Rezal watched it from the roof of the tallest tower as dawn painted the gaps in the mountains in gold, slowly. Flufire a warm weight across his knees.

  He had been there for so long he had not noticed when his fingers went numb.

  He told himself to make his defeat a little less sour.

  He could see his father’s Domain from where he sat—the Canyons—and everything in between, covered in snow: from villas to roads. At the castle's borders, shadows moved in patrols. Werewolves blurring into the treelines.

  The trapdoor creaked.

  He huffed after a deep breath.

  Baaron's black eyes appeared first, his wand raised as if the roof might need defending. His expression softened as a child when Flufire rose to greet him.

  “How can you guess every single time I’m here?” Rezal huffed.

  Baaron knitted his brows. “Yewsia! Is that how you greet your future king?”

  Rezal glanced over his shoulder. His violet gaze piercing Baaron.

  The prince said after a moment, rubbing the tip of his chin. "I'm sorry."

  Rezal looked away. "Too late."

  "Rez—"

  "I know what everyone thinks, Baaron." Rezal’s voice was empty—the way a man got when he'd argued with himself until the argument won. "You were right."

  "I don't think you had a choice in it." Baaron's voice came quickly. "Nor he."

  “Too evil of our Queen if she made us believe we did.” Rezal almost choked on his words.

  “I don’t think she d—”

  "What will they call me now? ? ?"

  Baaron laughed—too loud for dawn. Rezal felt the corner of his mouth twitching.

  "What are the odds," Rezal moved his thumb through Flufire's fur, "that the southern princess would want a boy his own father didn't?"

  His words clouded in the cold as the discomfort coiled in his guts.

  Baaron took a deep breath. "In matters of love, things never work like that."

  Rezal chuckled, then turned to look at him. "You've never said anything that wise before. Did you?"

  "No," Baaron grinned. "Don’t spread."

  They laughed—a broken, but real laugh.

  "Odraud will make sure every living soul in Easeror knows I was too late," Rezal said, killing the jest.

  "That’s his way of forcing you to act. You know it."

  Rezal scratched his thumb against his palm. "He wants proof I won’t let father do to him the same he did to me."

  A hunting party took their attention, they crossed the south road, figures small as ants.

  "I understand more of what you endured than you think," Baaron looked at the horizon. "You have a father, Rez. Both of you do. Ramidur cares—strangely. But he does."

  Grief lived in silences longer than it ever did in screams.

  Rezal didn't answer.

  Baaron's parents had died before Rezal was born, but the tale wasn’t buried with them. Every tavern in Inverdon kept it warm.

  His mother died in the birthing. He had grown up under Zaryan’s roof, in his aunt—the Queen’s—house, as Viperyan’s brother.

  Venilhu Thorne had been the Right Arm of King Aerthal Ophrynth—his counselor, the last man standing in the Marbl when Henreith Scaster's banners came through the gate. He died with his Dom's blade in hands. A blade lost, taken as a token of war by the winner.

  Baaron was four years old.

  Rezal had heard it from Oiregor so many times that it felt like a lived memory rather than history. It began when the wheat ships stopped reaching Sunsdom, priests named it divine punishment.

  Henreith Scaster had been waiting for exactly that—a man who had always pursued a higher seat and coated his greed with the cloak of justice.

  He gathered his swords beneath hunger's banner. Those who followed, did for older reasons: resentment, money, and a faith-sharpened hatred of those who refused to name the Goddess's sons as saviours: the people.

  The Ophrynth’s affiliations with the bothered more than anyone dared to talk.

  Edmund Rysun, Lord of the Grainlands, had simpler reasons. The Magicals' ability to make rivers of quilverns made him feel small, and not even his Ophrynth marriage had filled that edge smooth.

  Some said he betrayed his king; others claimed the king had betrayed his realm.

  The Ophrynth dynasty ended in a single night.

  Two survived: Edmund's wife, and a platinum-haired girl whose beauty made Henreith order another slaughter.

  Less than a moon after: a wedding was held, a coronation was made by Divgora Mayreathe and the grain flowed again. The starving were fed, and no one called him a traitor to his face.

  He returned the dead to their families in white-wrapped trunks—to Inverdon and the Republic alike.

  The Resurrected were reborn from that silence. Not of faith but retribution. Born from Gregoria’s silence. Born to a war that never came—or one that had just begun.

  Carson Amberstand had said it drunk once, and Rezal had never forgotten: .

  "I know they're not your parents, but Zaryan, Gregoria, Oisin—"

  "Yeah." Baaron's voice carried a care. "Sometimes I think I'm better off."

  Rezal smiled. "I'm sure you are." He pushed himself to his feet. "You didn't climb up here just to stare at the snow."

  "No. Your Queen wants you in the dungeons. Books, she said." Baaron's lips curled as his brow arched.

  "You should spend more time with her, you know?" Rezal tried to put some sense into him.

  Baaron's expression hardened. "I honestly think it'd be easier if I went before her. Before taking her place."

  "Me too," Rezal said, and clapped his shoulder. "When you wear the crown, I'll have twice the work."

  Both men laughed as Baaron reached for Flufire, the vulgnis.

  "Give him to Odraud or Viperyan if you go wandering." Rezal adjusted his cloak.

  He traced the spell with his wand. The air bent and he was gone.

  The spell's acrid tang dissolved into wet stone and old iron as he emerged within the castle underground. The dungeons.

  She was waiting at the bottom of the main stair, in silence. He bowed and fell in behind her.

  They descended past the level he knew. The corridors changed. They were not like the ones he had catalogued in childhood.

  The walls changed as they curved downward into a spiral staircase—rough-cuts surrounded them giving way to carvings that moved under torchlight. The Baellards. The Age of Chains. The stone sang a song of conquest, prosperity, slavery, the forging of Inverdon—all coiled into the serpentine body of a basilisk.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rezal slowed. A tremor crawled beneath his skin—not fear, a calling.

  At the bottom, the staircase ended in a blank wall. Gregoria stepped forward and spoke in old , the words too low to follow. The stone rippled like water struck by a drop. Iron doors with serpent head handles, emerald-eyed, its emerald eyes staring at them.

  She pushed them open and caught his arm before he could follow. "Don't."

  He stopped as she casted another spell. ""

  The glow crept from her wand along the floor. In its center stood a great candelabrum carved from metal and a silver chalice beside it. Gregoria drew her belt dagger without ceremony and opened her palm. Her blood hissed against the metal. The air in the chamber shifted—like a curtain, a veil of blue light fell to nothing.

  The first ward.

  Beyond it: a circle of glowing blue light encompassed the entire room. Within, dark granite expanded into a round sanctum. An obelisk at its heart, rune-carved, pulsing with slow rhythm. Seven pillars surrounding it, each capped with a levitating stone, threads of light strung between them like a web: the wardstones that held Inverdon’s protections, since the twelve kingdoms.

  Around them, massive stone steps led to a circular library. Uncountable shelves lined with tomes and scrolls along the curved walls.

  Above, a domed ceiling, painted with constellations, told the myth about Yewsia’s family, the First Gods.

  Rezal could never have imagined, not even in his most fevered dreams that the warden stones hid the memory of their ancestors.

  He looked at Gregoria. At her wound. At the chalice wet and red. Blood magic.

  "Does it look like I'm harming anyone?" she asked.

  "Yourself, my Queen."

  She rolled her eyes. "It's the strongest kind of magic, Rezal."

  "I know, but—"

  "Is it harmful in marriage rituals?"

  "It's different."

  "It isn't." She moved toward him. "Everything can be dark when one intends darkness. Intention defines—not the craft." Her hand settled on his shoulder. "To enter, you must offer your blood as well."

  He looked at the scrolls. He remembered all the lectures about blood magic… None was enough to stop his curiosity.

  His blood, in exchange for that hidden knowledge—for the safety of his kind—seemed a fair trade.

  He held out his arm.

  "Can I bring Flufire?" he asked.

  Gregoria's mouth curled faintly. "Why wouldn’t you? We are the only animals that kill for pleasure, Rezal. The wardens are not for them."

  "Lord Rezal Rellum." She took his wrist. "Do you vow not to use the wisdom in this room to harm others?"

  "I promise," he said carefully, "to use the wisdom in this room to protect us."

  "Boy." Her voice cut. "That is not what I asked."

  "We can’t harm them on purpose, why this? I’ll always protect our kind." He held her gaze.

  Silence stretched for a while.

  "Our kind?" She finally asked.

  "I beg your pardon my Queen. Some of us already believe we ar—" He waited to be turned away. "I believe ideals will divide us. In time."

  She breathed in slowly. "Well. May the Goddess guide me in doing the right thing."

  She drew the blade across his palm before he could say anything.

  Their blood mingled. Nothing happened. Then she whispered—too low again, in The second ward dropped from the ceiling and its hum vibrated within his ribs. Like hunger.

  "What did you say?"

  "A Thorne secret."

  He understood. No one could ever enter through him, willing or not.

  "The first floor?" he asked.

  "Recordings only. Births, deaths, weddings." She moved along the geometric shelves. "Sealed by Thorne blood and the Goddess."

  They walked a little then her fingers found a dark brown volume, leather-bound, steel-cornered. "This," she said, lifting it with both hands, "is the most important book ever written about hexes and dueling curses. ."

  He took it. The weight surprised him. "The Blade of Energy: Curses and Hexes to Duel." He looked up. "Duel?"

  His brows furrowed. A familiar knot formed in his guts.

  “Listen, son… The founding families made a pact after the Souglaves were driven away." Gregoria wiped her hands in her dress. “Magic has been used to attack and protect alike—there was no other way to win. Afterward, the Five Founders swore we would never need to wage a magical war again. A magical war strips the world down to the bone." She met his eyes. "If we use our power as weapons openly, our enemies won't be wrong about us."

  Rezal didn’t answer. He felt the wave of heat followed by cold invading his veins. He couldn’t believe that her, his father, and the agreed to this.

  "It was vowed that this knowledge would be passed only to each family's heir. To be released only on the verge of another Souglave threat."

  Rezal’s throat went dry. "How do you know when that is?"

  "We don't." Her eyes went somewhere past him. "We pray grants us wisdom."

  After a while Rezal heard himself speak the words carved on the basilisk wall, words no one but the Magicals knew. The prophecy that never happened: "."

  Gregoria completed it without hesitation, in a voice that seemed to come from further away than the chamber:

  The echo died slowly.

  Rezal understood, finally, where he stood. The stone beneath his feet was the first magical construction. Older than such vows. Younger than the castle that had grown up around it.

  "The tunnels started here," he said.

  "Yes," Gregoria confirmed.

  "Can I see it?"

  "Another day." She laughed.

  "If they're coming—" He insisted.

  "The Souglaves haven't come in a thousand years. A few more days won't bring our doom, Rezal."

  He looked at the obelisk. At the wardstones. He tried to search for the tunnels.

  "They stretch the full length of the South." Gregoria said, reading his face. "Further than you'd expect. Now, you are among the very few who know of them. And of this place. Can I trust you?"

  "Yes, my Queen."

  She smiled before leaving him with it.

  He pulled a chair to the nearest table and opened the book. The pages smelled of locked rooms—between mold and incense. The handwriting, flawless, a few illustrations pressed between chapters until the index stopped his eye:

  Old Hashyew throughout.

  He looked past it, past the section of hexes he used, Gihiguhloif cast as with a different arc could be deadly. , the submission spell, similar to what his and Gregoria’s Seal could do.

  His eyes stopped at .

  A spell capable of reducing anything to ash. Only four Magicals mastered it, according to the records, The Goddess's twins. Allaistor Thorne, founder of Inverdon. Thordun Wisefair and Alantra Swann—summoned in desperation. No one had understood how to call it since.

  The kind of things one did when divinities still talked to humans.

  He sat back.

  Before going any further he went back for the first chapter.

  , an object split into five parts, each with a different purpose that together formed some sort of holy key—the language was older than , incomprehensible.

  The last section began with the greatest magical taboo: blood magic. It repeated Gregoria’s wisdom: magic doesn’t discern good and evil. The wielder does.

  Even though he resented their elders for keeping it from their people, the chain of events that knowledge could unleash if the wrong hands turned those pages, unsettled him more.

  The last section ended with the hexes that demanded the wielder’s humanity—empathy first, then features, until face and heart wore what their spells demanded.

  There were two hexes documented as the darkest. The only hexes that had no counterspell, only two ways to block it: and the greatest rule in the magical world: the wand of one's blood will not kill its kin.

  Wands are loyal to blood—the ancestors remember.

  He had never understood why wands were treated as sacred heirlooms, until now.

  The first, aimed to torture. Those afflicted by the curse would believe their body was being destroyed, without a hand touching them. Pain built from nothing but the mind eating itself.

  And then the last.

  The Killing Curse. . He read it in his mind. Afraid to say it aloud. No word, he was sure.

  The wand motion was simple: draw the number eight laid and cut it through the center.

  The hardest spell ever conceived. Crafted to preserve the caster's life or that of their blood, child. The cost of using it was a part of the wielder's soul.

  He turned one more page. A drawing—faded, ink bleeding into the vellum.

  A winged lizard. Fire pouring from its jaws.

  Beneath it, in cramped script:

  He closed the book.

  Evil crafts were rare, erased by time only whispers remained—used to frighten children, all of them cast aside by their society.

  As hunger clawed at his ribs. He needed to start practicing.

  He reached for the book. The ward flared. He set it back. The veil dissolved. Enough for him to know he wasn’t allowed to take anything but knowledge from there. He took some notes and left the book before veloporting.

  A second after mingling with air he stood at the main hall that connected the castle ground from entrance to its backwards.

  To his surprise, Odraud was leaning against the corridor wall as though he had been waiting for him.

  "Asthrid's looking for you."

  Rezal hurried to meet him. "What does she want?"

  His brother's smile said everything his mouth didn't bother with.

  "Where is she?" Rezal asked, grinning.

  Odraud slung an arm around his shoulders. "Someone's getting laid."

  "I was starting to think I'd turned virgin again. Too long without a woman."

  Both of them laughed as Odraud gestured for Pandora—its dark-green tail trailing sparks—to follow them toward the staircase.

  "Only Asthrid?" Rezal said.

  Odraud’s brows met and his mouth opened a little.

  "By the Ancients’ sake, Odraud." Rezal pushed his arm away. "Is she the only one asking for me?"

  "Oh." A beat. "Right, I didn't—"

  Pandora shot ahead of them, trailing light.

  "Don't say it."

  Their laughter echoed through the corridor.

  "I haven't seen our royal princess today," Odraud said, quieter. "Better if she doesn’t know who’s in your bed."

  "Reinvigorating," Viperyan's voice came from the stairwell, "to know you're trying to keep gossip from me."

  "Too late," Rezal said, widening his eyes.

  Odraud went pale. Rezal laughed. Viperyan descended with Flufire at her heel—he felt something loosen in his chest, seeing the creature alongside her.

  "Asthris, isn’t it?" she asked, smirking.

  "What—" Rezal started.

  "By Yewsia’s locks." She bit her lower lip against the grin. "Have you no self-respect left?"

  "In my defence," he raised both hands, "It's rude to refuse such a gift." He and Odraud both laughed. She shook her head. "You wouldn't understand, not until you've experienced it."

  "Perhaps it's better I haven't." She turned toward the tangerineries, Flufire padding after her. "I'll keep this one with me. Imagine the poor thing watching it." She called over her shoulder: "At least Asthrid's good for something."

  "Viperyan!" Both brothers shouted after her.

  Odraud laughed as he clapped Rezal's shoulder, pushing him toward the stairs.

  The nobles' wing smelled of vanilla and flowers before he reached it. He didn't knock—she had left his door open.

  Rezal felt a huge pressure in his lower abdomen at the sight of her legs spread open, inviting him in.

  She lay in his bed, sheets pushed back, small breasts uncovered. Her body was a temptation he couldn’t refuse—a terrible woman, though a hot one. She touched herself watching him come through the door, and every useful thought he'd had since the dungeon left him entirely.