The bells of the royal castle tolled at an hour when they should have been silent. Their hollow clangor bled into the night, announcing to the kingdom what only a few had already witnessed—that the palace had been violated, that blood had been spilled where none dared imagine it could be spilled.
Alaric entered through the shattered northern gate with Eamon at his side. The torches cast sickly light over the courtyard, and what that light revealed was not slaughter in the ordinary sense. It was worse—eerier, more deliberate. The guards had not been run through with blades, nor beaten by blunt weapons. Their bodies lay sprawled where they had fallen, skin marred with streaks of black ash that seemed burned into their flesh. Their armor was intact, their swords unsheathed yet unused, as though they had been stilled mid-breath by something unnatural.
Eamon's jaw was set tight, his voice low, as if afraid to disturb the silence of the dead.
"Your Majesty… the pattern is the same. Ash wounds, no blood, no cries heard. As if the night itself swallowed them."
Alaric crouched beside one of the corpses. His amber eyes caught the faint shimmer of ash upon the man's throat, not random but etched—three curved lines, curling inward like a serpent devouring its own tail. A mark. A signature.
The Black Fang.
He had heard of them whispered in darker courts and outlawed cultist circles, but they had never dared breach his palace. Never dared bring their sorcery into the King's walls. Unless, Alaric thought with a tightening in his chest, they had been emboldened by something—or someone—stronger.
"Draven," he muttered, the name like acid on his tongue. His half-brother. His rival across the Pyrelis borders. The Dragon King of another throne.
Eamon's eyes flickered at the name, but he said nothing. His loyalty was silence, and silence was safer when a king was in a rage.
Alaric rose slowly, his cloak whispering against the stone. Around him, the surviving guards shifted uneasily, as though the shadows had grown teeth. The air still reeked of burnt flesh though no flame had touched these men. The silence pressed heavy, broken only by the king's breath, steady but sharp.
"They wanted me to see this," Alaric said at last. "Not merely to kill, but to send a message."
He strode deeper into the palace halls, each step echoing like a hammerbeat. There, too, the carnage had spread—two chamberlains crumpled near the marble stair, a page boy splayed across the tiles as though asleep, except his eyes were open, black as obsidian. No scream, no resistance. All smothered before fear could even take root.
And on the wall, above the throne-room doors, drawn in charred strokes: the serpent sigil, looping endlessly into its own maw.
Alaric stood before it, his fists clenched at his sides. Rage pressed against the veneer of his composure, begging release, begging fire. He wanted to tear down the walls, scorch the air until no ash remained but his own. Yet he forced it back, the dragon within snarling but caged. This was not the moment for fury—it was the moment for calculation.
Draven. Always Draven. Brother by blood, enemy by nature. Their mother had sons in two kingdoms, and fate had bred rivals destined to clash. Draven thrived on shadows, on cults and whispered sorcery. Alaric ruled with the fire of presence. Two sides of the same coin, destined to grind each other down until one kingdom stood alone.
Eamon's voice broke his storm of thought.
"Sire… if the Black Fang dares strike here, they will strike again. The court will panic. The nobles already whisper."
"Let them whisper," Alaric said, his voice low, vibrating with the promise of fire. "Let them fear shadows. It will flush out the ones who cower behind them."
But inwardly, he knew what this meant. His every move might be watched. Every secret was fragile. Which meant Lyanna—the girl with the moonlit face—might be endangered than ever. If Draven or the cult discovered her , she would be pawn, bait, or worse.
He could not take her by force. Cedric would tighten his defenses, Rowena would sharpen her watch. The wrong step would drive them deeper into hiding. No—he must weave himself into her life like shadow into fabric. She must come to him willingly, without realizing until it was too late who he truly was.
For the first time in years, Alaric smiled—not with amusement, but with calculation. He had worn crowns and chains. Now he would wear a mask.
*** *** ***
The next evening, the Duke's mansion loomed quiet against the darkening sky, its windows glowing faint with lamplight. Alaric did not approach as king. No banners, no armor, no retinue. He came cloaked in plain garb, his boots soft against the cobblestones, his hair unbound to spill like shadow across his shoulders. In the fading dusk, he was no monarch—he was a man moving through the world unseen.
The guards at Cedric's gates did not glance twice. They looked for lords, not for peasants. They sought carriages, not solitary wanderers who slipped past with the ease of smoke. Alaric's every motion was honed, deliberate. A predator did not announce itself to prey.
He reached the side of the mansion where ivy climbed the stone like fingers grasping toward heaven. And there—above him—was her window. A faint flicker of candlelight within. The place where she dreamed, where she whispered her thoughts into the silence.
Alaric gripped the ivy and began to climb. Stone scraped his palms, leaves tore, yet he moved with the confidence of one who had scaled cliffs far higher. The night seemed to hush as he ascended, as though the world itself held its breath.
Inside, Lyanna sat with a book unopened in her lap, her gaze drifting toward the window. Her pendant lay warm against her skin, though she did not know why. She was restless, her thoughts circling back to the strange weight of the king's presence the night before, though she had never seen his face.
A sudden scrape against the window made her breath halt. She turned—and her heart lurched. A figure was climbing into her chamber, parting the curtains with a hand both strong and careful.
She froze, ready to scream—until the candlelight revealed his face.
That face.
The stranger from the forest. The one who had pulled her from danger only to abandon her in a desolate place, leaving her to stumble home half-broken.
Her shock melted into fury. She shot to her feet. "You—!"
Before she could say more, he raised a hand, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.
"You remember me."
Lyanna's voice trembled with contained anger. "Remember you? How could I forget the man who saved me only to discard me like refuse? How dare you—"
She broke off, glancing toward the door. Her father. Rowena. Anyone could hear. Panic laced her voice. She rushed to him, grasping his arm, dragging him away from the window deeper into the chamber's shadows.
"Are you mad?" she hissed. "If my father finds you here, if my sister hears even a whisper—we'll both be in ruin! Worse, if the king himself suspects—"
Her words tangled in her throat, for the man only looked at her with quiet intensity, as though nothing she feared could touch him.
"Why so secretive?" he asked, his tone almost teasing, but underneath it a weight of something older, heavier. "Do you live in such fear?"
Lyanna's eyes blazed. "Fear keeps us alive. One mistake, one misstep, and everything is lost. You shouldn't be here. You mustn't be here."
"And yet here I am."
His voice was calm, steady, as if her protests were nothing more than ripples on the surface of a dark lake. His gaze held hers, unrelenting. Then, softly, he asked, "What is your name?"
She hesitated, torn between defiance and the strange magnetism that pressed around him like heat from a hidden flame. Finally, she whispered, "Lyanna."
His lips curved faintly, as though the name was both confirmation and revelation.
"Lyanna," he repeated, savoring the sound. "At last."
For two hours, time folded strangely around them. They spoke in low voices, words spilling more freely than Lyanna had ever expected. He asked about her dreams, her thoughts, her view of the stars. He listened—not with the impatience of nobles or the condescension of courtiers, but with piercing attentiveness.
Lyanna, against her will, felt something stir. A sense of being seen, as if for the first time. She laughed once, softly, surprised at herself. The sound felt foreign, dangerous.
But beneath her fragile joy lay dread. Who was he truly? Why did his presence unsettle her so? Why did the air feel charged when he drew too near?
At last he rose, brushing ivy dust from his hands. His smile lingered, but his eyes held something more—something that promised both danger and inevitability.
"I will come again," he said simply.
Then, as he had arrived, he slipped back into the night, vanishing beyond the window.
Lyanna stood trembling, her heart split between relief and strange longing. She pressed the pendant at her neck, its warmth pulsing like a warning.
But before she could gather her thoughts, the door burst open.
Rowena stood framed in the threshold, her eyes sharp as knives. "I heard voices."
Lyanna's breath caught. She forced a smile, shaking her head. "Voices? Only my own. Reading aloud."
Rowena stepped inside, her gaze sweeping the room with suspicion. "Do not lie to me, sister. I can smell secrets."
The candlelight flickered between them, casting twin shadows upon the wall—two sisters, bound by blood, divided by fate, and watched from afar by a king whose smile lingered in the dark.