Episode-773
Chapter : 1545
"I have been a target since I was born," Lloyd shrugged. "I'm used to it."
He stepped closer to her.
"You have a kingdom to rebuild, Majesty," Lloyd said. "You have traitors to weed out. You have an army to reform. And you have a war coming."
"I know," she whispered. "I am... overwhelmed."
"You need allies," Lloyd said. "You need people who know the enemy. Who aren't afraid of the dark."
He gestured to Ken and Jasmin.
"We aren't leaving," Lloyd said. "We are staying. Right here. Beside you."
Seraphina stared at him. Hope warred with confusion in her eyes.
"Why?" she asked. "You owe us nothing. We are... we are enemies, technically. Bethelham and Altamira."
"Technically," Lloyd smiled. "But I think we just rewrote the treaty."
He looked at the throne.
"Besides," Lloyd added, "I have a lot of free time. And I hate to leave a job half-finished."
Seraphina let out a laugh that was half-sob. She stepped forward and hugged him. It was un-royal. It was desperate. It was real.
"Thank you," she wept into his shoulder. "Thank you."
Lloyd patted her back awkwardly. He looked over her shoulder at Ken. Ken gave him a thumbs up.
"You're welcome," Lloyd said.
He gently pulled away.
"Now," Lloyd said, his voice turning brisk. "We have work to do. First, we need to secure this palace. Ken, do a sweep. Jasmin, get the children to the royal nursery and get them fed. Majesty... you need to sleep. You have a coronation to plan."
"And you?" she asked.
"Me?" Lloyd grinned. "I'm going to go find a carpenter. Someone has to fix this roof."
----
The sun rose over Saber, illuminating a city that had changed forever. The smoke from the Orchid House had dissipated, but the scars remained.
Lloyd stood on the balcony of the guest wing—the lavish suite Seraphina had insisted they take. He leaned against the railing, watching the sunrise. He was wearing his own clothes again, the velvet suit dusted off. No more robes. No more disguise.
He wasn't Doctor Zayn anymore. But he wasn't fully Lloyd Ferrum either. To the court, he was the "Foreign Lord." The Queen's Champion. A mystery.
Jasmin came out onto the balcony. She held two cups of coffee.
"Here," she said, handing him one.
"Thanks," Lloyd took it. "How is Risa?"
"Sleeping," Jasmin said. "In a real bed. With silk sheets. She thinks she's in heaven."
"She deserves it," Lloyd said.
The sun rose over the capital city of Saber, but it didn't look like any sunrise the city had seen in years. Usually, the morning light filtered through the smog of industry and the oppressive gloom of a police state. Today, the light seemed sharper, clearer, as if the very air had been scrubbed clean. The coup was over. The tyrant was in chains. But as Lloyd Ferrum knew all too well from two lifetimes of experience, winning the war was the easy part. Surviving the peace? That was where the real headache began.
Lloyd stood on a balcony overlooking the city squares. He wasn't wearing his doctor's robes anymore, nor was he wearing the flamboyant velvet suit of the ball. He was dressed in simple, practical clothes—a white shirt with sleeves rolled up, dark trousers, and boots that had seen too much mud in the last twenty-four hours. He held a mug of strong, bitter coffee that he had practically bribed a kitchen maid to find for him.
"You look like a man who is waiting for the other shoe to drop," a voice said behind him.
Lloyd didn't turn. He knew the voice. Queen Seraphina. She sounded different today. The tremor was gone. The hesitation was gone. Even her footsteps sounded heavier, more grounded.
"I am waiting for the paperwork, Your Majesty," Lloyd replied, taking a sip of the coffee. "Revolutions are romantic. Bureaucracy is a tragedy. You have a lot of empty desks to fill this morning."
Seraphina stepped up beside him. She wore a simple black dress, mourning for her father, but she wore the heavy gold signet ring on her thumb. It was too big for her, but she didn't seem to mind.
"The Obsidian Eye," she said, her voice cold and flat. "They are... dissolving."
"Dissolving?" Lloyd raised an eyebrow. "That sounds messy."
Chapter : 1546
"I signed the order an hour ago," she said. "General Kaelen is executing it now. Every officer above the rank of Lieutenant in the Obsidian Eye is being arrested. Their archives are being seized. Their safe houses are being raided. We are not just firing them, Doctor. We are rooting them out like weeds."
Lloyd nodded appreciatively. "Aggressive. I like it. But be careful. If you squeeze too hard, the rats bite. You need to give the lower ranks a way out. Offer amnesty to the foot soldiers if they turn in their officers. Otherwise, you'll be fighting an insurgency in your own sewers by Tuesday."
Seraphina looked at him. Her blue eyes were sharp. "Is that medical advice?"
"It is... sanity advice," Lloyd smiled. "A cornered dog bites. A dog with an open door runs away. Let the small dogs run. You only need the wolves."
"I will tell Kaelen," she said. She leaned against the railing, looking out at her city. "It feels... strange. To give orders and have people actually obey them. Yesterday, I was afraid to ask for tea. Today, I just ordered the dismantling of the most feared organization in the kingdom."
"Power is a habit," Lloyd said. "You'll get used to it. Just try not to enjoy it too much. That's how you end up with secret torture dungeons."
Seraphina flinched slightly. "The Orchid House."
"Yes," Lloyd said. "We need to talk about that."
"I already sent a regiment," Seraphina said, her voice hardening. "They have orders to secure the site. To arrest everyone. The scientists. The guards. The cooks. Anyone who worked there and didn't try to stop it."
"Good," Lloyd said. "But arrests aren't enough. You need to burn the records. Not the records of the victims—keep those. But the research. The formulas for the chimeras. The designs for the mana-collars. That knowledge is poison. If it exists, someone will try to sell it."
"I will burn it all," she vowed. "Every piece of paper. Every vial."
"And the facility itself?"
"I will have it leveled," she said. "I want the earth salted. I want trees to grow there again. I want people to forget that place ever existed."
"People won't forget," Lloyd said gently. "The children won't forget."
Seraphina turned to him. "The children. Risa. And the others."
"They are safe," Lloyd said. "For now. Jasmin has them in the royal nursery. They are eating pastries and probably terrorizing your nannies. But we need a long-term solution. They can't stay here."
"Why not?" Seraphina asked. "I can protect them. I can execute anyone who looks at them wrong."
"Because this is the place where they were monsters," Lloyd said. "Every time they look out a window, they will see the city that caged them. They need to leave, Seraphina. They need to go somewhere where the air doesn't taste like ash."
"You want to take them," she realized.
"I want to take them home," Lloyd corrected. "To Bethelham. To the North. The air is cleaner there. And the soap is better."
Seraphina laughed. It was a short, startled sound. "You and your soap."
"It is very good soap," Lloyd said defensively. "But seriously. We need to move them. And we need to do it legally. I can't smuggle them out in a crate. I've had enough of tunnels for one lifetime."
"Legally?" Seraphina frowned. "They are citizens of Altamira. Technically, they are subjects of the Crown. I can't just... give them away."
"You can if you reclassify them," Lloyd said, his eyes gleaming with a new plan. "Diplomacy is just lying with fancy stamps. We need to draft a treaty. A repatriation agreement."
"Repatriation?"
"Yes," Lloyd said. "We declare that these children are actually... let's say... refugees from a border conflict. Or long-lost relatives of Bethelham citizens. We create a paper trail that says they belong in the North. You sign it. I sign it as... well, I'll sign it as their guardian. And then they leave with a royal escort, not as fugitives, but as VIPs."
Seraphina stared at him. "You want me to lie to my own Ministry of Foreign Affairs?"
"I want you to use the bureaucracy to do something good for once," Lloyd said. "Think of it as your first act of creative statecraft."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then, a slow smile spread across her face.
"You are a dangerous man, Doctor," she said. "I am starting to think you are not a doctor at all. You think like a prime minister."