I remember the night my family died.
I was small, smaller than the shadow I tried to fold myself into, hiding deep inside my parents' room. The wardrobe was my fortress, though a frail one, its wooden walls trembling as much as I did each time the house shuddered beneath heavy boots and breaking doors.
Pressed back against the furthest corner, I buried my face against the hanging weight of my father's shirts. Their smell, warm, musky, and familiar, filled my lungs and fought against the stench of smoke that had already begun to seep under the door.
My whole body shook, and yet I dared not breathe too loudly. The air was sharp, like glass in my throat, as I tried to silence the frantic pounding of my heart. Beyond the walls of my hiding place, the night had become a storm of screams. High-pitched, ragged cries from the servants, the desperate shrieks of my sisters, the defiant roar of my father's voice cut short by the clash of steel. Every sound tangled together until I could not tell one from another, until it all pressed down on me so heavily I thought my chest might split apart.
The floorboards quaked with each crash of a door being splintered from its hinges. I imagined the men tearing through the corridors, torches in one hand, blades in the other, their armor groaning like hungry beasts with every step.
A voice bellowed orders I could not understand, guttural and harsh, and the sound carried closer, closer, closer, until it was as though the very wardrobe would be ripped open and I would be dragged into that nightmare.
I pressed my forehead harder into the fabric of my father's coat, the one he always wore when winter bit at the windows, and I whispered into it as though it could hear me. "Please… please make them go away. Please, Father. You always do that, right?"
But the only reply was another scream, shrill and sudden, cut off with a wet crack that left silence more terrifying than sound. My teeth dug into my knuckles to stop the sob rising in my throat. Somewhere outside, wood split with a thunderous blow.
Somewhere else, glass shattered into a thousand glittering knives. And through it all, through the chaos, through the fire licking at the edges of the night, I waited, too afraid to move, too afraid to even hope.
The door slammed open with a force that shook the very walls, the thunderous crack of wood on stone echoing through the chamber like a death knell. Through the narrow slit between my father's shirts, I saw him. Duke Asteron Sunspire, head of the rival house, master of cruelty, and the shadow that had haunted my family's dreams for years. He did not stumble or rush as the soldiers had; no, he entered with the deliberate calm of a man who already knew the outcome.
The torchlight licked over his figure, over the black cloak that trailed behind him like a wound in the air. Strange symbols glimmered across the fabric, runes that writhed and shifted as though alive, reflecting crimson and gold in ways fire should not.
His hand rested on the hilt of his sword with casual ease, but it was not the weapon that froze me. It was his smile. That smile, curved, knowing, and merciless. The kind of smile that did not need blood to feed it, for cruelty itself was its nourishment. I will never forget it, not in this lifetime or the next.
My father lay sprawled on the floor before him, one hand pressed against his chest, blood bubbling between his fingers as though the life within him were trying to escape. His breaths came in ragged, wet gasps that rattled the silence left after the soldiers withdrew.
My mother knelt beside him, her gown torn, her hands trembling violently as she tried to keep him together, as if love alone could hold his soul in place. She whispered his name over and over, her voice breaking with every syllable.
They looked so small then. So fragile. Nothing like the towering figures who had once seemed unshakable to me, the parents who had stood as pillars against the storms of politics and rivals. Stripped of their power, stripped of their dignity, they seemed only human, weak, breakable, and unbearably mortal.
Duke Asteron's boots clicked softly as he stepped further into the room, his cloak whispering over the stone floor. He stopped before my parents, tilting his head as though studying an insect caught beneath glass.
"So," he said, his voice low and smooth, carrying the weight of arrogance born from generations of conquest. "The mighty House Greymane brought down by its own pride. How pitiful. How… satisfying."
My father coughed again, blood spraying across the floor, but his eyes burned as he lifted his head. "You will not—" The words died in his throat, drowned by pain, but his intent was clear.
Asteron's smile widened, slow, as if savoring the last resistance.
He crouched, meeting my father's gaze, his voice dropping into something intimate, venomous. "Oh, but I already have."
From my hiding place, pressed into the suffocating dark of the wardrobe, I wanted to scream, to throw myself at him, to claw at that smirk until it vanished forever. But my legs were stone, my throat a knot of silence. All I could do was watch, helpless, as the man who had destroyed my world bent closer to finish what he had begun.
Then Asteron moved. Not with haste, not with the fury of battle, but with a slow, cruelty that made my skin crawl. His hand tightened around the hilt, and with a twisted grace he drove the blade down again into my father's chest.
The steel slid in like ice, and my father's body arched in agony, a strangled cry tearing from his throat. Blood spilled thick and dark, soaking the floor, painting my mother's hands as she tried to stop what no one could stop. Asteron leaned close while he twisted the blade, his lips curling, his eyes never leaving mine.
Because he knew.
Through that narrow slit between the coats and cloaks, I felt his gaze lock onto me. He didn't shout, didn't point, didn't reveal me to his soldiers. He simply smirked, as though the knowledge of my terror was sweeter to him than any kill. As though this nightmare was a performance, staged only for my eyes.
"Run," my mother whispered. Her voice cracked, a breath more than a sound, but I heard it. Her head turned just enough, her gaze finding mine in the shadows. For a heartbeat, our eyes locked, hers wide with desperate love, mine frozen with paralyzing dread.
But I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. My body was a stone carved from fear, my chest so tight it felt as though my ribs were cages trapping me in place. The air tasted of iron and smoke, sharp and unbearable, and still I stayed.
Asteron wrenched his sword free with a wet sound, then sheathed it as though it were no longer needed. He bent, seized my father by the hair, then my mother, dragging them as if they weighed nothing at all.
My mother screamed his name, begged him to stop, her nails clawing helplessly at the floorboards. The sharp screech of keratin on wood filled the room, desperate, piercing, and then dulled as her fingers bent and broke under the strain.
Still, her hand reached. For me. For the wardrobe. For the child she knew was watching but could not save her.
Blood smeared across the stone floor, thick streaks marking their path as he pulled them toward the doorway. Asteron's laughter followed, booming and merciless, echoing off the high ceiling like the voice of the devil himself. Harsh, guttural, and mocking. Each bark of it cursed my family's name, spat on our legacy, shattered everything we had ever stood for.
And I trapped, and trembling, could only watch as they disappeared into the corridor, leaving behind nothing but blood, screams, and the echo of his laughter that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
I stumbled through the smoke-choked corridors, my feet slipping on blood, my hands clutching at the walls to keep myself from collapsing. Every step felt heavier than the last, my legs shaking, my lungs tight with sobs I dared not release.
Somehow, I dragged myself upward, climbing the staircase one trembling step at a time until I reached the window at the far end of the hall.
I pressed my forehead to the cold glass, blinking through the blur of tears. Below, the courtyard stretched out like some vision of hell. Bodies lay scattered in grotesque shapes, limbs bent at angles no body should bear.
Men and women I had known, the servants who had tucked me in at night, the guards who had once lifted me onto their shoulders, the cousins who had laughed with me at feasts, all of them lay broken, and discarded.
Around them, soldiers reveled like drunken beasts. Their voices carried up into the night, rough and triumphant, echoing with savage glee. Torches swung in their hands, casting wild shadows across the stone. Flames licked at the stables, the banners, the gardens, devouring everything I had ever thought permanent.
And there, painted across the walls, drawn over the corpses, were crude crosses of blood. A mark. A message. A desecration of everything House Greymane had stood for.
My palms flattened against the window, my breath fogging the glass as I cried soundlessly. My throat was raw, yet no scream would come. The sobs that tore through me were silent things, strangled and hidden, for even now I was afraid to be heard. The glass beneath my cheek was icy, but it was not enough to numb the burning ache in my chest.
The world outside blurred as my tears spilled faster, until all I could see was fire and darkness twisting together, until all I could hear was the drunken roar of soldiers celebrating our ruin.
That was the night House Greymane ended. The night our name was buried under ash and blood. The night my family was stolen, my home defiled, my world shattered.
That was the night I became alone.
Duke Asteron threw back his head and shouted to the heavens, his voice rolling over the courtyard like thunder. His arms spread wide, cloak flaring behind him as though he were a dark king crowned in fire.
"AND SO—!"
The word echoed, carried on smoke and screams. Then, suddenly, his gaze snapped upward. His eyes found me in the window, pinning me like a hawk sighting prey. And in that instant, he smiled, not cruel this time, but joyous, triumphant, the kind of happiness that feeds on ruin.
His voice rose again, raw with victory, with mockery, with delight in my despair:
"THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL!"