A storm had been building in the north.
Flynn felt it before the scouts even arrived. A sense not of dread, but of inevitability. He stood on the balcony of the east tower, wind tugging at the pale strands of his hair, eyes fixed on the horizon where gray clouds swirled like a crown of ash.
Behind him, the castle murmured. Nobles debated, soldiers trained, and letters were sent by raven but beneath all the movement, the ground was shifting.
And he knew it.
The Message
A sealed scroll arrived before sunrise, marked in red wax with a strange, twin-star emblem Flynn didn't recognize yet his chest tightened upon seeing it.
He didn't read it immediately. He waited until dusk, in the solitude of his study, where no eyes noble or otherwise could pry into his thoughts.
The note was unsigned.
"Winterbell was never the target.
The ruins awaken.
What was buried remembers."
Flynn's blood ran cold.
The ruins. The same ones where Seren first appeared. The ones calling to him in dreams.
He folded the message carefully and locked it away. For now, he would not share it. Not even with Elior.
Elior's Watch
Elior had been watching him.
Not with suspicion but with something closer to heartbreak.
He had long accepted that Flynn was not an ordinary prince, but lately, the way Flynn touched old blades, walked the ancient halls like memory guided him… it haunted Elior.
That night, Elior stood just outside Flynn's door, hand raised but hesitant to knock. Then, Khalid's voice echoed from the hall below, speaking to a servant polite, measured, perfectly rehearsed.
The viscount paused.
Two men.
One he loved.
One he didn't trust.
But which was which, anymore?
That Same Night
Flynn stared into the hearth fire, the sealed scroll still pulsing in his mind. He hadn't told Elior. He hadn't told Khalid. He hadn't even written it in his coded journal.
Because something about that message…
It knew.
Not just about the ruins.
But about him.
And he feared what else it might know.