They didn’t even look him in the eye.

  Joseph Quinn knelt in the blood-soaked marble hall of House Veylor, arms bound behind his back with cursed silver chains that sapped the st of his magic. Around him, torchlight danced on the polished obsidian walls, flickering like fmes licking bone. The family crest—a single eye etched into a crown—watched from above the throne.

  “Disposal is necessary,” said Lord Elric Veylor, voice colder than the stone beneath Joseph’s knees.

  A silence followed. Not one person spoke in his defense.

  Joseph didn’t beg.

  He'd slit throats in that Lord’s name. Poisoned children. Burned vilges. Cracked open skulls like melons to harvest memories through forbidden rites. They called him a hound, a leashed dog, a living curse with a handler. And he obeyed—loyal, silent, efficient.

  “I served you,” Joseph said. His voice didn’t shake. It never had.

  Elric looked at him as if regarding a smudge on gss. “Exactly. You served. That leash was never meant to be permanent.”

  He gave the nod. Joseph felt the air shift.

  Two Knights moved. They didn’t hesitate.

  Bdes slid into his chest. Twin stabs of pain. Cold steel through ribs. His breath caught, then vanished.

  As he colpsed, Joseph caught his own reflection in the polished floor—blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, silver chains sck now, the dog finally put down.

  His st thought wasn’t about vengeance.

  It was crity.

  They will always kill their own tools.

  And then—

  Heat. Pain. Fire.

  Then nothing.

  Then—

  Cold.

  When Joseph opened his eyes, the ceiling wasn’t stone—it was wood. Old, cracked, familiar. He recognized the rafters of the servant barracks. The smell of burned incense. His fingers—small. The bones still soft. His chest: unscarred. Whole.

  He sat up sharply, breathing hard.

  Not a dream.

  Not hell.

  Not heaven.

  He was back.

  He scrambled from the cot and ran to the cracked mirror on the wall. A child’s face stared back—sharpened eyes too old for their age. Eleven years old. Just days before House Veylor’s Chess Evaluation Ceremony.

  His pulse steadied. His mind didn’t.

  I’m alive.

  I’m back.

  I remember everything.

  ?? Chess Evaluation – The Roles of the HouseTwo days ter, Joseph stood with fifty other children in the Veylor arena, bck robes flowing, all waiting for their fate. The Chess Ceremony was a tradition—the House would assign each child a future path based on magical potential, personality, and lineage.

  Rook. Bishop. Knight. Pawn.

  The evaluation orb pulsed with light as each child stepped forward.

  Some sobbed with joy. Others screamed with disappointment.

  “Rook!”

  “Pawn.”

  “Knight.”

  Joseph stepped up, calm, emotionless. The elders exchanged gnces—he was a branch family runt, barely tested. Not worth interest.

  But when his hand touched the orb, it pulsed red. Not blue. Not gold. Red.

  Whispers echoed. The orb cracked.

  The elder mage paled. “The boy… He’s marked for conflict. High reaction potential.”

  Lord Elric watched silently from above, hand on his chin.

  “Assign him a Knight rank,” the elder muttered. “Unstable, but usable.”

  Joseph said nothing.

  Knight again.

  Just like before.

  This time, he smiled.

  ?? Card Assignment – The Ceremony of SuitsThe next day was the Card Evaluation—far rarer, far more political. While Chess roles determined combat purpose, Card values determined House rank, influence, and magical uniqueness.

  Every House had its own deck.

  Joseph stood barefoot in the Great Mirror Chamber, heart steady. Ahead of him, four floating suits—Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs—glowed around a pedestal.

  “Pce your hand,” said the examiner, a tall woman in blue robes.

  He stepped forward, suppressing his presence, holding back the mana that screamed inside him—the forbidden magic. Essence Devourer, the spell that turned him into a walking curse. He kept it buried deep in his soul, wrapped in silence.

  He pced his hand.

  Nothing happened for three seconds.

  Then—

  The suits shattered.

  Screams echoed across the chamber.

  A fifth card appeared above him.

  A bckened symbol.

  A Joker.

  The chamber fell deathly quiet.

  The examiner dropped her staff.

  Lord Elric stood from his seat.

  “A… a Joker?” someone gasped.

  “Impossible.”

  “Cursed?”

  “No one’s drawn the Joker in decades…”

  Joseph stared up at the floating card—its bck surface swirled with chaotic mana, glowing red veins throbbing through it.

  He looked back at the Lord who would one day kill him.

  And smiled again.

  Perfect.

  ?? AftermathJoseph was escorted from the room, silently, like a walking pgue. People stared. Whispered. Some backed away. Others bowed—either in awe or fear.

  Jokers had no suit. No chain of command.

  But they were always close to power.

  They weren’t trusted.

  But they were always watched.

  Exactly what Joseph needed.

  In the barracks that night, alone in the dark, Joseph sat cross-legged and opened his palm. A thin wisp of bck mana curled around his fingers.

  A memory surfaced — the first soul he ever devoured in the future that would never come.

  An old rogue mage. A gatewalker. A man who could teleport by snapping his fingers.

  Joseph flexed his hand.

  Snap.

  Nothing happened.

  Yet.

  Soon.

  He looked to the ceiling.

  I don’t need to be a hero.

  I just need to be close enough to kill them all.