt me.”

  Kayode swallowed, feeling his fingers go numb and his heart burn. “I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, voice tight.

  “I think if I let you walk out that door, this is the weakest I’ll ever see you, my boy,” the Duke explained. “So I’m not going to ignore that feeling.”

  Okechukwu had marched into the Hall of Seals, crossed the Duke and walked right out. Kayode was not Okechukwu. He did not have the influence and respect amongst both the Grand Duke’s enemies and allies that the Marquis did—making it political suiscide to harm him at a meeting. Kayode had only one Great House Leader who could shield him. And that was the one staring at him with eyes like winter.

  No. There was still a way out of this. He just had to think. “Your Grace—” Kayode’s words never came.

  The Duke flicked his fingers, and thin blue shards—brimming with condensed energy—shot across the room. They struck Kayode’s chest, thigh, knee, and neck, driving him off his feet and into the floor.

  The world was pain, hot, red, bitter and all consuming pain. He tried to speak but he was gurgling—choking on his own blood.

  The Duke appeared above him, looking almost hurt, like a man tasked with putting down his favorite pet. “It does pain me to do this—and not just because I’ll have to find a distant cousin or a bastard to vote in your place. But nipping problems in the bud long before they can fester into more was what got me here.”

  And then the man was gone. Kayode heard two sets of footsteps retreating—the father and the son.

  “You should have known your place, Blight Lord,” Femi snarled.

  And then the door was shut, and Kayode was alone. Alone and bleeding.

  ‘Should have known your place’. His entire life was him knowing his place. That he was beneath them, lesser, weaker, worse. And the moment there was even a hint that he could be more than they let him be, they couldn’t even let him live.

  How could he have expected different. How could I have been so fucking stupid. He wanted to scream, he wanted to thrash around, he wanted to let the whole world hear his agony. But all he could do was die.

  First with his limbs slackening, his heart slowing, then the world steadily beginning to fade into darkness.

  And then something shone in the corner of his vision—pale and golden.

  [Conditions Met.]

  [Class Activation Successful.]

  [You are now The Kingdom Maker. (S+)]

  [Increasing Invisible Stats.]

  [Synchronizing Affinities.]

  [—Level 1—]

  [—Skill(s) Acquired—]

  [Class Skill ? Loopforged — I — Passive: Your life is no longer linear. You are bound to one hundred lives. Each death returns you to the Point of Origin. What you carry forward is yours to decide.]

  What?

  The question never found an answer.

  The world went dark an instant later.

  And Kayode appeared, not in the ancestral realm—but in front of a mirror. Where he’d begun the day.

  And something flashed before his eyes.

  [Loopforged: ‘You have 99 Loops remaining.’]