The storm had been gathering since dusk, rolling over the northern hills like a black tide. By nightfall, the sky above Château de Foncé was a mass of boiling clouds, restless and heavy, streaked with pale lightning that flashed silently at first, then cracked the heavens apart with jagged sound.
The castle itself was no grand palace, but a sturdy keep of dark stone, perched on a bluff overlooking the river Ancel. Its towers were squat and practical, built not for beauty but for survival, each topped with banners that whipped violently in the wind. The red-and-gold sigil of House de Foncé — a sun pierced by a single sword — snapped against the storm, barely visible in the rain.
Inside, the walls groaned faintly as if the storm pressed against them. Torches smoked in their brackets, the flames bending away from the drafts that seeped through every crack in the stone. The castle was alive with footsteps, anxious whispers, the clang of buckets and the hurried scrape of shoes.
Everyone knew. The Baroness was in labor.
In the great hall, normally a place of mead and laughter, silence reigned. Long wooden tables stood empty of feast, their surfaces reflecting the orange glow of the hearth. The fire snapped and spat, but its warmth was thin tonight. The people gathered there did not huddle for comfort; instead they lingered like nervous ghosts.
A cluster of squires whispered near the far wall, pretending to polish their lord's armor. Their words were low but carried in the vast chamber.
"It has been hours now…""More than hours. She has been crying since the moon rose.""What if the child…"
"Quiet."
The voice cut through their mutters. Guillaume de Braye, captain of guards, stood tall at the edge of the hearth, his scarred hand resting on the pommel of his longsword. His hair was tied back, his eyes hard. Unlike the boys, he had seen battle; his silence was not fear, but discipline.
At a table near the fire sat Étienne, the steward, bent-backed but sharp-eyed, his parchment-thin fingers wrapped around a cup of watered wine. He said little, but his gaze followed everything — the maids carrying linens, the servants fetching bowls of steaming water, the guards exchanging nervous glances.
Near the doors, Madeleine, the head maid, scolded two younger girls in whispers as they passed with bundles of cloth. Her face was pale, but her voice cut like a whip.
"Hold it higher — higher! Do not drag linens on the floor, you'll make them unclean before the midwives even touch them. Do you want the Lady to bleed upon filth?"
The girls flinched and hurried on.
And through all of it, one man's steps echoed like a drumbeat.
Baron Henri de Foncé, master of the keep, walked the length of the hall once more, his boots striking against the stone in steady rhythm. His cloak trailed damply behind him, water dripping from its edges where he had braved the storm earlier. He carried himself with rigid poise, shoulders square, head high, every inch the baron his people expected.
Yet his face betrayed him — the lines around his mouth deeper tonight, his eyes shadowed. He was not a man prone to pacing, but his path had already worn invisible grooves into the hall.
Étienne rose stiffly as he passed. "My lord," the steward said, bowing slightly. "Still no word?"
Henri stopped only long enough to shake his head. "The midwives say she endures. Nothing more."
The steward's lips pressed thin. He glanced at the shuttered windows, rattling under the wind. "The night is restless. Forgive me, but… such storms are not born without meaning."
Henri's eyes narrowed. "You would tell me thunder speaks of fate?"
"Not fate, my lord. Change. And change rarely comes gently."
Henri turned away before his temper rose. He could not allow the whispers of old men to infect his own thoughts. Yet even as he strode toward the stair, the steward's words clung to him like burrs.
The storm rattled the walls again, and Henri's mind turned unbidden to his grandmother's voice — frail, quivering, yet sharp with superstition.
A child born with hair like flame… she had told him once, when he was a boy at her knee. Such a child is touched by both the Sun above and the Abyss below. Blessed… or cursed. You will know which by the blood that follows him.
He had scoffed then, as a youth does, but now, with Céleste screaming behind closed doors, the memory weighed on him like a stone.
Henri climbed the narrow spiral stair, his cloak brushing the damp stone as he ascended. The torches here burned lower, their flames shivering each time the wind sighed through unseen cracks. Smoke clung to the ceiling, the air sharp with the scent of pitch.
Halfway up, a young servant nearly dropped his torch, the flame sputtering out as if snuffed by unseen fingers.
"Relight it!" barked Henri, his voice harsher than intended. The boy scrambled, fumbling with flint and steel, cheeks red with shame.
Henri continued upward. His jaw was clenched so tight it ached, but he forced each step to be measured, deliberate. The lord of the house could not falter, not before the eyes of servants and guards. If he trembled, they would all collapse into panic.
At the landing, the corridor stretched toward the family's chambers. Two guards stood before the heavy oak doors, their armor gleaming faintly in torchlight. Both straightened at his approach, saluting with fists to breastplates. Their eyes, however, betrayed their unease.
From beyond the door came the cries — raw, ragged, primal — of a woman in agony. Céleste's voice, breaking in ways Henri had never heard, cut through him like a blade.
He stopped a few paces short, his breath shallow.
One of the guards muttered without thinking: "They say… a child born under storm and fire-haired is marked. By the Sun… or the Abyss."
Henri's gaze snapped to him. The man blanched, lowering his head, his knuckles tightening on the hilt of his sword.
"Fool's tales," Henri said coldly, his voice low but sharp. "Hold your tongue, lest it be your last."
The man stammered an apology, and silence returned. Yet the words lingered. Henri could not silence the pounding of his own heart, nor the thought of what such omens might mean.
He placed a hand against the door, feeling the faint tremor of his wife's screams. His chest tightened, his jaw clenched until his teeth ground together.
Stay with me, Céleste. For the sake of our house. For the sake of our child.
The storm roared, thunder shaking the stones themselves. Somewhere down the corridor, a torch guttered and died, plunging half the hall into shadow. The guards shifted uneasily, one making the sign of the Sun God across his chest.
Henri drew a slow, steady breath. His face hardened, his shoulders straightened. Whatever waited within, he would not enter as a fearful man, but as the lord of House de Foncé.
With a push, he opened the door and stepped into the birthing chamber.