A trial is held. Blood magic is used to test the baby’s lineage.The Grand Court hadn’t been this crowded in a decade.Everyone who mattered and many who didn’t filled the golden hall,whispering behind jeweled fans and silk sleeves. Nobles,guards,healers,mages,even foreign emissaries stood shoulder to shoulder under the stained-glass dome.At the center stood a silver bowl etched with fire runes.Beside it,three robed magickers from the Order of Binding waited silently,hands clasped,faces expressionless. They were old older than most traditions still followed and trained in the ancient craft of blood revelation.The baby,Casian,lay quietly in Leona’s arms,bundled in a deep violet cloth. He didn’t cry. His eyes so unmistakably familiar were wide open.And Adrian stood before the court,unarmed,uncrowned,but taller than any man present.He gave a single nod.Leona stepped forward.One of the magickers approached her and Adrian both,silver blades in hand small and curved,ceremonial.No on

The great hall of the palace gleamed with golden torches,their flames flickering like nervous hearts. Nobles in glittering gowns and silk robes whispered behind jeweled fans and sipped nervously from crystal goblets. Tension clung to the air like thick perfume unshakable,sour.The Unity Ceremony had not been held in years. The idea of it resurfacing now,in the wake of scandal,betrayal,and blood,made the evening feel like a powder keg.At the center of it all stood Evelyn,cloaked in silver. Her crown glistened under the chandeliers,but it was her face frozen in quiet control that silenced the room more than any royal decree.Elara sat beside her on a cushioned seat,small hands folded in her lap. The child’s eyes watched everything. She hadn’t spoken since the trial.Adrian stood tall near the dais,his expression unreadable,carved from marble. By his side stood Leona,dressed in regal red that clung to her frame like fire. The baby boy lay in her arms,swaddled in white with a golden broo

The chamber was suffocating.Evelyn stood motionless in the center of the grand hall,the note still clenched in her trembling fingers. The baby was gone. The nobles screamed and stumbled over one another like frightened sheep,their gowns and silks now insignificant against the storm of fear. Elara clung to her mother’s cloak,her eyes wide,glassy,haunted.Adrian barked orders from the dais. “Seal the gates! No one leaves this palace not a single soul!” His voice cracked the air like a whip,but his eyes betrayed something else. Not just rage. Terror.Evelyn turned slowly,her voice low and cold. “Bring me every nurse,every midwife,every servant who was near that child.”The shadows moved.Within the hour,the palace’s lower chambers echoed with panicked pleas and stammered explanations. Evelyn sat like a blade on a throne of thorns,her stare slicing through each trembling face.“She was just there!” one of the midwives cried. “We don’t know how she vanished,my Queen! She gave the baby to

“Where is she?!”Evelyn’s voice shattered the morning calm like a blade through glass. Her scream echoed down the marble corridors of the royal wing, making servants freeze mid step and guards stumble in their pursuit behind her.Her boots thundered against the stone, each step a strike of fury and fear. Her breath came in sharp bursts, rage and dread twisting in her gut like twin vipers. She had only turned her back for a moment. Just long enough to take counsel. Just long enough for something unthinkable to happen.Now Elara’s room loomed before her its oak door slightly ajar, swaying with a sinister calm.“No… no no no…” Evelyn whispered as she reached for the handle.She pushed it open.A small wooden horse lay on its side at the threshold,Elara’s favorite toy, hand carved by Adrian last winter. One wheel was cracked.Inside, the room looked undisturbed. Almost too perfect. The bed was neatly made, the pillows fluffed, the blankets folded with the care of a nursemaid. The curtains

The air was thick with smoke and chanting as the black flames coiled higher from the pool. At its edge, the high priest stepped forward, his voice ringing above the murmuring cultists.“You have brought them here, Leona,” he said, eyes glowing unnaturally beneath his bone-white mask. “But only one child will rise from the flame. The soul cannot divide. You must decide.”Leona’s knuckles whitened around the ceremonial dagger.Elara lay still on the mirrored altar, her chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes wide with both fear and something colder..resolve. Across the pool, the baby cried again, weaker now.Leona’s gaze flicked between them. “They are both of the blood. Both rightful. How can I choose?”“You do not choose the rightful,” the priest said. “You choose the vessel.”Outside the ancient mountain cavern that housed the cult’s temple, Adrian and a handful of loyal knights charged through a fallen forest path, their breaths quick in the high-altitude air.“We're close,” Adrian c