Chapter 1 — Shadows Over Solmere
Eryndor was a wide country with high mountains, deep forests, and seas that kept old secrets. Long ago, humans and beast-people fought terrible wars. The humans won. For a long time, beast-people were kept under human rule. Later, a prince with a brave heart and a great swordsman helped change things. Their effort made some people hope for peace between different kinds of folk.
Even so, peace was thin. Some people remembered the old hate. In secret rooms, quiet voices still planned to undo what had been built. The present looked bright. But danger moved in the dark.
The Solmere estate stood on a small hill in the Heartlands. The house was white stone with a big courtyard and a swing of cypress trees. People in the area knew the Solmere name. It meant the family had a long history of protecting others. It also meant many eyes watched them.
Arin Solmere pushed his practice sword into the wooden dummy again and again. His arms burned and his breath came fast. He missed the clean strokes he wanted. When he hit, the wood shook, but his attack was not perfect.
"Again," he told himself. He set his feet and swung. This time the strike landed the way he wished. A small smile rose and fell on his face.
"You're doing better," someone said. Lyra's voice, steady and mild, had been in his ear since he was small. Her words came back to him now: "You know how to walk. That doesn't mean you've learned everything. Sometimes, to grow up, you need to fall down."
Arin remembered that and kept on. He was not a quick, cold fighter like some Solmeres. He felt things; he cared. That sometimes made him seem weak. He did not like that idea. He wanted to be brave, to be proud. He wanted the name on his family to feel like honor he'd earned, not a weight he carried badly.
He wiped sweat from his brow and walked toward the servants' garden. The sun was low and calm. From the garden wall he could hear laughter—Daren and his friends told a story and everyone laughed. The river, the Veyra, winked between the trees.
Arin had a small wish that day. It was childish. It was simple. He wanted a day with friends, a picnic by the river, bread and roasted fish and nothing heavy on his shoulders for a few hours.
He waited a moment, then called, "Mother?"
She looked up from the porch, where she sorted herbs into a basket. Elenya's hands smelled of rosemary and warm bread. When she saw Arin, her face softened.
"A picnic?" she repeated, smiling. "With whom?"
"Daren, Tomas, and Lio from the stables," Arin said. He tried to make it sound casual. His voice shook a little. "We'll go down to the Silvervein, fish a bit, lie in the grass for an hour. Just a day. Please?"
Elenya set the herbs down and came close. She touched his elbow lightly, the way mothers do when they make small promises into real ones.
"Your father is away in the capital," she said. "Have you heard? He left this morning. The king called him to the castle."
Arin's chest tightened. Of course. He had not been able to speak to his father. Lord Kaelen Solmere had been called to see King Aldros—important business. Arin knew better than to interrupt a man at the king's command.
"I need to ask him," Arin said. "I didn't mean to go without permission."
Elenya wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and gave him a look that was equal parts amusement and command. "You don't need your father's permission for a walk. He'd fuss, he'd worry. He is a proud man. Let me handle him."
Arin blinked. "You will tell him?"
"I will tell him," she said with a smile. "I'll make him see you're only a boy who needs sunshine. Go. Take a little bread. Be back by dusk. And Arin?"
"Yes?"
"Bring stories," she said. "And don't go poking at ruins. I do not want you breaking your head and giving me another worry."
He grinned. "I'll be careful. I promise."
She kissed his forehead. "Good. Be safe."
Arin ran off to find his friends. He moved through the yard with a light step, because his mother had said yes. He felt ten years younger than his age. For a moment the Solmere house felt like a warm place where worry had melted away.
---
In the garden, Daren and Tomas and Lio waited. Daren, Arin's older brother, had a loud laugh and a quick swing. He teased everyone, but his eye always looked brotherly when he saw Arin.
"So?" Daren said when Arin arrived. "Did the great Duke Kaelen—father, I mean—bless your little holiday?"
Arin rolled his eyes. "He's not here. Mother handled it."
Daren whistled. "Ah. Clever. Our mother is the true commander of this house. She bends the old man into knots and calls it patience."
Tomas grinned. "Good. Then let's go before the old man thinks to come home early."
Lio looked at Arin with the steady look of a stable hand who loved a quiet day. "We'll keep to the path. No ruins. No climbing the fallen tower. Just river and bread."
Arin nodded. "I'll bring the cakes. Mother says the Veyra is the best place to nap."
They started to leave, but Daren stopped halfway. He looked back at the house, his grin fading just a little.
> Daren: "On second thought… you three go on. Someone's got to stay behind. Father will want a proper word when he returns, and I've put it off long enough."
Tomas raised an eyebrow. "You're skipping food? That's a first."
Daren smirked. "I'll have my feast when you lot come back with fish. Try not to fall in the river without me."
He clapped Arin's shoulder and turned back toward the courtyard. Arin watched him go, feeling a pang he couldn't explain. Then Tomas tugged his sleeve and they all headed for the river.
---
Earlier that morning, Lord Kaelen Solmere had been in the castle with King Aldros. The king had shown him a map and pointed at lines and names. "The roads are not safe," the king said. "Skirmishes, strange orders moving in secret. I want someone who understands both sword and counsel."
Kaelen bowed. "I will serve as you wish."
The king looked at the map again. "Not with open banners. This job needs a light hand and a quiet shadow. Your daughter, Lyra, has skills the field needs now. She is calm and sharp. I ask you to allow her to take a delicate charge."
Kaelen felt pride and a new pull at his chest. To send his daughter into danger was to place his heart on the road. Yet the king spoke with a weight that would not be refused. "If that is your command," Kaelen said, "Lyra will go."
King Aldros narrowed his eyes. "Keep the family close, Solmere. Your name glitters. Glitter makes people look—and some teeth will cling to it."
Kaelen took the warning in and bowed. He left for the road with duty on his shoulders and worry for his children stored quiet in his chest. He did not know, in those first hours, that small plans were moving far from the castle and that hands had begun to pull strings against his house.
---
Back at the estate, before Arin left, Kaelen and Elenya had a private moment, a small joke and a softer truth. They stood near their bedchamber and laughed like two people who had loved each other for years.
"You sigh like an old poet," Elenya teased as Kaelen loosened his sword belt.
"And why not?" he answered with mock horror. "Poets have sharp tongues and soft hearts. It is good to be both."
She fed him a piece of bread with long fingers. "Do not eat all the pastries. Save them for the boys. Daren will complain if you upstage him with crumbs."
He took her hand and looked at her. "Our children grow so fast. Daren keeps the light, Lyra keeps the blade, and Arin—" He searched for a word. "Arin keeps the quiet parts. The part of us that wants things to be gentle."
Elenya smiled, a tired but true smile. "Yes. He is gentle. And he is stubborn. That stubbornness will serve him in times that demand more than the blade."
Kaelen kissed her forehead. "Good. I will go. Tell me, if I return and Arin is on some cliff staring at the river, I know whom to blame."
"You will blame me," she said, and they both laughed.
It was an ordinary moment of ordinary love, the sort that held a family together. They could not know that it might be the last ordinary night for a long while.
---
Arin and his friends reached the river and spread a blanket beneath a willow. The water moved slow and silver. They ate bread and cakes, they boasted badly of imaginary giant fish. Tomas tried to pull a trout from a shallow pool and fell in up to his waist, earning a roar of laughter. Arin lay back and watched the clouds drift like sleep.
For a little while, the world narrowed to this: the smell of wet earth, the taste of honeyed cake, the sound of his friends' laughter. He let himself forget the name he carried, the stories, the watchful eyes.
He did not know then that the darkness that watched them from miles away had already taken steps. He did not know that a shadow had stood by the Solmere yews half an hour earlier and had slipped away with a paper folded inside its cloak. He did not know a raven had flown from that shadow to circle the estate and then vanish again toward the far road.
A hush came down the meadow as the sun slid toward the line of trees. The boys grew small and quiet, telling smaller truths. Tomas bragged about his fish. Lio hummed a tune.
Arin stood and stretched and kicked a stone into the river. He felt light and free.
Then someone farther away on the road shouted. It was small at first, like a call for help. The boys paused. Lio stood, listening. He frowned. "Sounds like a rider."
They looked toward the estate, a dark line on the horizon. Arin's heart gave a small, foolish flip. Maybe it was a messenger, telling them the hour to return. Maybe it was nothing.
The shout carried again—closer, sharper. A rider hammering down the lane toward the estate. Alarm moved over the boys like a cold hand.
Arin's face tightened. "We should go. Now."
They left the river in a clumsy rush, running along the path. At the top of the lane, they could see the flag at the gate. It held the Solmere crest, white on blue. The gate itself stood open—no rider had arrived through it yet.
A rider came into view, dust blowing behind him, his horse rearing once before he slammed it to the ground and ran toward the hall. He stumbled, breathless, shaking. His cloak was smeared with ash.
The rider grabbed the gate post and looked at them with wild eyes. His voice broke when he finally spoke. "Solmere—estate—fire—attack—"
The words tumbled out like stones. Arin's mind refused to fit them into shape.
"Fire?" Arin said. The word tasted wrong.
The rider pointed past them, toward the house. A thin line of smoke had begun to thread upward from behind the roofline, a hairline of grey against the darkening sky.
Arin's feet felt heavy and light all at once. A small sound escaped him—no longer a laugh, no longer a joke. "No. No, that can't be."
The boys ran, their voices swallowed by the wind. Behind them the sky darkened and the smoke lifted, small and grey at first, and then thicker.
Arin did not understand everything that had happened. He thought of the picnic, of the cake, of his mother's stitch of rosemary at his collar. He thought of the laugh he had shared and wished—so suddenly—that he had stayed closer to the house.
They ran toward the estate, toward the place where warmth had been like a promise. The road was full of servants and stable hands, faces pale like ash. The smell of smoke grew stronger—bitter and bright.
At the gate, someone knelt with their head in their hands. A servant pointed inside. Arin looked past and saw a shadowed doorway and then a flash of orange behind it. The hall that had been home was not how he had left it.
The rider who had brought the news wept with the sound of a man who had seen too much. "They came at night," he said in a voice that broke. "We barely—"
Arin's vision narrowed and went wide all at once. He could not breathe. He could not move. He wanted to turn away. He wanted to run back to the willow and pretend the river was all that mattered.
A raven's cry cut the air above them, thin and terrible.
Arin felt the ground tilt. For the first time in his life, he felt the Solmere name like a wound.
The smoke rolled thicker, and the chapter closed on the sight of flames starting to eat at the white stone of his home.