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The Kingkiller’s Shadow
Se 1 – The Kingkiller in Exile (Present Day – 10 Years Later)
The storm had not stopped for three days.
Cassian Valcor watched the rain hammer against the dirt road, listening to the way the wheels of the prison wagon creaked uhe weight of fate dragging him home. His hands were bound in iron cuffs, his face hiddeh the hood of a prisoner’s cloak.
They had finally found him.
For ten years, he had been a ghost, a name whispered in taverns and battlefields. The Kingkiller Prihe boy who murdered his own king.
The crime had defined him. The exile had hardened him. And now, the man who betrayed him… wanted him back.
The guard sitting across from him, a grizzled knight with a scar down his cheek, gred. “Do you even know why you’ve been summoned?”
Cassian smirked, despite himself. “To finish the execution they deyed a decade ago?”
The knight didn’t ugh. “You should be so lucky.”
He leaned forward, his eyes like iron.
“Your father has made you king.”
Cassian froze.
For a moment, the storm outside was nothing pared to the one rising inside him.
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Se 2 – The Night the Fell (Fshback – 10 Years Ago)
"You said we were io help him."
Cassian’s voice was barely a whisper as he followed his father through the marble corridors of Val Keep, the royal pace. The king’s hall stood just beyond the archway, torches flickering against the midnight stone.
His father, Duke Magnus Valoved like a shadow, unreadable and calm.
"We are helping him, Cassian." His voice was soft, deliberate. "But to save a kingdom, sometimes a king must fall."
Cassian’s fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger his father had given him.
He had trained in the way of the bde since he was old enough to walk. He had been raised on the histories of Draythar, taught by the fi schors, prepared to lead. But nothing—not the books, not the training, not the whispered politics—had prepared him for this.
The great doors of the throne room opened.
And King Aldric Orvus stood waiting.
Cassian had known him since childhood. The man who had ruled over Draythar for decades. The man who had sworn to guide Cassian wheook his father’s pce.
The man he had been told was too weak to save the kingdom.
The man who was about to die.
Thunder roared as the assassiered from the shadows.
Cassian moved without thinking—when the first bde struck, he drew his own dagger and lunged.
The world blurred. A csh of steel, a cry of pain, the st of blood—
And when he looked down, his own dagger was buried in the king’s chest.
The king gasped. His bloody hand gripped Cassian’s wrist.
"Cassian… why…?"
Cassian stumbled back, his heart smming against his ribs.
No.
No, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
Behind him, Magnus’s voice rang out.
"GUARDS! The boy has murdered the king!"
The doors burst open. Royal guards flooded the chamber, their eyes log onto the se before them.
Cassian—the dagger in his hands, the blood on his clothes, the dead king at his feet.
And Magnus stepped forward, horror painted on his face.
"My son… what have you done?"
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Se 3 – The Price of Betrayal (Present Day – Ba the Wagon)
Cassian’s jaw tightened as the memories crashed over him.
His father had pyed the perfect game that night. He had set the pieces, moved them into pce, and sacrificed his own son to clear the board.
Now, he was calling him back.
"Why?" Cassian asked the knight, his voireadable. "Why make me king?"
The knight’s grip on the reins tightened.
"Because the people are turning against him," he said. "Because the nobles are restless. Because war is ing."
The knight g him with something almost like pity.
"Your father needs a distra."
Cassian exhaled slowly.
So that was the game.
Make the exiled traitor the new king. Make the people hate him. Make him the fall guy for every mistake.
And wheime was right—take the throne for himself.
Cassian’s lips curled into a slow, humorless smile.
"Then I hope he’s ready."
"Because I’ve been waiting for this day for ten years."
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