Chapter 760: New Meta

Raziel didn’t reply immediately. His display showed the moment when Kaiden had shifted from Pride to Gluttony mid-descent and landed on the creature’s back for the second time, the siphoning field already active before his feet made contact. Smooth. Practiced. A stance transition that shouldn’t be possible for a fighter at his level.

"The team coordination is top tier. The spatial user launched the Storm Valkyrie at terminal velocity for the kill shot. Kaiden and the demoness stayed on the creature’s back through impacts that should’ve dislodged them. The ranged trio never stopped firing, even while the melee fighters were on target."

"They trust each other deeply, more than most teams who’ve been fighting together for a whole decade," Evangeline said lightly.

"They trust him," Raziel corrected. "The coordination flows from one person. Every rotation, every disengage. He decides on a call and they fill the gaps. That kind of coordination takes more than just time."

Evangeline grinned. It was a very pretty smile that meant absolutely nothing warm. "I suppose sleeping with your entire team does have certain tactical advantages. I wonder if people will try to copy that from him as well. Maybe it’ll be the new meta."

"..."

She winked. "You can try it if you want, by the way. I just fear you’ll only have success with the men."

Raziel let the remark pass. His sister’s provocations were as constant as gravity and worth about as much to acknowledge.

He closed the replay and stared at the cavern below. The real concern wasn’t Kaiden. The kid was talented, anomalous, certainly dangerous at full maturity. But he was one fighter. Fighters could be matched, outmaneuvered, or simply waited out.

Vespera Ashborn could not.

"She gave him everything," Raziel said. "Personnel, infrastructure, financial backing, intelligence networks. The entire institutional apparatus she spent a decade building inside New Dawn, extracted overnight and rebuilt under a new banner."

"With herself as Regent." Evangeline’s smile faded. "Meaning she retains operational control while giving him the title. He’s the face. She’s the hand."

"For now."

"For now," she agreed.

The implications didn’t need to be spoken aloud. The Radiant Order had spent years navigating a three-guild balance of power with Crimson Dominion and New Dawn. That balance had depended, in part, on New Dawn’s internal tensions. At times, Vespera’s coldness and Magnus’s limitless ambition had pulled the guild in two directions, limiting its reach. That limitation was gone now. Vespera, unshackled, with a guild built entirely around her own design, with a son whose public profile was growing at a rate that made sponsorship analysts lose sleep.

Eclipse was New Dawn without the dead weight.

"We watch," Raziel said.

Evangeline tilted her head. "Just watch?"

"For now."

She looked at him, and for a moment, the playfulness left her entirely. "You said that about the Ashborn boy two months ago."

Raziel met her gaze. "And I was right. Watching was the correct call then. It remains the correct call now."

"Until it isn’t."

He turned back to the cavern. Below them, a medic was wrapping a gash on a young paladin’s arm. The paladin winced but didn’t cry out. Good discipline. The Radiant Order trained them well.

"Until it isn’t," he agreed.

Evangeline let her interface flicker closed. She stretched her arms above her head, armor shifting with the movement, and yawned.

"The demoness is really pretty," she said casually. Her eyes sparkled with sadism. "I wonder how they’d react if I smote her down."

Raziel didn’t respond.

...

Scarlet the Flame Monarch’s penthouse had floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city skyline, and she was ignoring every inch of it.

She padded out of the bathroom in a robe, hair still dripping, the hot water having done its job on the bruise running from her shoulder to her elbow, a souvenir from saving her mercenary contractor’s team from a Dreadmaw Pack. She’d burned them clean in under two seconds, but the big one had gotten a swipe in before it died.

Occupational hazard.

Her assistant was waiting in the living room. Tablet in hand, posture straight, the look of a woman who had not slept and had made peace with that fact several hours ago.

"Welcome back," she said.

"Mm." Scarlet took the wine glass that had been pre-poured on the counter and drank before she’d even sat down. "Anything happen while I was gone?"

Her assistant didn’t answer. She just held out the tablet.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow, took it, and looked at the screen.

The article was from a mainstream outlet, a lifestyle piece that had clearly been written by someone who understood how to sell stories. The headline read: The Ashborn Prince and His Shadow Queen: Inside Eclipse’s Royal Family.

Beneath it was a photograph.

Scarlet’s eyes widened.

In the image, Vespera Ashborn was leaning back against her son. Kaiden’s arms were around her from behind, his chin resting on her head, and Vespera’s expression was...

Scarlet brought the tablet closer to her face, her eyes narrowing into scrutinizing slits.

"This can’t be... Did they photoshop this?"

"No," the assistant said simply.

"..." Scarlet didn’t know what to say, because the friend she knew as an ice-cold murder machine was...

Content. The Shadow Monarch looked content. She was resting against her son with her lids half-closed, and the faintest trace of warmth lived in the lines of her face.

Scarlet had known Vespera for years. Fought beside her, fought near her, existed in the same rooms during summits where the temperature dropped the moment Vespera entered. She had seen her dismiss threats with a glance and dismantle egos with silence.

She had never seen her look like this.

A giggle escaped the Flame Monarch’s lips.

"Even that woman can look like a happy mother," Scarlet said, still staring at the photo. She shook her head, the grin refusing to leave. "What a world we live in."

She leaned back into the couch, wine in one hand, tablet propped against her knee. Vespera’s half-closed eyes stared back at her from the screen, warm and unguarded in a way that the real Vespera would’ve killed someone for capturing.

Scarlet drank. Slowly. Savoring it.

"I’m turning jealous," she murmured.

Her assistant said nothing.

"Should I have a child too?" Scarlet asked, still looking at the photo.

Her assistant regarded the Flame Monarch with the measured expression of someone who had spent years choosing her words carefully around a woman who could incinerate a city block.

"If you spend as little time on your children as Vespera had - which you absolutely would... workaholic..."

"Did you say something?"

"No and please stop interrupting me."

"..."

"As I was saying, if you spend as little time on your child as Vespera had, chances are they’ll end up a lot more like Selena, Calix, and Cassian than Kaiden or Alice."

Scarlet’s face soured instantly. The grin vanished, the wine glass paused mid-sip, and a visible shudder of distaste ran through her shoulders.

"Ugh." She grimaced. "No thanks."

Her assistant said nothing more. Point made.

Scarlet looked at the tablet again, and this time, her eyes focused on the boy.

Young. Younger than he had any right to be, given the noise he was making. But his look was his mother’s and the way he held the most terrifying person on the continent looked far too comfortable.

The Flame Monarch smiled.

"The golden child, huh..."

She drank again.