He survived the massacre because he was in a cell. The Conclave named him the killer anyway — and erased him from history. A year later, he can touch any man and see his deepest fear.
Aldric Vane was the Crown's Champion — the king's instrument of war and justice. The Conclave of Nobles arranged the Winter Court massacre, killing the king, the royal family, and every Champion present. Aldric survived because he was in a holding cell when the swords came out, serving a quiet disgrace for a killing the king had privately sanctioned. The Conclave declared him the regicide and fugitive. They removed his name from every record. He spent the following year building something the Conclave would understand: a network. A reputation for precision and ruthlessness. The specific capacity to make powerful men disappear from their own power structures. He has no interest in restoring the old order — the old order got the king killed and looked the other way for twenty years of Conclave corruption. He intends to replace them with something worse: himself. Not because he wants power. Because the people who want power are using it on people who cannot stop them. Along the way, he makes a pact with an entity that gives him a narrow and specific gift — the ability to see the truest fear of anyone he touches. The entity wants nothing in return. It only wants to watch. This should be more unsettling than if it wanted something.
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