The infamous Lucien Asmodeus did not sleep the night through.
The young man was in his chambers, a suite in the palace’s west wing which had been designated royal but served more as storage, staring at the card Elena Vance had given him.
The fire in his hearth had long since died down to embers, but the young man didn’t notice the cold.
VANCE PORTFOLIO HOLDINGS.
Investing in Undervalued Assets.
He turned the card around, looking at the expensive paper and the crisp print.
Insane words.
He never thought he’d have investors.
Not seriously.
Not after growing up being the butt of every joke and the scorn of every noble that had visited the palace.
His father, the Emperor, had impregnated some palace maid during a drunken solstice and discarded him, leaving him on his own, and his half-brothers, the six legitimate princes, had spent two decades honing their particular brand of casual cruelties.
The palace had realized long ago that associating with Lucien would not keep them in anyone’s favor, and they simply stopped.
He’d excelled at staying in the background, listening and learning.
He knew things.
The Minister of Finance was embezzling from the navy, the Archbishop’s youngest son secretly practiced the forbidden magic arts, the crown prince was impotent, and the second prince was screwing the Duke of Westreach’s wife behind his back, and he could ruin half the court with a whisper if he ever found the right leverage.
But knowledge gained without leverage was just trivia, and he’d never had leverage before.
Not until tonight.
Lady Elena Vance, the villainess, the trash-skill laughingstock, had somehow produced an A-rank combatant from a stable slave and humiliated the Ashford heir in front of the empire’s elite in the process.
The young nobleman, whose arrogance had reached such heights that he thought his sneer was a virtue, thought himself too good to accept an offer from a commoner.
The young man’s arrogance had been his undoing, proven again and again by history, yet it still persisted.
She had looked at Lucien—not through him, not past him, but at him—and saw something worth buying.
It should have been insulting, and it was, but Lucien Asmodeus felt a curious sensation bloom in his chest.
Curiosity.
He pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing names, connections, debts, favors, and blackmail opportunities.
If Lady Vance wanted to invest in him, the first thing she needed to know was what exactly she was investing in, and the second was whether she was worthy of his time.
By the time dawn broke, there were six pages of notes.
By the time noon came, he had incinerated most of them with a single spell.
By the time midnight came, he stood in front of the Academy’s east gate, his breath visible in the cold night air as his heart pounded against his ribs in a strange manner.
A young woman waited patiently at the gate, dressed in the same severe charcoal coat she had worn at the exhibition, while the slave—the freedman—stood at her side, his golden eyes watching Lucien.
“You came,” Elena said.
“I came to tell you no,” Lucien said, “to tell you that whatever game you’re playing, I’m not a part of it.
I came to tell you that I’ve survived this long by not trusting people, and I certainly won’t start trusting you.” “And yet you came,” Elena said.
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
“I came to ask what it was you saw in me.
Everyone else looks at me and sees a bastard, a joke, a piece of trash.
You look at me and see an S-rank.
So tell me, are you the biggest fool in the empire or the only sane one?” “Or both,” the young woman said, pushing herself off the gate.
“Show me your hand.” “What?” “Your hand.
I need skin contact for the initial assessment.” Lucien hesitated.
The last person who had touched him voluntarily was the palace physician who checked for lice when he was twelve.
He extended his hand, palm upturned, and felt incredibly exposed.
Elena placed her fingers over his, and the Golden Touch activated.
[ASSET DETECTED] [NAME: LUCIEN ASMODEUS] [STATUS: SEVENTH PRINCE – ILLEGITIMATE] [CONDITION: MALNOURISHED, SOCIALLY ISOLATED, PSYCHOLOGICALLY CONDITIONED FOR INVISIBILITY] [HIDDEN POTENTIAL: S-RANK POLITICAL GENIUS] [CURRENT STATE: 0.01% ACTIVE] [ESTIMATED RETURN: 8,500x] The light engulfed their joined hands in golden fire.
Lucien gasped as it raced up his arm, and something inside him—thoughts, memories, impulses, and ideas—exploded into his consciousness.
Thoughts that weren’t his own, feelings that had nothing to do with him, a part of his mind—no, all of his mind perhaps—that had always been waiting outside, observing.
The young man could see the mechanisms of the world.
Not literally, of course, but figuratively, metaphorically, he could see how things worked.
How people worked.
Elena Vance, not as some pretty face but as an investment opportunity, a rising asset with a volatile future, and the numbers in her head, the calculations, the possibilities, were all laid bare for him to see.
He could see Kael, not as some brutish guard but as the weapon of mass destruction the man was.
He could see himself, really see himself, for the first time in his life, and he could see the possibilities.
The road unfurled before his eyes, golden opportunities stretching into the distance.
Moves and countermoves, people and leverage, debts and blackmail, the entire court laid bare like an open book with annotations in the margins.
He could see how to make the Minister of Finance dance for him, how to twist the Archbishop’s ear, how to place Elena Vance on the throne if the girl wanted to sit there and bleed for the next decade.
The possibilities were intoxicating.
The revelations were terrifying.
The power pulsed in his veins, eager to be used.
The light died out.
A few seconds later, Lucien realized he was on his knees.
Warm hands gripped his upper arms, steadying him.
Kael.
The young man looked up and saw Elena’s lips move.
“What…” “I gave you leverage,” Elena said, pale and swaying slightly.
“The rest is up to you.” Lucien looked at her, heart still hammering, mind still whirling, the world still spinning.
He felt…
good.
Happy, almost—happier than he had felt in twenty-one years.
Not the empty, hollow smile of a bastard prince of no blood and no honor, but something deeper.
Something darker.
Something sharper and more dangerous than any dagger in the palace armory.
“Partnership,” Lucien said, “fifty-fifty on returns.” “Seventy-thirty,” Elena said.
“I’m providing the capital.” “Sixty-forty,” Lucien countered, “and I want a desk.
A proper one with drawers.” “Deal.” They shook on it.
[TICK: Asset #2 contract signed.
S-rank political genius activated.
Partnership terms negotiated.]