Knowledge Is Power: The Last Reader

Chapter The great hall was packed when they arrived.

Every noble, every general, every servant who could squeeze into the space had gathered. The whispers were deafening—speculation, fear, the particular buzz of a court that knew something was about to happen and desperately wanted to be on the right side of it.

The King walked in first, and the whispers died.

He’d changed. Not just his hair, not just the shadows under his eyes—something deeper. He walked with his shoulders back and his chin level, like a man who’d finally remembered who he was supposed to be. His robes, which had always hung on him like borrowed clothing, suddenly fit. His steps, which had always been hesitant, were now deliberate. He moved like a man who had stopped apologizing for existing.

Behind him came Aria, her expression carefully neutral, and Payro Mance, silent and watchful at the back of the group.

The King climbed the steps to the dais and turned to face them. The silence was absolute.

"Some of you," he said, and his voice carried easily across the hall, "have been wondering why I called this gathering. Some of you already know." He paused, letting the weight of it settle. "And some of you have been wondering how much longer you can keep your secrets."

A ripple went through the crowd. Aria watched faces, looking for the tell—the flicker of guilt, the too-careful blankness, the subtle shift of weight that meant someone was getting ready to run.

"There was an explosion in my study three days ago," the King continued. "I nearly died. So did the young woman standing beside me. So did three servants who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." He paused, letting the words sink in. "That explosion was not an accident. It was planned. Carried out by someone in this very room."

The silence was deafening.

"I’m not going to use my talent to find out who," the King said. "I could. It would be easy. But I’m not going to do that." He looked around the hall, meeting as many eyes as he could. "Because I want you all to understand something—this isn’t about me. It’s not about my revenge, or my anger, or my desire to see anyone punished. This is about every person in this room who’s been threatened. Every person who’s been told that if they don’t cooperate, their families will suffer. Every person who’s been living in fear because someone decided that fear was a useful tool."

A murmur ran through the crowd.

"I know who you are," the King said, and his voice was flat now, hard. "I know what you’ve done. And I’m giving you one chance—one chance only—to come forward and tell the truth. If you do, I will show mercy. I will show kindness. I will be sure to be just."

He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. "But if you don’t, and I find out anyway—and I will find out—then I will do everything in my power to be as cruel as I can."

The hall held its breath.

And then, from the back, a single voice broke the silence.

"It was me."

A middle-aged woman stepped forward, her face pale and tear-streaked. A woman Aria had seen dozens of times in the corridors.

"It was me," she said again, her voice shaking. "I didn’t want to. They threatened my daughter. They said if I didn’t help, they’d—"

She broke off, unable to continue. The King moved down from the dais, crossing the hall in long, steady strides. He stopped in front of her, and for a moment, Aria was afraid of what he might do.

But he didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t reach for his talent. He simply looked at her, his expression unreadable, and said, "Tell me everything."

And she did.

---

Before she could finish, another voice rose from the crowd.

"And me."

A young footman stepped forward, his hands trembling at his sides. "They said they’d kill my mother. She’s sick. She can barely walk. I couldn’t—I didn’t know what else to do."

Then another. And another. And another, until a dozen servants stood in a ragged line before the dais, their faces a mixture of shame and desperate hope.

But the nobles stayed silent. Aria watched them—the carefully blank expressions, the way they refused to meet each other’s eyes, the subtle shift of weight that meant they were preparing to defend themselves.

The last to speak was a man near the front of the noble’s section. He was tall, silver-haired, with the kind of bearing that came from generations of privilege. His name was Lord Harwick, and he’d been one of the King’s most vocal critics for years.

"You speak all high and mighty," Lord Harwick said, his voice dripping with contempt. "You stand there in your borrowed crown and your father’s robes and you lecture us about mercy? About kindness? About justice?"

He stepped forward, his eyes glittering with barely contained fury. "You’re a mistake. Everything you are, you inherited. You didn’t earn a single thing you have. Not the crown, not the power, not the respect you so desperately crave. You’re a third son who got lucky because two better men died before you could embarrass them properly."

The King stood motionless, his face unreadable. Aria felt her hands curl into fists at her sides.

"And how convenient," Lord Harwick continued, his voice rising, "that the weakest son turned out to be the most powerful. How convenient that your brothers—the ones who were actually trained to rule—died on that hunting trip. If we’d known you had that kind of strength, we might have suspected you killed them yourself."

A murmur ran through the crowd. Aria saw several nobles exchange glances, their expressions shifting from fear to something uglier.

"And then you refuse to marry any of our daughters," Lord Harwick spat. "Some bullshit about believing in true love. Are you joking? Who are you to reject them? You’re a pathetic loser who doesn’t deserve the dirt beneath their feet. They were offering you a chance to legitimize yourself, and you threw it back in their faces because you’re too busy playing at being a romantic fool."

The King said nothing. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture relaxed. It was the stillness of a predator who hadn’t decided whether to strike yet.

"You tax us," Lord Harwick went on, his voice trembling with rage now. "You dare to tax us—us, who built this kingdom with our blood and our gold—and give it to the poor. To the peasants. To people whose existence is only there to serve us. What do they need education for? They already know how to serve us. What do they need healthcare for? If they get sick, we can breed more. They’re cattle. They’ve always been cattle. And you—" He pointed a shaking finger at the King. "You’re worse than cattle. You’re a joke. Everything about you is a joke."

The hall was silent. Aria could hear her own heartbeat, loud in her ears. She watched the King’s face, waiting for the explosion, the anger, the grief that had to be there somewhere.

But the King simply stood there, his expression calm and careless, like he wasn’t even the same person anymore.

"Anyone else?" he asked, his voice mild. "Anyone else who wants to share their thoughts?"

Another noble stepped forward, a woman with sharp features and colder eyes. "He speaks the truth," she said. "We’ve been polite for too long. You’re not fit to rule. You never were. You were a placeholder, a stopgap, a joke that went on too long. And we’ve been waiting for you to fail so we could finally be rid of you."

A third noble joined her. "My daughter would have been a better ruler than you. My twelve-year-old daughter. At least she understands that power is about taking what you want, not asking permission."

"You coddle the weak," a fourth said. "You give them hope. You make them think they deserve more than what they were born to. It’s cruel. It’s the cruelest thing you could possibly do to them."

"The kingdom is rotting," a fifth added. "And you’re too busy playing at being a good man to notice."

"I’ve lost money because of you," a sixth said. "Investments. Opportunities. All gone, because you couldn’t keep your hands off the economy."

"You’re a fool," a seventh said. "A naive, self-righteous fool who thinks love and kindness can solve problems that have existed for centuries."

"You don’t even know what you are," an eighth said. "You’re just... nothing. An empty space where a King should be."

The insults continued, each one more vicious than the last. Aria felt something cold settle in her stomach. She’d known the nobles hated him. She hadn’t realized how deep the hatred ran.

Finally, Lord Harwick raised a hand, and the others fell silent.

"Well?" he said, his smile thin and cruel. "Are you going to use your talent now? Force us to bow? Prove once and for all that you’re just as much a tyrant as the rest of us?"

The King was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face—not a warm smile, not a kind smile. It was the smile of a man who had finally stopped caring what anyone thought of him.

"I want to know who agrees with him," the King said, his voice calm and careless. "I think it’s really important to be clear about where everyone stands."

He gestured to Lord Harwick. "All who agree with Lord Harwick’s assessment of my character, my competence, and my suitability to rule—please, raise your hands."

Aria watched in horror as hands began to rise. First a few, then dozens, then hundreds. Countless people in the hall lifted their hands without hesitation. Some looked proud. Some looked defiant. Most simply looked like they’d been waiting for permission to finally say what they’d always thought.

Eighty percent of the hall.

The King nodded slowly, taking it all in.

"Well," he said, his voice perfectly calm. "At least now I know where I stand."

He raised his own hand, and his voice changed.

[SOVEREIGN’S CLAIM]

It hit the crowd like a physical force. Aria felt it wash over her, cold and absolute, and slide off her skin like water off stone. But the others—the eighty percent who had raised their hands—they all froze simultaneously.

"Kill yourselves," the King said, his voice as casual as if he were ordering tea. "Right now. All of you."

The silence that followed was the most terrible thing Aria had ever heard.

And then, one by one, they began to move. Hands reaching for weapons. Hands reaching for throats. The sickening sound of bodies hitting the floor, over and over and over again.

Aria couldn’t look away. She watched them fall—Lord Harwick, who had been so full of righteous fury moments before, now a crumpled heap on the stone floor. The woman with the cold eyes, her own hands still wrapped around her throat. The twelve-year-old’s father, his face frozen in surprise. All of them. All of them dead in less time than it took to draw a breath.

The King’s eyes tracked across the carnage, his expression utterly blank. Then, slowly, he raised his head and looked at the survivors—the twenty percent who hadn’t raised their hands. They were pale, trembling, staring at him like he was something they’d never seen before.

"First of all," the King said, and his voice was tired now, "I did want to say a speech for a moment there. I was going to talk to them about humanity, and brotherhood, and power, and responsibility. I was going to explain how I had been so afraid of becoming a monster, so afraid of using my power the way my brothers had used theirs, that I had let them walk all over me." He laughed, a short, hollow sound. "I was going to tell them that I know what it’s like to be afraid of someone who holds all the power. I was going to explain that I understand why so many of them had so much hatred in their hearts."

He paused, looking around the hall at the bodies of the fallen.

"But then I remembered that you don’t care about such things," he said, his voice hardening. "You don’t care about humanity. You don’t care about brotherhood. You don’t care about the weight of a crown, or the burden of responsibility, or the endless, exhausting work of trying to be a good person in a world that’s built on cruelty. You’ve spent my entire reign telling me I’m not good enough. Telling me I’m weak. Telling me I’m a joke."

He stepped over Lord Harwick’s body, his boots crunching on something that might have been bone.

"So I stopped trying to be good enough," he said. "And I became the joke you always wanted."

He reached the edge of the dais and turned to face them.

"I will treat you the same way you treated your people," he said, and his voice carried across the silent hall. "You have no room to complain, of course, because you are, yourselves, my people. And I am your King. And I have just demonstrated exactly what that means."

He walked toward the doors, pausing only to glance back at Aria.

"Summon the physicians," he said, his voice flat. "Have them start with the servants who were forced into this. They’ve suffered enough."

And then he was gone, leaving Aria standing in a hall full of bodies and silence and the terrible weight of what had just happened.

She stared at the doorway where he’d disappeared, something cold and complicated settling in her chest.

That, she thought, is what happens when you push a good man too far.

She looked down at Lord Harwick’s body, at the surprise still frozen on his face, and felt nothing but a weary, bone-deep sadness.

You wanted a monster, she thought. Now you’ve got one.

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