Smoke still clung to the early morning air like a bitter secret.
By the time the castle staff arrived at the scorched southern arena, the fire had long since died—but the aftermath told its own story. Blackened stone. Wilted gardens. The acrid scent of singed dirt. The truth didn’t need to be explained. Everyone already knew.
Some claimed the flames had whispered demonic omens. Others said it had taken the shape of a fierce beast. One servant even swore she saw the sun disappear when the fire erupted. It didn’t matter what was true. By the time the first bell rang, the rumors had already blown out of proportion, crawling through every hallway and kitchen like a rotting disease.
Dante walked those same halls in silence, hood drawn low over his face. Every glance met him like a blade. Every whisper halted when he passed. Even the guards’ hands drifted to their hilts, though they knew no steel would help them.
He hated it.
Not just the fear. Not just the whispers.
But the fact that some part of him believed them.
He had barely stepped into the main hall when a voice cut through the silence.
“His Majesty has requested your presence, Prince Dante.”
A royal attendant bowed when Dante noticed his presence. Requested was just a polite way of saying summoned. Dante knew the tone. His father, King Hawthorn, didn’t call him unless something had broken—or somebody was harmed.
Dante nodded once and in a lazy tone said, “Lead the way.”
The throne room loomed ahead like a great stone mouth. Banners of brown and purple draped down from towering columns, each one bearing the sigil of House Greaves: a roaring bear crowned in flame. They fluttered in the morning breeze, regal and cold.
King Hawthorn sat atop the dais, cloaked in purple trimmed with brown fur. His silver crown rested firmly on his short black hair. Queen Shira stood beside him, her expression unreadable, her pale eyes flicking to Dante with something like worry—or perhaps warning.
“You summoned me,” Dante said, standing at the base of the stairs. He did not kneel.
The king’s voice landed with the weight of stone. “I did. Do you deny what happened in the southern gardens this morning?”
“No,” Dante said, calm but tense. “I lost control.”
“You never had control to begin with.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed. “I was meditating. Just like Grandfather instructed. I didn’t cast anything.”
“Yet fire erupted,” Hawthorn replied. “The flowers burned, the stones cracked. Servants claimed the sky even dimmed.”
There were no words that could make it better. Dante felt it too—the way the magic twisted inside him. It didn’t answer commands. It responded to emotion. To pain. To fear.
Queen Shira spoke softly. “It wasn’t just fire. There was… a magical echo. A disruption. Whatever he was feeling—his magic responded to it.”
“She’s right,” Dante admitted. “It’s never just one thing anymore. Sometimes it’s fire. Sometimes ice. Lightning. Once… once it was something that turned an entire practice dummy to mud.”
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He took a breath. “It changes with my emotions.”
“A volatile prince,” Hawthorn said coldly, “is a dangerous prince. And this kingdom cannot afford to be ruled by fear.”
“Then stop making me the fear,” Dante snapped before he could stop himself. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be cursed.”
The king rose from his throne, eyes flint-hard. “You are not cursed because of your magic, boy. You are cursed because you allow it to master you.”
Silence.
Even the guards stilled.
Dante’s fists trembled at his sides. His breath fogged in the suddenly chilled air. Something stirred beneath his skin—thin, cold, creeping. Not flame. Not lightning.
Ice.
Cracks slithered across the marble beneath his boots.
Frost bloomed across the stone, curling up the pillars and edging the royal banners in white lace. The temperature dropped. Breath misted in the mouths of courtiers. A wind stirred where there should be none.
And in the heart of it, Dante stood trembling, lips moving, muttering words only he could hear. The voices had returned.
" They’re afraid of you."
" You’ll never control it."
" You’re not their prince. You’re their monster."
“Dante.”
Queen Shira stepped down from the dais, her voice cutting through the storm like dawn through fog.
She reached him, gently placing her hand on his shoulder. The magic dimmed. The ice halted. The voices receded—though not fully.
He flinched. “I’m… sorry,” he whispered, eyes wide with shame.
“I know,” she murmured, and pulled him into an embrace. “Just breathe, my son. You are not alone in this.”
Behind them, King Hawthorn returned to his throne. He said nothing. The frost melted at his feet as he sat, resting his chin on his knuckles in quiet, stony thought.
Later that on that afternoon the sun had risen high above the castle. Dante found himself struggling with the silence while curled in his chamber window, staring at the courtyard below.
His father’s words echoed endlessly.
" Volatile."
" Dangerous."
" Never had control."
The voices hadn’t left, either.
" He wants to cage you."
" They all do."
" Even your mother will leave you in the end."
Dante pressed his palms against his temples.
“Shut up,” he whispered. “You’re not real.”
A knock at the door.
“His Majesty will speak with you again,” the attendant said through the wood. “Be ready by the fourth bell.”
All Dante could do was sit there and wait. He couldn't exactly tell his father no.
-----
Elsewhere, in Nickolas Granfry’s tower of magic, the mage moved through his private chambers like a storm in slow motion. Candlelight flickered as he passed rows of towering bookshelves, each one packed with grimoires, rune tablets, and scrolls inked in languages long dead.
He stopped at a sealed chest, marked with shimmering wards.
With a flick of his fingers, the chest unlocked.
Inside: fragments of a black eggshell, smooth as glass, veined with threads of pulsing starlight. Each shard hummed with cosmic pressure—as though something was still alive in them.
“Sixteen years since you cracked the sky,” Nickolas murmured, laying the shards on his work table, “and I still don’t understand what you left behind.”
He leaned in, bringing a magnifying lens over the largest piece. The runes etched within it shifted when he blinked, symbols that bent logic and reasoning alike.
He remembered it clearly—the day the veil tore open and the huge swirling rift. The day a dragon the size of a mountain screamed across the heavens.
And now, as he traced the fragments with trembling hands, a dreadful suspicion crept into his mind:
Something hadn’t been defeated that day.
It had only begun.
-------
In the Throne Room later that Afternoon, the doors closed behind Dante once more. This time, there were no guards. No court. No queen.
Just the king.
“Sit,” Hawthorn said.
Dante obeyed, warier now.
“You lost control again,” the king said, voice tired. “You are almost seventeen. You are not a child. That fire could have ended lives.”
Dante remained silent looking away. The king noticed this and sighed.
“No one means to be a weapon,” Hawthorn said. “But the world doesn’t care about your intent. It only cares about your actions.”
Dante remained silent.
“I am giving you a task,” Hawthorn said.
Dante blinked. “A… task?”
“You leave at dawn. You will travel to the Liatrey Woodland Realm, and from there, to the Gymiekah Dwarven Halls. Tensions rise between them, and I need a voice of unity. Someone to remind them that we are still allies.”
“You’re sending me?” Dante asked, stunned. “After what happened?”
“Yes,” Hawthorn said. “With a small escort. This mission will test your strength—and your restraint. But if you are to rule one day, you must learn to wield diplomacy as well as magic. Prove to them—and to me—that you are more than your chaos.”
A flicker of something stirred in Dante. Not relief. Not joy.
But maybe… hope.
