The parchment passed from Ezekiel's hand into the Speaker's with a rustle that seemed deafening in the absolute silence of the chamber.
Matthian watched, unmoving, as the Speaker hesitated, just a heartbeat too long, before unsealing the ancient document. His fingers trembled slightly, though he fought to conceal it. The weight of a hundred eyes pressed down on him, yet none burned fiercer than the boy's steady gaze.
The Speaker cleared his throat.
"This document," he announced, voice thin against the brittle air, "is an endorsement… from Sheol Veylor."
A ripple tore through the council.
Not a noise, an instinct. A crackle of terror passed from one lord to the next, faster than thought. Breath caught. Chairs scraped backward against marble. A half-dozen goblets tilted, forgotten in trembling hands.
Matthian felt it settle deep in his bones, a fracture in the natural order, sharp and irrevocable. Even the oldest lords, the ones who had outlived three wars and buried rivals without shedding a tear, blanched at the name that had been spoken.
Sheol Veylor.
The name meant little to the common folk. No songs were sung of him. No tales whispered at winter hearths. His legend existed only in silence, in the missing pages of history, in the places even scholars feared to tread.
But here, among the lords of Tradespire, there was no ignorance.
Every man and woman in the hall knew exactly what that name meant.
The sovereign who reigned not over the living, but over what came after.
Rumored to be the father of all Death Mages, the great teacher, the keeper of all knowledge, the single most ancient being on the entire continent, his existence preceding the birth of any developed country of the current time.
He was the Exarch of Death.
The Speaker's hands were white around the brittle parchment, his voice thinning under the weight of the words.
"The endorsement states that Ezekiel of Tradespire is recognized under the sovereign authority of Sheol Veylor, ruler of the Deadlands. That is all."
For a moment, the hall became a tomb.
No breath. No movement. Only the slow, creaking protest of ancient beams high above, as if even the building itself was reluctant to bear witness.
And then, as always, it was Lord Fies who broke the silence.
He rose to his feet with theatrical disdain, a smirk curling his lips. His slow clap echoed across the chamber, a hollow mockery of an ovation.
"Bravo," he sneered, voice loud in the paralyzed hall. "Dwarves, elves, beasts—and now the very King of the Dead. Tell me, honored Lords, should we expect the fairy courts next? Perhaps the stars themselves will descend to kiss his feet?"
A few strained chuckles scattered through the Imperial loyalists' ranks, brittle and thin.
Fies wasn't finished.
"And I ask you," he pressed on, voice dripping contempt, "does anyone truly believe this... relic... was penned by Sheol Veylor himself? Or are we all so bewitched we dare not call this madness what it is?"
Matthian didn't hear the end of it.
He felt it instead.
The wrongness.
It came without fanfare. Without force.
One moment, the air was tense, heavy with insult.
The next, it was hollow.
Lord Fies blinked once. His lips twitched, whether for another barb or from something deeper, Matthian never knew.
Then he swayed.
A slow, almost gentle movement.
And collapsed.
No cry. No convulsion. No violence.
Just the soft, unceremonious thud of a man who had simply… stopped.
Limp. Still.
Dead.
A strangled gasp came from one of the aides near the back. Another Lord half-rose from his chair, only to freeze mid-motion and slowly sink back down, as if sudden movement might invite the same fate. His face had gone bloodless.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The vast chamber, so often filled with the thundering echoes of argument and laughter, now felt like a tomb—Silent, oppressive, final.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Even the Speaker stood frozen, the ancient parchment clutched tight against his chest like a desperate talisman against the unseen force that had just claimed a life.
Matthian's gaze swept the room.
The lords sat rooted to their seats, some staring at Fies' crumpled form, others avoiding it altogether. Fear hung heavy, clinging to every breath.
And yet, not everyone was paralyzed.
Ezekiel stood as he always had: composed, detached, untouched by the storm he had unleashed. There was no triumph in his eyes, no fear, not even satisfaction. It was as if the death of Lord Fies was no more significant to him than a shift in the wind.
Matthian's stomach twisted.
A Merchant Lord dying outside of old age was an event that would echo through the annals of Tradespire for a generation. They were not warriors. They did not duel or charge into battlefields. They negotiated. They endured. They built legacies that lasted centuries. Death came for them slowly, as it did for kings and architects.
Not like this.
Never like this.
And yet here they were, bearing witness to something that no amount of gold, law, or influence could stop.
Then, from the dais above, a voice cut through the paralysis.
"The proof is accepted."
Matthian turned his eyes upward.
King Midas stood over them all, his presence like a weight pressing down on the hall. His voice had not risen. He had not barked the words.
He hadn't needed to.
It was a decree, as absolute and immovable as the bedrock beneath their feet.
Without another word, the King turned his head slightly toward the Messenger at his side—a gesture so small it might have been missed entirely. The Messenger nodded once in return.
And then they were gone.
No sound. No flash of light. No ripple of displaced air.
One heartbeat, they were there; the next, the high seat stood empty, as if the King and his attendants had been nothing more than phantoms passing through a dream. No footprints. No farewell.
Just an absence that seemed to bleed into the walls.
For a long moment, no one moved. The lords sat frozen, like statues carved from fear.
Slowly, with the stiffness of a man forcing himself through a nightmare, the Speaker turned back to the council.
He lifted the parchment once more, his voice regaining a shred of its ritual weight.
"Ezekiel of Tradespire," he declared, the words carrying the force of law itself, "having satisfied all three requirements of the charter, is hereby recognized as a Merchant Lord of Tradespire."
The proclamation echoed through the cavernous hall, filling every corner.
But no one cheered.
No one protested.
No one even breathed too loudly.
The Speaker continued, reciting the formal record from memory:
"As a Merchant Lord, you are entitled to all rights and privileges afforded by the Council. These include: unrestricted, priority access to the teleportation network for all members of your House; the right to maintain residence within the Second Circle; the right to attend, speak, and vote at all sessions of the Council; and the right, if you so choose, to claim a formal House name under the laws of Tradespire."
The words rolled forth, ancient and binding.
And through it all, Ezekiel stood as he had from the beginning—still, patient, utterly unmoved.
Not victorious.
Not triumphant.
Simply inevitable.
It struck Matthian then, not as a passing thought, but as a certainty carved into bone. The outcome, the chaos, the death—none of it had rattled the boy. Not once. It was as if everything that had left seasoned lords pale and trembling had already been accounted for, weighed and dismissed as irrelevant.
For the first time in a long while, Matthian felt like a piece on someone else's board.
The realization was as bitter as it was terrifying.
For a merchant, knowledge was armor. Preparation was power. To be blindsided so thoroughly, to sit helplessly as events unraveled without even understanding the shape of the hand guiding them, was a humiliation he would not soon forget. Nor would he make the mistake of underestimating the boy again.
Slowly, his gaze found Ezekiel once more.
Crimson hair, eyes of molten gold, a stance unbowed by the crushing weight of an entire council's judgment.
A shiver ran down Matthian's spine.
What a monster.
He had met only a handful like this before. Individuals so far removed from ordinary ambition, so utterly alien in their depth, that it made one question whether they were made of the same flesh and blood as everyone else.
Aurelia Thorsten.
Nova Fortuna.
Augustus Geistreich.
Giants of their age. Names that shaped empires, crushed dynasties, bent history itself.
And now, a boy who had barely set foot on the first stones of that path.
But Matthian knew, with a certainty he rarely permitted himself:
If Ezekiel lived long enough, his name would be carved alongside theirs.
For better—
or for far, far worse. The reference version of this on M*V*LEMPYR.
Then, for the first time in a long while, the boy moved.
Slowly, deliberately, Ezekiel lifted his gaze, not toward any living soul, but toward the high seat where King Midas had sat only moments before. His eyes locked onto the empty space, studying not what remained, but the absence itself.
Matthian watched, unsettled.
There was a weight to that look. A private conversation held in silence. As if the boy were turning over some riddle too vast, too complicated, for anyone else to grasp.
Then, Ezekiel smiled.
It was not the smile of a victor.
Nor was it triumphant or cruel.
It was faint, almost invisible, an expression tinged with strange, self-mocking amusement. A crack in the perfect facade he had worn so flawlessly throughout the hearing.
It caught Matthian off guard.
For the briefest heartbeat, the boy looked startlingly human.
And then it was gone.
The mask descended once more, smooth and impenetrable, as if the moment had never existed.
Ezekiel turned his attention back to the Speaker, his voice calm, almost courteous.
"Is my appointment valid as of this moment?"
The Speaker, still pale, straightened and gave a shallow nod. "It is."
Ezekiel dipped his head slightly in acknowledgment.
"Then," he said, his words carrying through the stunned chamber, "as the council is still in session, I would like to exercise my rights and make my first official act as a member."
The Speaker blinked, his brow furrowing. "…What act would that be?"
"The right to establish my own House is afforded to me as a titled Lord, is it not?" he asked, voice steady.
The Speaker, grasping for the comfort of familiar law, nodded quickly. Relief flickered across his features like a drowning man who had found a scrap of driftwood. "It is," he confirmed. "You are entitled to petition for a House name, provided it passes the verification of the Knowledge Keeper and—"
"No need for all of that," Ezekiel interrupted, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I already know exactly which name to claim."
Matthian felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.
That smile was a warning.
Subtle, polite, almost charming, but it set every instinct he had screaming. Chaos was coming. He could feel it gathering behind the boy's words, as inevitable as the tide.
The boy stepped forward, squaring his shoulders, and when he spoke again, it was not the voice of a youth making a polite request. It was a declaration, solemn, thunderous in its simplicity, spoken with the weight of a man carving his name into history.
"I declare my House to bear the name von Hohenheim," he said, each word striking the chamber like a hammer blow. "From this day forth, I shall be known as Ezekiel von Hohenheim."
The air itself seemed to flinch.
Matthian's chest tightened.
Of all the names, of all the specters from the past, he could have summoned, he had chosen that one.
And with it, the true storm began.