The palace never truly slept. Even when the halls grew quiet and the lanterns dimmed, shadows moved in silence — servants tending to their nightly duties, guards patrolling with torches in hand, ministers sneaking away to secret meetings. But this night, the air was heavier than most.
The Queen lay awake, her hand resting protectively on the child in the cradle beside her bed. The memory of that shadow — the one that had whispered to her, I don't want anyone near him — still clung to her skin like frost. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again. A figure neither living nor dead, its hand brushing against the infant's cheek with a strange, twisted tenderness.
The baby stirred in his sleep, a faint glow rising against his chest, red as a wound. The Queen's heart lurched. She reached for him, then stopped, her fingers trembling.
"What are you?" she whispered, her voice breaking into the silence. "What has the gods cursed you with?"
