Part I – The Crowned Serpent
Veloria did not sleep after the arena. It roared.
Torches burned until dawn, alleys alive with drunken songs of the smiling bastard. Merchants raised toasts in taverns, minstrels twisted new ballads, children played at being serpent and beast in the dust. By morning, the legend had already slithered from whisper to myth.
And the Duke fed the fire.
That night, his hall blazed with light, tables bending beneath roasted boar and sugared figs, wine spilling red as spilled blood. Music scraped raw against the stones, louder than prayer, louder than reason.
"The bastard who makes monsters kneel!" cried a merchant lord."The serpent whose smile cuts sharper than steel!" sang another.
Rowan entered late. Always late. Wounds stiff beneath his finery, mask polished brighter than the gems on his cuffs. His smile stretched, flawless as marble. But each step toward the dais was a step on broken glass.
Alistair raised his goblet. "Behold my son—the serpent who shames beasts and bleeds legends into Veloria's stones!"
The hall thundered. Rowan bowed. The serpent was crowned.
But the crown was ash.
Part II – Serenya's Thorn
She found him before the high table, as if she had been waiting all night.
Serenya Marlowe moved like smoke in black silk, her eyes cutting through the feast's glare. She did not bow. She did not toast. She only looked at him—as if stripping his smile from his skin with nothing but her gaze.
"You bleed," she murmured.
Rowan's lips gleamed. "And yet I smile."
Her mouth curved, not in mockery but in something more dangerous: recognition. "You faced the Nightfang. And you let it live. Again."
"The crowd needed a legend," Rowan said lightly, lowering his goblet. "A dead beast cannot howl my name."
Her head tilted, raven hair spilling. "No. But a living one can haunt your sleep."
For the briefest flicker, his mask trembled. Serenya's eyes caught the slip, and her smile deepened—gentle, cutting, inevitable.
"When the beast howls," she whispered, brushing past him, "I hear you in it."
Her perfume lingered like smoke. Rowan breathed once, shallow. The mask returned—but her words clung like thorns beneath the skin.
Part III – The Wolf's Shadow
At the far table, Darius Vale sat silent, crimson cloak bleeding into the shadows. His goblet remained full. He had watched the serpent bleed, stand, and smile. Watched the city howl his name.
Now that the ame city roared in celebration.
Every cheer was a nail hammered into his chest. Every toast to Rowan was a theft of his birthright.
He leaned to his captain, voice low as a blade sliding free. "Count the banners that rise when the bastard enters. Count the hands that reach for him. Everyone is a dagger meant for me."
"My lord—"
"Do it."
His goblet shattered in his grip. Wine streamed down his wrist like blood. He stood, face carved from fury, and left before the feast's end.
The serpent had stolen the crowd. The wolf would steal it back—with teeth.
Part IV – The Father's Leash
Later, when the music dulled and nobles staggered on too much wine, Rowan was summoned.
The Duke waited in the half-dark, seated not on his throne but in its shadow. Torchlight carved his face into something between wolf and grave.
"You've fed the city well," Alistair rasped. "They gorge themselves on your smile."
Rowan bowed, lips curved. "As you wished."
Alistair's eyes burned. "Do not mistake their cheers for loyalty. The same mouths that crown you tonight will slit your throat tomorrow. Whispers lift men. Whispers drown them."
Rowan inclined his head. "Then perhaps the throne is safer if those whispers coil around me—and, by extension, you."
The Duke laughed, jagged and hollow. "You think you wear the leash, boy? You are the leash. My leash. The serpent that binds the mob back to me."
He leaned close, breath thick with wine and hunger. "Remember this: the day you forget your place is the day I lose the wolf upon you. And the wolf does not miss."
Rowan bowed again, smile unbroken. Inside, the coil tightened.
Part V – The Feast of Ashes
When the hall emptied, Rowan sat alone at the long table. Candles guttered. The air stank of roasted fat, sour wine, sweat. Music was gone, but whispers still lingered in the stone.
The serpent smiles.The bastard bleeds monsters.The Duke cannot leash him forever.
He raised his goblet, hand trembling beneath the mask. Dark wine reflected his face—smiling, radiant, unbroken.
"They cheer me," he whispered to the reflection. "They fear me. They believe in me."
The reflection's smile widened. Too wide. Crueler.
"But I burn."
He drank deep. The taste was ash.
Outside, the city's torches still burned. And above them, in the Ashenwild, the Nightfang howled again—low, endless, unbroken.
Rowan's smile, for the first time, did not reach his eyes.