Part I – The Feast
Veloria's great hall blazed with torches, shadows writhing across marble pillars.
Banners of foreign realms still hung—Eryndral's frost, Kharas's flame, Vaelmar's tide—though their emissaries now watched with sharper eyes, weighed by smoke and whispers from the streets.
The Duke drank as though nothing had changed.
He laughed, loud and brittle, goblet raised high.
"Veloria endures!" he thundered. "Let the cowards of shadow slink. Let them gnaw the bones we throw. My crown does not break!"
Laughter rippled, but hollow. Rowan, seated two places down, felt the tremor beneath it. He saw his father's grip choke the goblet's stem. He caught the flicker of unease behind the mask.
The leash is fraying, Rowan thought. Soon it will snap.
Across the hall, the chambermaid's eyes met his. She moved among serving trays, veil low, hands steady. A flask was poured into golden cups, poisoned and indistinguishable from the rest. No one noticed.
They never noticed the cracks.
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Part II – The First Ember
The hall roared with noise until the first knight coughed.
A sharp, wet sound.
Then another.
A goblet fell, spilling crimson across marble. A noble doubled over, froth on his lips.
Gasps split the air. Servants froze. Wine pooled across the floor like veins of blood.
Alistair surged to his feet, roaring: "Guards! Treachery!"
Chaos broke like storm. Some spat their wine onto the stone, faces pale. Others clawed at their throats. Servants scattered, knocking platters to the ground.
And Rowan rose, slow, unhurried, as though the storm bent around him. He had not drunk. He did not move to help.
His father's eyes raked him like daggers.
"YOU!" the Duke bellowed, voice cracking the hall. "You stand while others choke?"
Rowan bowed, flawless. "Perhaps the gods smile on me, Father."
The Duke's fury filled the silence, but in the nobles' eyes, Rowan saw it: not only awe, not only doubt—fear.
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Part III – The Second Ember
Far below, Veloria's storehouses burned.
The old armorer had stacked wood and oil with patient hands. Now flames climbed skyward, painting towers in smoke and red light.
Talon's knife flashed in alleys, leaving guards choking on their own blood. The stableboy's mules stampeded through the square, scattering goods, scattering people.
By dawn, Veloria did not wake to coin and trade.
It woke to smoke.
To whispers.
To fear.
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Part IV – The Wolf's Scent
Darius Vale watched from the noble tier, his grin a thin red wound.
"The city burns," he whispered to the envoy of Vaelmar. "The bastard smiles, the Duke rages. The leash weakens. Tell your king the wolf smells blood."
The envoy's cold nod was enough. Gold would flow to whichever hand struck truest.
Darius's gaze slid across the hall to Rowan, standing untouched among choking nobles.
"Smile while you can," he murmured. "Wolves bite last."
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Part V – The Crack Widens
When the poisoned cups were cleared, when the fires were smothered, Alistair sat slumped in the wreckage of his feast, knuckles white around his goblet.
"Rats," he growled. "They spread. They crawl. But I will drown them."
Rowan stood before him, torchlight glinting across his mask of calm. "Of course, Father."
But inside, his oath burned hotter.
The Duke's voice no longer thundered without break. It cracked.
The circle's sparks had caught.
Veloria trembled in smoke and whispers.
And Rowan knew—
The city no longer belonged to the Duke alone.
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From the Ashenwild, faint but unbroken, the Nightfang howled across the dawn.
Rowan heard it in the marrow of his wound, in the heat of the fires, in the trembling of his father's crown.
The leash had not snapped yet.
But the fire was spreading.
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