Keiser thought he should probably address the wrong name first. His lips parted to correct the boy—but before he could form the words, the world tilted. Off-balance. Like the ground itself had shifted beneath him.
Because the name uttered wasn't just wrong. It was familiar.
He turned sharply back toward the boy, his voice low and cold.
"What did you just call me?"
That stopped the boy's teasing. The smirk vanished, replaced by panic—his pale face drained of color, eyes wide with something dangerously close to fear.
"I—I mean… Your Highness Muzio," the boy stammered, staring at the ground, straightening his posture even though Keiser still had a firm grip on his shoulder.
Keiser's hand trembled as he slowly let go, stepping back like he'd touched something far worse than horse shit.
The name echoed in his skull—loud, relentless, shattering something deep inside.
Your Highness.
No.
Prince Muzio.
That wasn't him.
Without another word, Keiser turned and walked out of the stables. The sunlight slammed into him like a blow—too warm, too bright, too real. He shielded his eyes, his head spinning with confusion and disbelief.
The world felt… wrong. Off. Slanted.
His gaze darted across the barnyard, searching desperately for some tether to reality. Then he saw it, a shallow trough of stagnant water beside a broken cart.
Unsteady, he stumbled toward it and dropped to his knees, heart thundering in his chest. He stared into the water's murky surface.
And what stared back made him stop breathing.
It wasn't the face he knew.
Not the battle-worn knight. Not the man who bore the scars of war. Not the warrior who had died with his own sword buried in his chest.
The reflection was that of a boy—barely older than the one he'd just spoken with. A teenager, slight of build, with skin unmarked by blades or fire. His features were finer, his hair dark and unruly, his eyes—
Red.
Aurex red.
The King's unmistakable eye color.
Keiser—Muzio—jerked back from the trough, nearly falling into it.
It was his face. Or rather, Muzio's face—just as he remembered from scattered portraits and whispers in palace corridors.
The bastard prince.
The tenth son of King Aurex Valemont.
The boy who had vanished from court and was later presumed dead at eighteen. No funeral. No public mourning. Not even a passing decree. Just silence—like a ghost fading through stone halls, forgotten before the echoes stopped.
A prince without a mother in the harem.
A child without a title.
A mistake born of a fleeting night.
A whisper.
A shadow.
A memory.
And now, staring into the water, Keiser realized—
He hadn't just survived.
He had returned.
But not as the knight who nearly became king.
He had returned as the one who was never meant to live long enough to try.
And now… somehow…
He was wearing Muzio's face.
A prince of the kingdom.
But this body…
All the King's children had their factions. From the moment they could walk, they were courted by nobles, scholars, and strategists. Every prince and princess was a potential sovereign. Every step they took was calculated, observed, recorded.
Groomed like pawns to be kings.
But this boy… was nothing like that.
Pale. Lanky. Sickly. His limbs too thin, his frame too frail. Muzio had never stood a chance, not even as a symbol. He wasn't courted. He wasn't groomed. He wasn't even acknowledged.
A bastard son. Nameless in court documents. A ghost in every lineage chart.
And yet…
From what the stable boy had said, Muzio had been interested in the King's Gambit. Hopeful, even.
But how could that be?
Keiser had already lived it. Already bled for it. Already died for it.
And yet—
Here he was.
Still breathing.
Both of them—Keiser and Muzio.
Unless…
Keiser's gaze snapped to the other boy, who was still watching him with a confused frown.
"Your Highness?" he asked cautiously.
Even in filth, even after running from the palace, Keiser realized—Muzio still bore the unmistakable mark of royalty. Those red eyes. That posture.
He turned toward the boy again, eyes sharp.
"Who is the King?"
The teen blinked, baffled. "Uh… your father?"
Keiser's jaw clenched. His fists tightened until his nails bit into his palms, breaking skin—but the pain was distant, irrelevant.
That answer said everything.
The King's Gambit hadn't happened yet.
Gideon hadn't taken the crown. He hadn't played his final move.
He hadn't betrayed Keiser.
Not yet.
Which meant…
He could find him. Himself. If Keiser still exist in this return. Still a knight. Still marching toward that throne like a loyal pawn on a bloodstained board.
If he could reach him—warn him—then maybe…
Maybe he could stop it.
Because without Keiser, Gideon would never have won. The nobles never wanted the Fourth Prince. They'd backed the First Prince—cold and calculating—or the sixth princess, radiant and charming. Gideon was too quiet. Too distant. Too gray—his eyes not the eyes of an Aurex.
But Keiser? The knight born from nothing, forged by war, adored by soldiers and feared by court?
He was Gideon's blade. His strength. His shield.
And in the end—his sacrifice.
Keiser's hands trembled as he stared down again into the reflection.
Muzio's face stared back.
Too young. Too thin. Too soft.
It didn't belong to him—shouldn't belong to him.
But there it was. Unmistakable.
His.
None of this was right.
The crown had already been claimed. The King's Gambit had ended in fire, blood, and betrayal. And Keiser—once a mere knight risen beyond station—had become nothing more than a stepping stone. A tool Gideon sharpened, wielded, and discarded.
But now…
He was here.
Before it all happened.
Before the betrayals.
Before the crown.
Before his own death.
Back when things could still be changed.
And by all the gods above and demons below—he would change them.
He wouldn't just stop the Gambit.
He wouldn't just defy fate.
He would tear the it all down—brick by gilded brick—and make damn sure that rigged throne would never see another puppet crowned again.
Even trapped in this frail form—this overlooked, forgotten bastard prince—Keiser still had something.
A name.
A number.
A bloodline.
People who still knew him.
And a history no one else remembered.
He would use it all. Every secret Muzio once held, every truth Keiser carried from his former life.
Because this time, it wouldn't be Gideon who made the King.
He, Muzio—Keiser—would be his own Kingmaker.
And no one else.
Not the Fourth Prince.
Not the court.
Not the crown.
Only him.