The castle shifted overnight.
Servants moved more quickly. Guards stood straighter. The air, already heavy from the rain, grew thick with the weight of unspoken tension. Thornmoor was bracing itself—not for mourning, but for war.
Caelum barely slept.
His dreams had been strange again. Shadows crawling up the walls. A voice whispering his name, not unkind, but ancient—like it came from beneath the earth. When he woke, his sheets were damp, and his palms burned faintly with heat, though the room was cold.
He hadn't told anyone. Not Seraphina. Not even his steward, Eren, who'd raised him like a second father.
Whatever this was, it was his alone.
---
The first trial was held in the training courtyard at noon.
Caelum stood between his siblings, the rain finally broken but the sky still brooding above them. Courtiers and nobles lined the stone balconies, their breath visible in the cold air. Most looked toward Roderic. A few watched Seraphina.
No one looked at him.
The Duchess stood atop a raised dais, her black gown traded now for a crimson cloak trimmed in fur. The symbol of House Thornmoor—a single thorned rose—gleamed at her chest.
"The first trial is strength," she announced. "Not brute force, but will. You will enter the labyrinth beneath the castle, each alone, armed only with a torch and a blade. Within it, something waits."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Caelum felt his stomach turn to stone.
"Whatever you find down there," the Duchess continued, "you must overcome. Only then will you be judged."
"Will we be told what it is?" Seraphina asked.
The Duchess gave her a cold smile. "No."
---
They led Caelum to the mouth of the labyrinth just after Seraphina disappeared inside. The entrance was beneath the east wing, where the stone grew darker, colder. The guard handed him a torch. A short sword.
His hand trembled slightly as he took them.
"It's not fair, you know," the guard said quietly, avoiding his eyes. "They shouldn't send a boy in alone."
"I'm not alone," Caelum murmured before he could stop himself.
The guard looked at him.
Caelum shook his head. "Forget it."
Then he stepped into the dark.
---
The air was thick and damp, heavy with the smell of moss and old blood. The torch crackled faintly as he moved deeper into the maze of corridors. Some paths sloped downward. Some doubled back. Others ended abruptly in stone walls, as though the castle itself had changed its mind mid-design.
Every few steps, he thought he heard something behind him. Breathing. A shuffle.
But when he turned, there was only the echo of his own footsteps.
Then came the whispers.
Soft at first. Barely there. But growing louder, winding through the tunnels like smoke.
You don't belong here...
You are nothing...
They will never follow you...
He pressed forward, jaw clenched. He knew the voice. It was his father's. Or something wearing his father's voice.
Around the next bend, the corridor widened into a cavernous chamber. And in the center stood a figure.
His father.
The late Duke Halric Thornmoor stood exactly as Caelum remembered him—tall, severe, in black armor, eyes like frostbitten stone.
But this was no ghost. It breathed. Moved. And when it spoke, its voice filled the room like thunder.
"You are not my son."
Caelum raised the blade, but his hands were shaking.
"This is a trick," he said. "You're not real."
"I am the part of you that believes me," the figure growled. "That doubts. That fears. That knows you are not worthy."
It moved fast.
Too fast.
Caelum barely blocked the first strike. The shock of it numbed his arms. He staggered back. Another blow—this one slicing his shoulder. Pain bloomed hot and bright.
"You are soft," the figure hissed. "You dream too much. You feel too much. That is not strength."
Caelum stumbled. Blood ran down his arm. He looked up, panting, ready to raise the sword again—
—and his hand ignited.
Blue fire burst from his palm, wild and brilliant. The blade fell. The figure froze.
Caelum stared in shock as the flame danced between his fingers, not burning, but singing. It hummed through his bones, alive, ancient. Like something finally answering a call it had waited years to hear.
The figure lunged again—but this time, Caelum didn't step back.
He raised the flame.
There was a roar of light and heat, and the figure shattered like glass, dissolving into smoke.
Silence fell.
The torch had gone out. The sword lay forgotten on the ground.
But Caelum stood in the dark, breathing hard, his hand still faintly glowing with light that came from no fire he had ever seen.
Whatever had been sleeping inside him... was awake now.
And it knew his name.