The storm broke at midnight, as though the sky itself meant to split the keep in two.Cael Ashveil Varissen would not remember that night, but it would follow him all the same.On the tower's high floor, the midwife muttered curses under her breath as she pressed one last time on his mother's belly. Lady Liora Ashveil Varissen's skin had gone pale as parchment hours ago."Push," the midwife hissed.Liora bit down on a strip of linen and refused to scream.Lightning lit the sky. The stones underfoot shook, and bits of white dust fell from the ceiling. At that exact moment, Cael took his first breath and cried.The midwife caught him, muttering a prayer under her breath.He looked so fragile.Another maid stepped forward with a cloth, but froze when she saw Liora's eyes staring glassy and fixed on the cracked ceiling."Too late," one of them whispered.Too late.The baby's thin cries filled the room as the midwife cut the cord and swaddled him....Hours later, after the body had been c

The great hall buzzed with quiet conversation and the occasional scrape of cutlery.Cael Ashveil, though everyone here called him Cael Varissen now, sat at the end of the lowest table. The smell of roasted fowl and garlic bread made his stomach knot, though not from hunger.At the head table, Lord Edric Varissen presided over the meal. Beside him sat Jorlan Varissen, already holding court among the squires and cousins gathered near. Jorlan's laughter rang loudest even as he tore into his meat with the same decisive ease.Cael's fingers curled into his tunic as he watched them.Matilde set a trencher before him with a muttered, "Eat, boy," and moved on without waiting for thanks.He picked at the bread, though his fingers trembled.It was always like this.Always the same ritual, Jorlan showing off his strength, Edric's silent approval, the low murmurs of relatives watching both sons, one golden, one… whatever Cael was supposed to be."…if Edric doesn't tighten his hold soon," one aunt

Nella had started young in House Varissen.The keep was all she'd ever known, and she had served under three barons now. First there was old Gerlan Varissen, drunk more often than sober, but still mean enough when it counted. Then came Edric's brother, who lasted only a handful of years before dying to bandits or to poison, depending on which story you chose to believe.And now Edric himself, stern and watchful, clinging to the title like it still meant something.That was the way of the Varissens. Barons of the Western Ridge, sworn to the crown, but too small to matter most years, unless the mines happened to yield something worth fighting over. They held on to their land and their name because they had nothing else left.Nella sometimes thought her whole life had been spent waiting for sickly little nobles to die. It wasn't a cruel thought, just the simple truth of her station.You cleaned their sheets when they coughed up blood. You spooned broth into their mouths when they couldn'

Cael Ashveil Varissen hadn't meant to end up here.Truly. It had started two days ago, when he'd caught Jorlan standing too stiff after another flawless spar. That same tautness in the shoulders, the iron-clad smile... Fear. Real fear, hiding just beneath the shine of gold.That had stuck with Cael. Not the bout, not the cheers, but the crack behind the mask.Once he saw it, he couldn't stop seeing it. Even now, as he crept through the empty stairwell, the image lingered in his mind.If even Jorlan feared something, then maybe everyone else did too.And if Cael could learn what they feared and why, then maybe… maybe he wouldn't have to stand in his brother's shadow forever.Jorlan was back to performing for the court, charming ladies with exaggerated tales, drawing laughter from minor knights and stewards alike, but Cael's mind had wandered already, not to swords or the attention that came with being a prodigy at it, but to the numbers... the coins.Because none of them laughed like t

The tower stones felt cold against Cael's palms as he leaned against the wall in his room, staring at the moonlit yard below.The words from Edric's lecture still echoed in his head."As useless as a merchant's son."Sleep refused to come. He'd thought working through the ledgers would quiet his mind, but the numbers only reminded him how fragile their household actually was.His gaze drifted to the trinket lying next to it.The locket.It had been among his mother's belongings, or what little Edric hadn't burned. Matilde had smuggled it to him years ago, claiming it was nothing more than a keepsake. A thin chain and a flat oval of tarnished silver, etched faintly with something he couldn't quite read.But lately, the weight of it had grown heavier. And tonight, for reasons he couldn't name, he couldn't stop staring at it.Cael picked it up."You've stared at me long enough," he muttered to himself, his own voice dry and strange in the quiet.He thumbed the tiny clasp and after years