Chapter 1: Prologue - Shattered Hope

The sound pierced stone.

A thin, newborn wail, ragged and shrill, rising from the bowels of the keep where no child should be.

Gren stopped mid-step, torch guttering in his hand, his blood running cold.

It was too soon.

He had thought there was time left—time to convince Orisk, threaten him, force him if need be to do the right thing. To bring her into the light. To make good on the pact before it was too late.

But the cry shattered the last of that hope.

The child had come, and with it the death of every chance Gren had clung to.

He moved quickly, boots striking stone, the torch spitting sparks in the damp. He knew the way too well; he had walked these passages in restless worry, pressed by the weight of the secret Orisk had chained him to.

He curses the king as his boots thundered down steps and through passages dark and damp. He had begged the king again and again to honor her, to reveal her to the people, to let the Fenrathi see their daughter alive and cherished.

He had warned him of the danger, the war waiting.

The Fenrathi are not fools, Orisk.

They are not weak. They are deadly. And this is no nameless woman you’ve hidden in the dark. This is the Vael’Syn’s daughter you've hidden in the bowels of your keep when she should have had place at your side.

Damn the people who would scorn her, damn the people who would fear her, damn the people who would flee before her gold eyes.

But Orisk was a coward.

He had hidden her instead, locked her behind stone and bar, buried her as though she were shame rather than bride. He had threatened Gren into silence—Orisk, his friend, who once had trusted him with crown and council. He had raised his voice, his hand, even a blade once, when Gren pressed too hard. The mask of the king had cracked, and beneath it was only fear.

And then the deaths had begun.

One by one, the five soldiers who had accompanied him that night by the cover of a moonless sky had vanished into the earth. Accidents, Orisk said, each one neatly explained away.

A misstep from a parapet, a fall from a horse, fever in the night.

Gren had not believed it for a moment. Secrets bled men dry, and Orisk had been desperate to bleed this one until it vanished.

Then the priest. Gone. Disappeared without farewell, without trace. Gren had not asked. He had not dared.

And so the secret had narrowed until only two men bore it, knew the truth of the woman in the belly of the keep: Orisk and Gren.

Now the cry led him to the barred door, one that looked as non-descript as any other that lined the long corridor, stores and storage and warehouse. Gren would have passed this door by had it not been for the screaming babe inside. His hands trembled as he lifted them to the secret he had been ordered never to touch, under pain of death. The bar sat heavy across the door, iron-banded wood stained with old oil. Gren set his torch against the wall and seized the bar in both hands. His arms shook with the effort as he heaved it free. The iron screamed. The wood groaned.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The door swung open, and the sound inside gutted him.

Shaelira sat slumped against the far wall, her raven-black hair plastered to her brow, her gown dark with blood. Her proud head lolled sideways, lips parted, gold eyes closed forever. She had been a warrior’s daughter, cunning and strong, the Vael’Syn’s gift of peace to a cowardly king. And here she was nothing but another secret buried in the dark.

In her lap, a babe screamed.

Her fingers still cradled the infant and the stains on her bosom made it seem as though she had pressed the newborn to her chest before the strength left her arms and death claimed her soul. Now the babe lay in the hollow between her legs, her fingers brushing the babe's arms as though she reached for her child still, the tiny thing screamed and thrashed on the cold floor beneath the ruined gown.

Gren staggered forward and fell to his knees. He gathered the child in his arms, pressing it to his chest, the warmth of the small body cutting him sharper than any blade. The child, a female, a princess...squirmed, wailed, fists clenching, breath hitching. Her eyes cracked open against the torchlight, and faint gold glimmered there.

Fenrathi.

His throat closed. His eyes burned. The pact was true, and now broken. The Vael’Syn’s daughter had died in silence, and her child lived.

Boots thundered down the passage behind him. The king burst into the chamber, cloak half-fastened, face pale with sweat. His eyes went not to the body, nor to the child crying in Gren’s arms, but to the door—open, unbarred, his secret spilling into the air.

“You opened it?!” Orisk shrieked, his voice high with panic. “By the gods, Gren, I told you never to touch that door!”

Gren rose, the babe pressed to his chest, his face carved in fury. “The door?” His voice shook the stone. “Your wife lies dead in her blood, your child crying for life—and you scream at me for opening a door?”

Orisk staggered, words tumbling out like excuses slipping on ice. “I—I didn’t know she was this close! She said she ached, she was tired, but I thought—there would be time. I didn’t think—”

Gren’s voice cracked into a roar. “You knew she was in labor?”

“She complained, yes, but women—they always complain,” Orisk stammered, hands fluttering as if to quiet him. “I didn’t realize—not so soon, not—don’t shout, Gren, please—”

The torch clattered to the ground, sparks scattering. Gren’s fist followed, striking Orisk square in the jaw with a crack like breaking bone. The king reeled, clutching his face, eyes wide in shock.

Gren snatched up the torch again, firelight flaring. “You’ve damned us all,” he rasped. “The Fenrathi will answer this with blood. They may already know. You and I both know how well they can pass among us. They could be here already, Orisk. Watching. Waiting.”

The king paled, trembling, lips working soundlessly. Because Gren was right.

“What can I do?” Orisk whispered, voice breaking. “Gren, tell me—what can I do?”

Gren shook his head, grief dragging every word. “What you should have done from the start. Shown her to your people. Honored her. Kept your word.” He looked down at the child, her cries softening into hiccups. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “But it’s too late for that now.”

He pressed his scarred thumb along the babe’s cheek, her tiny mouth rooting instinctively. His eyes lifted, hard as iron.

“Now you must raise her. Keep her. Call her daughter. Call her princess. Name her heir. Let the Fenrathi see she is wanted. Let them see she is placed where she belongs.”

Orisk shook his head violently, panic cracking his voice. “No! They’ll ask about the mother. What do I say then? What lie do I tell?”

Gren’s roar shook the chamber. “Do you want to die, Orisk?”

The king flinched, shrinking against the wall, his crownless head bowed beneath Gren’s wrath.

Gren sighed, deep and ragged, the sound of a man whose hope was gone. He rocked the child gently, her small weight warm against him.

“My wife will take her,” he said at last. “Until a nurse can be found. She gave birth weeks ago—she has milk enough for two. She’ll keep her alive.”

He turned, eyes burning, fixing Orisk in place. “I know you, Orisk. You won’t do the right thing. But don’t damn her to silence as you did her mother.”

He looked down once more at the child, her faint-gold eyes glimmering like sunlight caught in water. His voice broke with reverence and rage.

“Name her Ariadne—light of the sun. Let her remind you always of what you buried. Let her remind you of the shame of your choices.”

The babe whimpered softly, breath hitching. The sound filled the chamber like a curse.

And Orisk, pale and trembling, had nothing left to answer.