The Weak Prince Is A Cultivation God

Lanard's footsteps echoed across polished stone as he was led through the heart of the Imperial Palace.

The guards said nothing.

Neither did Captain Elyria, who walked just behind him, her silver armor catching the low lantern light. Cassian trailed at a casual pace as always, hands clasped behind his back, as if this were all a leisurely stroll.

Lan's expression remained composed, but his mind catalogued every turn, every corridor—mapping what could be his prison, should it ever need to be escaped.

Then, the procession halted.

A vast set of double doors stood before him. It wasn't gold or even jade. It was made from material darker—an almost black wood veined with violet, on it was carved delicate script in a language Lan couldn't read.

He could feel something behind them. Age. Silence. Weight.

The doors parted inward with a low, resonant groan.

And he stepped into wonder.

The chamber was large, impossibly so.

A library, yes, but one built for gods or giants at the least. Shelves rose into darkness, vanishing into a ceiling that did not exist.

They spiraled upward in stacked tiers, bridges of enchanted glass connecting one level to the next. Books filled every inch—some bound in leather, others in metals that left traces of light, some wrapped in chains, humming softly as if alive.

The air reeked of dust, magic, and memory.

Lan's breath caught for a moment. He had seen ruins, temples, halls of worship, but nothing quite like this.

The silence shattered.

"Prince. You honor me with your attendance."

The voice cut through the awe—sharp, familiar, inescapable.

Lan turned.

She sat in the center of the library on a low stool beside an ancient lectern, legs crossed, posture relaxed but impossibly deliberate.

Princess Iris Solaris—first of her name, heir of the storm-crowned court.

This time, there was no armor.

She wore a flowing indigo gown, light and subtle in its elegance, clinging where it needed to and drifting where it didn't.

It caught the light as she shifted, and it flowed like ink across her frame. Her long, raven-black hair was tied into a coiled knot atop her head, a silver pin locking it in place. The only jewelry she wore was a single ring on her right thumb, carved with a sigil Lan did not recognize.

But her eyes hadn't changed.

Storm blue. Predatory.

A falcon's gaze, not a dove's. She watched him as if weighing his soul.

What it was worth.

"The honor is all mine," Lan replied, stepping across the large door. His eyes drifted briefly to the towering shelves again before returning to her. "Though I must ask—do you send an escort for every banquet guest?"

Her lips curled into a half-smile. "No. Just you."

"Quite odd, wouldn't you say... Your Highness?"

"Why?" she asked, raising a brow. "You don't believe you're special?"

"I don't believe you have good intentions."

That made her laugh. Not loudly, not mockingly—just a short, sharp note of amusement that echoed off the stone walls.

"Then I suppose we'll find out," she said, standing smoothly. The hem of her gown trailed across the floor like mist.

She turned and began walking deeper into the library. Lan followed. Cassian and Elyria remained behind, silent shadows.

As they moved, the library shifted subtly. It wasn't noise or motion, just a feeling. The books grew older. The air thicker. The light dimmer. Candles flared in tall silver sconces along the walls, offering shadows across ancient titles.

"This," Iris said softly, "is the Archive of the Mad Scholar."

Lan raised a brow.

"I thought that was a myth."

"Oh, most things worth fearing start as myths." She glanced over her shoulder, blue eyes flashing. "He was an Imperial Prince once. Nearly six hundred years ago. Older than even the Ardent Flame Treaty. He was the last son of a sickly emperor and expected to ascend after his elder brothers died in the Battle of Two Suns. Instead, when offered the crown, he laughed."

"Laughed?"

"Laughed," she confirmed, running her hand along the spines of a passing shelf. "Said a throne was a cage made of gold. That he wanted freedom. That he wanted to learn. They called him mad. So he became that."

They stopped before a stairwell of spiraling stone.

"He built this," she continued. "Without slaves or masons. With his own hands. Took him decades. He wrote over four thousand texts—on magic, theology, history, metallurgy, emotion, combat... and things no one understood."

"Ambitious."

"More than that." Her gaze narrowed. "He was dangerous. He once argued that the concept of royalty was a spiritual disease. That the world had to be unmade to be remade. That knowledge was the only true power—and anything else was theater."

"And the Empire let him live?"

"No." Her voice turned quiet. "But it couldn't kill him either."

They resumed walking. The shelves around them now bore stranger markings. Some of the books were bolted shut. One was kept beneath glass, its cover blank, its pages seemingly invisible.

"But what fascinated me most," Iris said, "was his final text. The last thing he ever wrote, before he vanished."

"What was it?" Lan asked, finally unable to hide his curiosity.

"A story."

She stopped again. Turned toward him.

"A fable, really. About a sheep who ruled over wolves."

Lan frowned. "That sounds... backwards."

"It is. Deeply." Her eyes searched his. "In it, the sheep is born in a den of wolves, surrounded by predators. He's weak. Soft. But cunning. Every day, they tell him he will die. That his blood is prey's blood. That he can't fight like they do, hunt like they do, howl like they do."

"Then what does he do?"

"He learns how to speak like a wolf," she said, tilting her head. "But more than that... he learns how to lie like a wolf. To bluff. To wait. To whisper."

She stepped closer. Lan didn't move.

"And when the time came, the sheep didn't run."

"Did he kill the wolves?"

"No," she whispered. "He made them kneel."

The silence that followed was not empty.

Lan met her gaze.

"And what are you implying?"

"That I don't know whether you're the sheep," she said, "or the wolf who forgot his fangs."

He said nothing.

"You intrigue me, Lanard." Her voice lowered. "You survived where you should have died. You showed teeth when you weren't supposed to. You hide something under that skin of yours—and I don't know what it is yet."

"Maybe it's nothing."

"Nothing doesn't survive ambushes. Nothing doesn't walk into the capital when higher powers made sure it won't."

A pause.

Then, slowly, she stepped back.

"Tomorrow night is the banquet," she said, turning. "You will sit at a high table, with few select."

Lan arched a brow. "So I am special."

"Oh yes," she said over her shoulder. "And special things... rarely die quietly. So when you die tomorrow, i want you to do it with spectacle."

She walked away, disappearing into the aisles of the endless archive.

Lan stood alone beneath the silent weight of thousands of words penned by a man the Empire could not understand.

And somewhere among those shelves, a story about a sheep lingered—still unfinished.