The funeral was not long.
The nobles hadn't come to honor the dead—they'd come to witness the fall of a legend.
In the northern cemetery of House Valrith, where snow kissed the peaks of marble headstones engraved with the Frostwolf, a lone boy stood before a fresh grave.
Kaelan Valrith.
Six years old.
His black hair fell across his forehead; his crimson eyes—the gift of his father—stared into the earth that had swallowed his mother.
He did not cry.
He did not scream.
But something inside him had died before the grave was even sealed.
From afar, a man approached alone.
He wore no ducal cloak, no crown of office. Only a black coat, and grief heavier than mountains.
Duke Valrith stopped a few paces away. He looked at the grave, then at his son.
"Kaelan," he said, voice like wind sighing through dead trees. "The carriage waits. Come back with me to the capital."
The boy didn't turn.
"And will she be there too?" he asked, voice low. "The woman whose twins you brought into our home?"
The Duke flinched, but did not deny it.
"They are my children as well," he said quietly. "And just as you are my firstborn heir… they are part of this family's future."
"And my mother?" Kaelan whispered, finally turning. "Was she part of your future… when you laughed with that woman in the eastern garden?"
The Duke did not answer.
He could not.
Silence stood between them like a wall of ice.
Then Kaelan reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver locket shaped like a frostwolf—the last gift from his mother before her heart fell silent forever.
"I will not go back with you," he said, his words cutting the air like a blade. "I will go where blood is not betrayed."
From the edge of the cemetery, a tall figure emerged—cloaked in gray fur, eyes sharp as polar ice.
Lord Ryn—youngest brother of Kaelan's mother, last guardian of House Frostveil.
"He comes with me," Ryn said, calm but final. "To Valryke Isle. The one place deception has not yet touched."
The Duke looked at his brother-in-law, then at his son. In those crimson eyes, he saw something he hadn't seen in years: unbreakable will.
He did not command.
He did not beg.
He only bowed his head, like a man who knew he had lost more than he deserved.
"Keep him safe," he said.
"He will keep himself safe," Ryn replied. "Or he will not live to see tomorrow."
Kaelan did not look back at his father.
He took the locket, fastened it around his neck, and walked toward his uncle.
Behind him, the Duke remained alone at the grave of the woman he loved… betrayed… and lost twice over.
And in his heart, Kaelan heard a voice for the first time—not the dragon's, but his own:
"I will return… when no one needs to ask if I am stronger than my father."