Episode-783
Chapter : 1565
"Yes," Lloyd said. "When you looked at those people in Saber, you saw shopkeepers and officials. But they looked at you and they saw the ghost of the man who whipped their grandfather. They saw the ghost of the woman who stole their baby. Hate isn't something you can just talk away, Jasmin. It's not a political disagreement. It's a survival instinct. To them, we are predators. And you don't make peace with a predator. You kill it before it eats you again."
Lloyd walked over to a large map pinned to the wall of the archive. It was faded, the ink turning brown with age, but the lines were still clear. It showed the political boundaries of the old world, a patchwork of territories that made no sense to modern eyes.
"Let's talk about the man who started the fire," Lloyd said, tapping a small, insignificant dot on the map. "Liam Bethelham. You see this? This little speck of land? That was the County of Bethelham."
Jasmin stood up and walked over to the map. She had to squint to see it. "It's tiny," she said. "It's mostly rocks and... is that a swamp?"
"A bog, actually," Lloyd corrected. "Very scenic if you like mud and mosquitoes. This was the powerhouse that challenged an Empire. It’s laughable, really. If you looked at the numbers—gold, soldiers, land—Liam should have been crushed before he even started. But Liam had something the Emperors didn't have."
"Magic?" Jasmin guessed.
"Perspective," Lloyd said. "Liam was a visionary. That word gets thrown around a lot these days. Usually, it just means someone who has a lot of money and wants to build a big statue. But Liam... he actually saw the world differently. He looked at the Empire of Babylon—this massive, unbeatable machine—and he didn't see strength. He saw fragility."
Lloyd traced the borders of the four great nations. "He saw that the Empire was held together by fear and greed. And fear is a brittle mortar. It cracks. Greed is a hungry beast; it eventually eats itself. Liam realized that the Four Families spent so much energy watching each other for betrayal that they had stopped watching the people. They had stopped watching the foundation."
"So he started a rebellion?"
"Not immediately," Lloyd said. "He was smart. He was a scholar before he was a soldier. He started by traveling. He went to Tiamat. He went to the mines. He went to the ports. He didn't give speeches. He listened. He sat in taverns and listened to the merchants complaining about taxes. He sat in fields and listened to farmers complaining about the quotas. He gathered the anger. He collected it, drop by drop, until he had a bucket full of rage."
"And then?"
"Then he built a network," Lloyd said. "He knew he couldn't fight the armies of the Empire with peasants and pitchforks. He needed knights. He needed soldiers. So he looked for the disillusioned. The second sons who would never inherit. The knights who had seen one too many massacres and couldn't sleep at night. The minor lords who were being squeezed by the Great Houses. He found them, one by one, and he offered them something dangerous."
"Gold?"
"Hope," Lloyd said. "He offered them a different kind of world. A world where the law mattered more than the bloodline. A world where a man could keep the fruit of his labor. It sounds simple to us, Jasmin, because we live in that world. But back then? It was a radical, insane idea. It was heresy."
Lloyd smiled, a genuine expression of admiration. "Liam was charismatic. They say he could talk a starving dog out of a bone. He gathered this ragtag army of dreamers and outcasts in his swamp. They called themselves the 'Sons of Dawn.' It was romantic. It was noble. And it was completely doomed."
"Doomed?" Jasmin asked, frowning.
"Mathematically doomed," Lloyd said. "Liam had maybe two thousand men. The Empire could field a hundred thousand. If he marched out of his swamp, he would be annihilated. He knew it. His generals knew it. But he also knew that the Empire had a fatal flaw. The rotation of power."
Chapter : 1566
Lloyd walked back to the table and sat on the edge of it. "It was the ninth year of the Ferrum rule. The Ferrum Emperor was old and paranoid. The Austin family was preparing to take over the next year. The transition of power was always the most dangerous time for the Empire. The families were maneuvering, hoarding resources, spying on each other. They were distracted. Liam knew that if he struck right at the moment of transition, he might—just might—cause enough chaos to survive."
"But surviving isn't winning," Jasmin pointed out.
"Smart girl," Lloyd said. "Exactly. Liam didn't want to survive. He wanted to win. He wanted to burn the system down. And to do that, he needed a weapon that the Empire couldn't defend against. He needed a traitor. He needed someone on the inside who could open the gates."
"Imagine the scene," Lloyd said, setting the stage. "A hunting lodge deep in the Whisperwood forests. It's neutral ground, technically, but in reality, it's a place where nobles go to do things they don't want their wives or their spies to know about. It's winter. Snow on the ground. Cold enough to freeze your breath."
Jasmin nodded, picturing it.
"Liam Bethelham sits at a table. He's alone. No guards. That was the condition. If he brought guards, the deal was off. He's risking everything. If the man he's meeting decides to kill him, the rebellion ends right there. Liam is just a minor count with a head full of dangerous ideas."
"And then the door opens," Lloyd continued. "And in walks Malachi Ferrum."
"Your grandfather," Jasmin said.
"My grandfather," Lloyd affirmed. "But not the old man I remember. This was Malachi in his prime. He was twenty-five years old. He was a giant of a man. They say he could bend a horseshoe with one hand. He was the Crown Prince of Ferrum, the heir to the most powerful military machine on the continent. He walked in, shaking the snow off a cloak made of black bear fur. And he was also alone."
Lloyd leaned forward. "Think about the risk Malachi was taking. If his father, the Emperor, found out he was meeting with a rebel leader? Malachi would be executed. Flayed alive. The Ferrums didn't tolerate treason, not even from their own blood."
"Why did he go?" Jasmin asked. "Why risk everything?"
"Because he was tired," Lloyd said. "He was tired of the blood. Malachi was a warrior, yes. He loved battle. But he hated slaughter. There's a difference. His father... his father was a butcher. The Emperor believed that terror was the only way to rule. Malachi had spent his youth leading 'pacification' campaigns in Tiamat. He had burned villages. He had killed farmers. And it ate at him. He looked at his father, at the corruption, at the endless cycle of cruelty, and he realized that it wasn't going to change. Not unless he changed it."
Lloyd held up two fingers. "There was another reason. His son. My father, Roy. Roy was just a boy then, maybe five years old. Malachi looked at his son and realized that if the Empire continued, Roy would grow up to be just another monster. He would be raised in blood and terror. Malachi wanted to break the cycle for his son. He wanted Roy to grow up in a world where he could be a man, not just a weapon."
"So they talked?"
"They talked all night," Lloyd said. "They drank bad wine and they argued. Liam talked about justice and law. Malachi talked about strength and order. They didn't agree on everything. Liam was an idealist; Malachi was a pragmatist. But they agreed on the one thing that mattered: The United Front had to die."
"And the pact?" Jasmin asked.
"The Pact of Blood," Lloyd said solemnly. "They cut their palms and shook hands. A bit dramatic, but effective. The deal was simple. Liam would launch his rebellion in the spring. He would attack the Austin and Garcia borders. He would make a lot of noise. He would draw the Empire's attention. He would be the bait."
"Bait?" Jasmin looked worried.
"He had to be," Lloyd said. "The Empire would send its legions south to crush him. And when the Ferrum armies marched out of the north... instead of joining the Austins and Garcias to crush Liam, Malachi would turn them around."