55th day of Sunpeak, 307th Year of Fading

  He is running.

  The corridor bends and bends again, but it does not lead anywhere he knows. The black stone of Snowspire sweats beneath his hands. Moisture beads along the walls, thick and greasy, running in slow trails down toward the floor. His boots slip. The air tastes wrong—bitter, dry.

  Ash drifts past the narrow windows.

  Not snow.

  Ash.

  It gathers along the sills in soft gray banks. It slides beneath the doors. When he inhales, it coats his tongue.

  The torches lining the walls burn too high. Their flames lean sideways, stretched thin, white at the core. The heat presses against his face as he runs. The fur at his collar smolders. He smells it first—burning hair, then wool.

  He claws it away.

  The corridor narrows.

  He knows these halls. He has walked them since boyhood. Yet the tapestries are gone. The banners of House Ravenblood have blackened and curled inward, their sigils eaten by flame that makes no sound.

  The stone beneath his palm softens.

  He jerks his hand back.

  It leaves a print.

  The granite ripples like wax too near a candle. Lines of red open beneath the surface, glowing, widening. The walls pulse. The floor dips under his weight.

  City melts.

  He stumbles forward as the ground shifts. The ceiling drips in slow strands that stretch and snap. The iron sconces sag, their metal bending as if it were clay.

  The heat is everywhere.

  Yet he does not blister.

  He does not choke.

  He looks down at his hands.

  The skin splits along the knuckles, not with blood but with light. Thin cracks race across his fingers, tracing the veins. The flesh peels back in curling strips like parchment held too close to flame.

  Beneath it—

  Not bone.

  Fire.

  It glows through him, steady and contained. His palms burn white at the center, orange at the edges. He flexes his fingers and sparks fall to the molten floor.

  He should scream.

  Instead, a sound tears from his throat that is swallowed at once by the roar rising around him.

  The castle folds inward.

  Towers slump like wet sand. The great archways bend and collapse. Rivers of molten stone slide down the corridors, swallowing doors, stairwells, the carved reliefs of kings long dead.

  He stands in it.

  Unharmed.

  The ash outside thickens until the windows vanish completely, replaced by a churning gray sky that pulses with dull red light.

  He turns.

  At the far end of the corridor—where the throne room should be, where the banners once hung heavy and proud—there is only flame.

  And within it—

  Two eyes.

  Blue.

  Vast.

  Unblinking.

  They hang suspended in the inferno, untouched by the heat that devours everything else. Calm. Clear. Fixed on him.

  Not angry.

  Not wild.

  Watching.

  Judging.

  He tries to step back. The molten stone grips his boots, pulling him down. Fire runs up his legs, but he does not feel pain. He feels pressure, building beneath his ribs, behind his eyes—the same weight he felt that first night in the nursery, magnified until it threatens to split his skull.

  “You,” he tries to say.

  His voice comes out as sparks.

  The eyes do not blink.

  The flames around them lean toward him, drawn to the fire beneath his own skin.

  He lifts his burning hands as if to shield himself, but the light pouring from his palms answers the inferno. It surges outward, meeting the blaze, feeding it.

  The corridor collapses.

  The eyes remain.

  Closer now.

  Filling his vision.

  He inhales ash and heat and something else—milk gone sour, linen scorched, the faint sweetness of charred wood.

  The eyes narrow slightly.

  The pressure behind his brow spikes—

  Wulfgar jerks upright in his bed with a strangled shout.

  The sound ricochets off stone.

  He is in his chamber.

  The windows are rimed with ice. The hearth has burned low, leaving only faint embers that give more smoke than heat. The air is sharp enough to bite.

  His breath fogs in front of him.

  Yet sweat pours down his back. His nightshirt clings to his chest. His hair is damp against his temples.

  He claws at his arms.

  The skin is intact.

  No cracks. No glow beneath it.

  His hands shake as he drags them over his face, his throat. He expects to feel heat radiating from his flesh. Instead, his fingers are numb from cold.

  His heart slams against his ribs.

  He throws the blankets aside and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. The stone floor leeches warmth instantly from his feet. The cold should steady him.

  It does not.

  His chest tightens as if the fire still lives there, banked and waiting. He presses his palm against his sternum, half-expecting to feel the hiss of flesh meeting flame.

  Nothing.

  Only the frantic beat beneath.

  Across the room, a single candle burns on the table beside a stack of unopened letters. The flame wavers in the draft, small and harmless.

  He fixes his gaze on it.

  It stretches.

  For a heartbeat—no longer—the flame surges upward, doubling in size, brightening to a fierce white core. Shadows leap along the walls. The carved posts of his bed twist into jagged shapes.

  He sucks in a sharp breath.

  The flame shrinks again.

  Ordinary.

  Yellow. Soft.

  The room returns to its dim stillness, the cold pressing close from every side.

  Wulfgar remains seated on the edge of the bed, hands braced on his knees, staring at the candle as if it might change again.

  His pulse pounds in his ears.

  He does not lie back down.

  The door struck the wall hard enough to rattle the iron hinges.

  Agatha did not look up immediately.

  She sat near the hearth in her private chamber, though no fire burned there. Cold had tightened its grip over the night, and the room held the clean, biting cold of stone left untended. A single lamp cast a steady glow across the table before her. Ledgers lay open. A cup of wine rested untouched at her elbow.

  She finished the line she was reading.

  Then she lifted her eyes.

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  Wulfgar stood framed in the doorway, chest heaving, hair unbound and clinging damply to his temples. His nightshirt hung open at the throat, wrinkled and sweat-stained despite the chill that seeped through the cracks in the shutters. His jaw was dark with untrimmed stubble. His gaze moved too quickly—walls, ceiling, hearth, then finally to her.

  He smelled of sour sweat.

  And something sharper beneath it.

  “Close the door,” she said.

  He did not move.

  “Close it.”

  He turned abruptly and shoved it shut behind him. The wood struck the frame with a dull thud.

  Agatha folded her hands atop the ledger.

  “What has happened?”

  Wulfgar crossed the room in three strides. His boots left faint damp prints on the stone. He did not sit. He did not bow his head. He stood over the table as if it were an enemy he meant to strike.

  “It must end,” he said.

  His voice was raw.

  Agatha reached for the wine and poured it into the cup without haste. The liquid caught the lamplight, dark and thick. Her hands did not tremble.

  “What must end?”

  “Our indulgence.”

  He laughed once, short and broken. “Our blindness.”

  She lifted the cup to her lips and drank.

  He slammed his palm onto the table.

  The sound cracked through the chamber.

  “Arthur.”

  The name hung there.

  Agatha set the cup down with care. “He sleeps.”

  “He is not sleeping.” Spittle caught at the corner of his mouth. “He watches. Even in sleep.”

  Agatha studied him.

  His eyes were rimmed red. There were shadows beneath them that no rest had eased in months. He had grown thinner in the face. The skin along his jaw tightened when he clenched his teeth.

  “You woke me for this?” she asked.

  “I woke you because we must send him away.”

  Her brow shifted a fraction.

  “To the Northern Monasteries,” he pressed on. “They keep relics. They bind things that should not walk freely. They will know what to do.”

  Agatha leaned back in her chair.

  “Know what to do,” she repeated.

  “He is a curse.” The words spilled faster now. “A monster in skin. I have felt it. I have seen it.”

  He yanked off his glove and thrust his right hand forward.

  The scar had not faded in the year since that night. The skin across his palm bore three warped patches, shiny and uneven, pale against the rest. It caught the lamplight and reflected it dully.

  “I touched him,” Wulfgar said. “As any father would. And my flesh burned.”

  Agatha’s gaze dropped to the scar.

  Then returned to his face.

  “You have shown me this before.”

  “You think I did it to myself?” His voice cracked upward. “You think I pressed my hand to iron for sport?”

  “I think,” she said evenly, “that you are not sleeping.”

  He stared at her as if she had struck him.

  “He did not wake,” Wulfgar continued, breath coming sharp. “He did not cry. I shouted. I broke a cup. He opened his eyes and watched me.”

  Agatha rose from her chair.

  She was still in her night gown, heavy wool belted at the waist, black hair braided loosely over one shoulder. Even in the low light, her eyes held their clear blue steadiness.

  “You call him a curse,” she said. “You call him a monster.”

  “What else would you name it?”

  She walked around the table, stopping a pace from him. Close enough to see the fine tremor in his fingers. Close enough to smell the sourness clinging to his skin.

  “He is two years old.”

  “He is not like other children.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  The word landed without softness.

  “He does not cry. He does not fear the storm. He does not flinch at flame.” Her gaze did not waver. “He is different.”

  Wulfgar’s lips parted as if to seize on the admission.

  She continued before he could speak.

  “Different is not damnation.”

  “He burns,” Wulfgar hissed.

  “And yet he is unburned.”

  Silence pressed between them.

  Agatha reached out—not to comfort—but to take his scarred hand in hers. Her fingers closed around his wrist. She examined the mark under the lamplight, turning his palm slightly.

  The skin there was thickened. Hardened.

  “He marked you,” she said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  She released him.

  “And he did not wake.”

  “No.”

  Agatha stepped back.

  “He is not a curse, Wulfgar.”

  Her voice did not rise.

  “He is a weapon.”

  The word cut cleaner than any blade.

  Wulfgar recoiled as if she had struck him.

  “A weapon,” he repeated, disbelief scraping his throat raw.

  “You are king of Kratus,” she said. “Our land devours the weak. Our enemies circle like wolves beyond the southern passes. You pray to a goddess of life as if life alone will preserve this throne.”

  She gestured toward the walls, toward the unseen weight of the kingdom beyond them.

  “Strength preserves it.”

  “He is a child.”

  “He is our blood.”

  Her gaze sharpened.

  “You would send him away. Let monks cage him in stone and call it piety.” She shook her head once. “No.”

  Wulfgar’s breath hitched.

  “You would keep that in our halls?”

  “I would raise it.”

  The answer came without hesitation.

  “Better under our hand than another’s.”

  Wulfgar stared at her, something hollowing behind his eyes.

  “You speak of him as if he were steel to be forged.”

  Agatha’s expression did not shift.

  “If he burns, then we will teach him where to aim.”

  The lamp flickered once, casting brief shadows across her face. They did not disturb her composure.

  “You do not care what he is,” Wulfgar said.

  “I care what he can do.”

  The words settled into the cold chamber and did not move.

  Wulfgar took a step back.

  For a moment, he looked not at her but through her, as if measuring a distance he had not noticed before.

  “You would raise a monster,” he said, voice low.

  Agatha met his gaze without flinching.

  “I would raise a king who cannot be threatened.”

  The cold in the room deepened. Or perhaps it only felt that way because he had stopped sweating.

  Wulfgar pulled his burned hand back against his chest.

  He looked smaller than when he had entered.

  Not in stature.

  In certainty.

  The door had not shut fully.

  Harald noticed it first as a line of light on the stone floor.

  He had woken to the sound of his father’s voice cutting through the corridor. Not loud at first. Tight. He had slipped from his bed before the nurse stirred, bare feet touching cold stone. The air outside the nursery bit at his ankles, but he did not go back for slippers.

  He followed the sound.

  Now he stood pressed against the wall beside his mother’s chamber, fingers curled around the carved edge of the oak door. The wood was smooth from years of hands. His own knuckles pressed white against it.

  Inside, his father was speaking.

  No—shouting.

  “…monster in skin.”

  The words hit him harder than the cold.

  Harald’s breath caught in his throat. He leaned closer, careful not to let the hinges creak. The gap was narrow, but it carried their voices clearly enough.

  “He burned me,” Wulfgar said.

  Harald glanced down at his own hands, half-expecting to see them glow. They looked the same as always—small, scraped at the knuckles from wooden practice swords.

  A chair scraped inside.

  “You would send him away,” his mother’s voice said. Even. Flat.

  “To the Northern Monasteries.”

  Harald pictured the monasteries only from stories: tall stone towers carved into mountains, bells that rang across empty valleys. Places where unwanted things were taken.

  His stomach tightened.

  “He is a curse.”

  The word landed heavy.

  Harald’s grip tightened on the doorframe until the wood pressed crescents into his skin.

  Silence followed.

  Then his mother again.

  “He is not a curse, Wulfgar. He is a weapon.”

  Harald blinked.

  A weapon.

  He knew that word. He had trained with wooden swords since he could lift one. Weapons were kept polished. Sharpened. Locked away when not in use.

  They were not hugged.

  They were not sung to.

  His father’s voice dropped lower, rougher. He could not make out every word, but he caught enough.

  “…raise a monster…”

  “…teach him where to aim…”

  The air in the corridor felt thinner.

  Harald swallowed and pressed his ear closer to the crack.

  He waited for something else.

  For his mother to say Arthur was her son. For his father to say he had spoken in anger.

  Neither came.

  Instead, there was the sound of boots shifting. The faint clink of a cup set down too hard.

  “You do not care what he is,” his father said.

  “I care what he can do.”

  Harald closed his eyes.

  Arthur did not do anything.

  Arthur sat.

  Arthur watched.

  Arthur was warm when you hugged him.

  He was not a weapon.

  He was not a curse.

  He was Arthur.

  A floorboard inside creaked.

  Harald pulled back at once, heart thudding against his ribs. He flattened himself against the wall as footsteps approached the door. The latch rattled.

  He darted down the corridor, silent as he could manage, bare feet slapping once against stone before he corrected himself.

  He did not look back.

  The wind pressed against the outer walls, a low grinding that filled the empty spaces between his breaths. He ran until the nursery door came into view.

  He slipped inside and shut it softly behind him.

  Heat wrapped around him at once.

  The braziers still glowed. The hearth had been stirred recently; flames rolled low but steady. The air smelled of milk and warm wood and something faintly sweet beneath it.

  Arthur slept in his crib, blankets kicked aside again.

  Harald stood beside it, chest rising and falling too fast.

  “monster,” he whispered under his breath, testing the word.

  It did not fit.

  Arthur’s face in sleep looked the same as always—smooth, composed. His small hand rested against the pillow, fingers slightly curled.

  Harald dragged a chair across the floor and climbed onto it, kneeling so he could see into the crib without straining. The wood creaked under his weight.

  He reached down and touched Arthur’s hand.

  Warm.

  Hot, even.

  He did not pull away.

  “They don’t understand you,” Harald murmured.

  Arthur’s eyelids did not flicker.

  Harald leaned closer, resting his chin on the edge of the crib. The heat rising from the blankets warmed his cheeks.

  “They think you’re something else.”

  His voice dropped lower.

  “I don’t.”

  He thought of his father’s scarred palm. Of his mother’s steady voice calling his brother a weapon.

  Harald’s fingers curled gently around Arthur’s.

  “I won’t let them send you away,” he whispered. “Or turn you into… that.”

  The word weapon stuck in his throat.

  “I’ll stay.”

  The promise felt large in his mouth. Too large. But he held onto it anyway.

  “I’ll protect you.”

  Arthur shifted slightly in his sleep. Not a startle. Just a small adjustment, as if settling deeper into warmth.

  Harald climbed fully onto the chair, then leaned his arms along the edge of the crib so that his head rested beside Arthur’s. The heat seeped into his skin, through his thin nightshirt. It made his eyelids heavy.

  Inside, the fire breathed steadily.

  Harald kept one hand wrapped around his brother’s.

  He did not notice when his eyes closed.

  He did not feel himself drift.

  By the time the braziers burned lower and the first pale hint of morning pressed against the shutters, the older prince slept curled in the chair, guarding the child in the crib.

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