Chapter 823: 823

He turned first to the loyalist lords, his eyes cold and disappointed "Sheathe your blades. You stand in the presence of the people who build your homes and harvest your fields. To call their plea treason is to admit you no longer know the kingdom you serve. If you strike them, you strike the very foundation of Osita."

Then, he turned to face his father. The two men stood mere feet apart, a living bridge between the old world and the new. Nwadike did not shrink from the shadows Osita cast, instead, his own power flared, a warmth that pushed back the cold, oppressive leak of the former king’s aura.

"Father, look at them," Nwadike said, his voice lowering "They do not come with torches or stones. They come with a request for the future. You claim mother raised me better than this? She raised me to listen when the heartbeat of the kingdom speaks. By lashing out, you only prove their fears right, that you have forgotten how to be a leader and have settled for being a tyrant."

He placed a hand on the hilt of his own sword, not to draw it, but as a sign of his station. "The court is mine. The crown is mine. And these people? They are mine to protect, even from you. Do not let your final legacy be the blood of those who once hailed you as their protector."

In a blur of motion, Osita vanished from his place and reappeared before the mob. His hand shot out, seizing one of the lead protesters by the throat and lifting him effortlessly off the ground. With a chilling snap of his fingers, the temperature in the hall plummeted, thousands of razor-thin ice blades manifested in the air, suspended precariously over the heads of the crowd.

The people gasped, frozen in terror, but Nwadike’s reaction was instantaneous. Lightning flashed within his pupils, and a crack of thunder shook the foundations of the palace. In the blink of an eye, the leader held by Osita was suddenly slumped safely in Nwadike’s arms, and every single icy blade overhead shattered into a million glittering crystals. They fell like harmless snow, painting a beautiful, shimmering scene that stood in grim contrast to the violence that had nearly occurred.

As the ice crystals settled like glittering dust on the floor, the courtroom remained paralyzed in a state of shock. Nwadike, still holding the shaken protest leader, gently set the man on his feet. He took a step forward as the crowd suddenly found their position view was swapped and that they were now outside the place.

Nwadike can be seen standing in the sky above them. He raised his hands, not to show power, but to signal peace.

"People of Osita!" his voice carried, steady and calm, over the sea of anxious and sacred faces. "You have been heard. Today, the crown was reminded of the weight it carries. But justice cannot be served in a moment of chaos, and a future cannot be built on an afternoon of anger."

He paused, looking at the elders at the front of the parade. "I ask you now to return to your homes. Trust in the law that has kept this kingdom standing for generations. I give you my word, the court will not adjourn until a resolution is reached. An answer will be delivered to you before the sun sets on the third day."

Reassured by his composure and his intervention against the ice blades, the tension in the crowd began to drain. Slowly, the massive parade began to turn back, whispering in hushed tones about the lightning they had seen in the new king’s eyes.

Once the palace gates were barred and the commoners had retreated, the atmosphere inside the courtroom shifted from explosive to suffocating. Nwadike turned back to the room, where Osita sat in a heavy silence and the loyalists stood pale-faced.

"Clear the room of all but the High Council and the heads of the Great Houses," Nwadike commanded.

What followed were hours of grueling debate. It was a cold, calculated dissection of the kingdom’s survival. Everyone understood that no blades were to be drawn, as once that was done, there was no going back and the kingdom would be left vulnerbale so this was something that has to be resolved by talking.

Nwadike sat at the head of the long table, listening to the arguments. The Loyalist argued that to punish Osita was to admit the kingdom had been led by a "tyrant" for years, which would weaken their standing with the small allied kingdoms.

The Reformer countered that if Osita remained, he was a "living shadow" that would trigger a civil war. They pointed to the ice blades as proof that Osita no longer cared for the lives of his subjects. A fact that they have always known but has been proven and shown before them today.

Finally, after two days of deliberation that none of the officials barely slept, the decision was reached. A grim political necessity that all thought was the best.

Nwadike stood before his father in the private chambers of the High Council. "Father, we have looked at every path. If you stay, the people will rise again, and the loyalists will use you as a banner to defy my laws. If I imprison you, the danger is still there and your Imprisonment would serve as eternal smear and disgrace to our name"

He laid the official scroll on the table. "The Council has ruled. To preserve the peace of Osita and to answer for the threat made against the lives of the citizens, you are to be banished. This is a formal Severance. You will be escorted to the borders, and your name will be removed from the active registers of the court."

Nwadike looked his father in the eye. "You are being sent away so that the kingdom you built doesn’t burn to the ground trying to decide which of us to follow."

When Nwadike finished speaking and laid the scroll of severance on the table, a deafening silence filled the chamber. The loyalist lords held their breath, expecting a second explosion of power that would level the room.

But it didn’t come.

Osita sat perfectly still. For a long moment, he didn’t even look at the scroll. He looked at Nwadike.

"Severance," Osita whispered, a dry hollow laugh escaping his throat. "You use the very laws I wrote to erase me. There is a cruel irony in that, Nwadike. You think you are being a just leader, but you are simply a child with power filled with dreams of grandeur but the reality is different."

He stood up slowly. Without the aura of his power flared, he looked older than he had moments before. He reached for the scroll, his fingers tracing the royal seal he had once worn.

"You believe the people love you," Osita said, his voice regaining some of its biting edge. "They don’t. They love the idea of you. They love that you aren’t me. But when the time comes, or when the allied kingdoms decide your mercy is actually weakness, they will look for the man who was willing to hold a blade to their throats to keep them in line. And I won’t be here."

He stepped closer to Nwadike, leaning in so only his son could hear him.

"You ask what your mother would think?" Osita’s eyes turned glassy for a split second. "She would tell you that a crown is not a gift, Nwadike. It is a cage. I have avoided it for decades. If you think banishing me will bring you peace, you are more of a child than I thought."

Without a word of farewell to the council or the loyalists who had risked their lives for him, Osita turned his back on the throne. He walked toward the door with his head held high, his footsteps echoing with a lonely, hollow sound.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t fight the guards who came to escort him. He left the room with the chilling dignity of a man who believed that, eventually, the kingdom would realize how wrong they were. He would be waiting for when they finally called his name and strength again.

The announcement of the edict hit the streets of Osita hard. When the palace officials standing upon the balconies, walking the streets and reading the decree of Severance and Banishment, the cheering that many expected did not happen. Instead, a profound, heavy silence settled over the capital.

This was not what they had expected, banishment of the old king from the king was something that never had crossed their mind. The common folk did not celebrate this as a victory instead they were mourning the end of an era.

The day Osita was led from the palace for the final time, he found no angry mob waiting to jeer him. Instead, the streets were lined with thousands of people dressed in the muted colors of grief. They remembered the safety his strength had provided, even if they feared the man he was.