Afterward, with blood still cooling on his hands, Frasier ran.
He ran for days nonstop like a mad man until the city's choking smoke gave way to the cold air of the royal capital.
He barely made it a little past the checkpoint of the capital before his legs gave out in an alley behind the great cathedral, where stone angels stared down with silent judgment.
That was where the Crown Prince found him.
Crown Prince Crux Anithas Caeltharis.
The cursed one.
The man the Church called harbinger of ruin.
Twelve soul marks spiraled over his skin in impossible patterns.
Two or three was common.
Five was exceptional.
But twelve?
Twelve was an omen.
It was like a declaration from the gods themselves that his life would bring upheaval.
The prince had not recoiled when he saw the blood and tattred mess of his clothes or his broken glasses barely clinging on to his face.
He did not asked about the body.
