Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Chapter 55: The Price of Power (3)

The Price of Power 

3

Princess Eydis plucked a lavender sprig and twirled it between her fingers. “Just wondering,” she said, “do you think Her Majesty has a personal grudge against anything remotely beautiful?”

Well, except for her face, obviously. The Queen of Shadows practically invented vanity mirrors.

Eydis scanned the so-called Royal Garden. Mostly broccoli and kale, with a few tired potato vines trying their best to be interesting. The bright, fragrant gardens she’d read about in old texts felt more like stories than something that ever existed.

Mary, her handmaiden, shifted awkwardly beside her. “Her Majesty does seem to like lavender, Your Highness.”

“Medicinal,” Eydis muttered. “Probably the only reason it hasn’t been burned with the rest.”

Mary fidgeted again. If lying were an art, the old woman would never make it past stick figures. That was why Eydis liked ab—kept her around, obviously.

“You keep twitching like you’ve got something to say. Try using words,” the Princess said.

Mary froze, her gaze dropping to her boots. “N-nothing, Your Highness.”

“Mary, did Archmage Swan really leave his position of his own free will?” Eydis absentmindedly caressed the lavender. “Or has Her Majesty started retiring people without telling me?”

Mary stiffened. “He said he wanted to travel. I’m sure you remember.”

“I don’t,” Eydis replied. “Odd, isn’t it? That he’d share his big plans with you, but not with me. I was his protégé.”

“Her M-Majesty mentioned it herself.”

“Of course she did.” Eydis smiled. “Decrees by proxy. Very efficient.”

She crushed the lavender between her palms. Violet light flickered from the petals, gathering into a glowing spiral.

“Take me to her.”

From within the portal, a voice as lazy as it was sinister purred, “As you wish, Your Highness.”

Eydis stepped through without a backward glance. The gentle scent of lavender vanished. In its place: damp stone, old blood, something acrid and sharp. The air felt too thin. Screams echoed faintly.

Her jaw clenched as the smell of charred flesh clawed hit her nose. The sight before her would have driven lesser souls into retreat. But Eydis wasn’t like most people.

Still, this—this was worse than anything she had imagined.

Her mother stood like a statue ahead, her dark eyes unblinking as they bore into the thrashing figure behind the containment barrier. 

The man was both known and unknown. 

Archmage Gidion Swan. 

His robes were in shreds, revealing pallid flesh stretched thin over bulging veins. His eyes were wide, glassy, locked in an expression that hovered somewhere between pain and resignation.

She almost looked away. 

“Don’t blink. Watch,” The Queen said. “This is the price of Greed.”

“You did this to him,” Eydis growled. “Your Majesty.”

“He did this to himself.”

Eydis’s golden eyes flashed as she dropped to her knees, pressing her palms flat against the cold stone. A pulse of magic lit beneath her hands, lines of a sigil beginning to form.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mother’s obsidian eyes remained dark.

“Binding Raven,” Eydis snarled, completing the sigil.

The Queen’s arm swept out, and an invisible force slammed into Eydis. She staggered but caught herself, her face remaining neutral even as she tasted blood in her mouth.

“Raven?” The Queen’s voice cracked like thunder. Her eyes glinted with something more complicated than rage, something Eydis no longer bothered to read. “Foolish child! You’ve claimed Envy, Gluttony, Sloth… and now Greed? Is this fixation, or are you just picking over the bones, like the carrion bird you’ve become?”

 Eydis spat blood onto the floor. “A carrion bird? You always did enjoy your veiled insults.”

The Queen’s gaze darkened. “Hubris, thy name is Eydis.”

“Coming from the Queen of Hubris herself? Spare me.” Eydis’s hands slammed back down onto the sigil, willing it to glow brighter. “Or are you volunteering to join this child’s collection? You know, the same child whose debutante ball you so thoughtfully skipped, Mother.”

The Queen didn’t reply. Her hand rose, gathering energy.

The next blast missed by inches. Eydis twisted aside, the strike searing past her cheek. 

She countered, summoning swirling voids shaped by Sloth. They moved as if indifferent to the conflict, but when they reached the edges of Pride’s attack, they devoured it without a sound.

“How creative, Eydis,” the Queen said, her lips curling upward. “You think you’re saving him? Think again. Gidion bound his soul to Greed. That is why he lives.”

Her voice dropped. “And that is why he cannot.”

Eydis froze, the words sinking in slowly. “Bound his soul? But… he’s already its Bearer.”

“And now, he is their slave,” the Queen said with a sadistic gleam in her eyes.

Eydis would have refuted, challenged, as she often did; but only when the matter had no definitive answer. Yet this was no less true than mankind’s need for air. A Sin Bearer could survive if their own Sin were taken by a stronger Bearer. But a soul already bound… could not.

Worse still, it became a conduit, a seedling, a host for some unholy entity biding its time. A lesser mage, or even an ordinary human, might produce a weaker echo of the original.

But an Archmage…

That would create another Greed.

She kept her eyes on him, even when her stomach threatened to turn. Watching was the least she could do. 

And the only thing she could still control.

The spasms wracked his body in irregular waves. It didn’t seem like something was fighting to get out, more like it’d already won.

There was no reversing it now.

She didn’t realise she’d moved until her hand brushed the glowing barrier. It flickered once, then broke apart into mist.

The Queen’s eyes narrowed in surprise, but Eydis ignored her.

She stepped forward, knelt beside him and searched for something familiar: a spark of the man who had once stood at her side in the Forbidden Library, who had debated theory with her until dawn, who had once called her his most challenging student.

But there was nothing left of him.

Hypocrite. 

“Why?” She couldn’t control the tremble in her voice. Weakness was not something she was permitted to show; Her Majesty had made that plain long ago. But right now, she couldn’t restrain whatever threatened to spill.

“Why give yourself to it? Why betray everything you fought for?”

Betrayed me. But the words clung to the glass.

His eyes fluttered open, almost sluggishly. They wandered around the dungeon, then locked onto hers. In them, there was no fight left, just the silence of someone who’d already let go.

Eydis couldn’t move.

“Why?” The Queen stepped closer. “Because surrender is easy. Your mentor chose the coward’s path.”

Eydis didn’t look away from Gidion. “Tell me the truth. What could possibly be worth giving up everything you dreamed of? Everything we dreamed of?”

His head shifted slightly. “Dreams?” he repeated weakly. "My… dreams?"

“Our dreams. You never called them hubris. You called them purpose. Do you… remember?”

But his next words shattered the hope she’d tried to hold onto.

“There are things… more precious than any dream."

“More precious than…" Her voice trailed off as she finally connected the dots.

Maybe the answer was not something intangible, but a living person. How could she have missed it? Gidion always ducked away whenever talk turned personal, and a quiet light warmed his eyes when he thought no one was looking. She never pressed; it felt intrusive, and perhaps she simply hadn’t cared enough.

But he’d never been chasing the same future she had.

“The sun,” she murmured, not even sure why she said it.

“The sun.” Gidion’s lips curved slightly as he heard her. “The stars. The rain… on my daughter’s face.”

Eydis blinked.

“For her,” he continued, and this time his voice was stronger. “I would give up everything. My dream. My soul. Whatever it takes.”

“Your... daughter?" The glow in the binding circle faded as her focus slipped.

“It’s plain, isn’t it?” the Queen observed, a shade too pleased. “Mortals gild selfishness and name it sacrifice. Swan’s end was sealed the instant Greed took hold.”

Eydis bit her lips. 

Binding Greed would finish what had begun; whatever remained of Gidion would vanish with his soul. A fate harsher than death.

Yet letting him stand would not save him. Greed would keep feeding, keep spreading, until nothing remained.

Mythshollow waited next in line.

Gidion nodded softly, his lips trembling, eyes dulling before falling shut. It was acceptance, a silent request for her to decide.

Decide. Do what must be done.

Eydis closed her eyes. She had failed.

She liked to believe she differed from the shadowed queens who walked before her. Pride, nothing more: thin pride that hid behind good intentions and pretended to be noble. In the end she was another mirror of her mother.

Perhaps Mother had been right all along.

Hubris, thy name is Eydis.

This had been Mother’s plan all along. Let Gidion live. Make her watch him break. Make her choose.

It had never been mercy. 

“So,” came the Queen’s voice from behind her. “What will you do now, my gifted daughter?”

“I understand now, Your Majesty,” Eydis said quietly. “Your lesson.”

She turned, gold eyes meeting obsidian. “From the strongest Sin?bearer to the one fated to surpass her.”

“You think clearly, even through pain. Though, it’s wasted on a man who lied to your face,” the Queen said, more curious than cruel. “But tell me, darling, do you have the strength to act? Or must I decide for you, too?”

Eydis rose to her heels. The tears and grief stayed locked inside. And deep down, she already knew that whichever path she walked…

The ending would be the same. 

The cost would be the same.

Everything.

Choice? There was no choice left.

Eydis took a breath and opened her eyes. The gold within them blazed.