In the beginning, there was a lullaby. A hush that echoed off vaulted stone and gilded archways. A song that floated through the veiled chambers of Aetheris like a warm breeze stirring the frost.
Seraphine Aetherion, the Goddess Queen in name, though she wore no crown of divinity save her own smile — sat by the window each night, the newborn prince pressed to her heart. Her voice was soft, unhurried, a melody that seemed older than the stone towers that reached for stars beyond reach.
Outside her chamber, the citadel of Aetheris glowed, marble walls soaking up moonlight, guards in gold and silver plate standing like statues carved by saints. But within that room, the only thing that mattered was the small, warm weight curled in the crook of her arm.
Sometimes Thalior watched from the door. He never stepped fully inside, his cloak trailing behind him like a shadow at the threshold. Even when his eyes softened...that rare, haunted softness no war council ever saw — he lingered in the doorway, as if the warmth inside might burn away all the cold he'd grown used to.
"You'll spoil him," he would murmur, voice low and rough.
Seraphine would lift her gaze, blue eyes as calm as dawn mist. "Perhaps he should be spoiled. The world will harden him soon enough. Let me keep him soft while I can."
Thalior never argued when she spoke like that. He would nod once, then turn back down the endless hallway, cloak whispering behind him like retreating thunder.
When Lumiel took his first steps, he did so under the watchful eyes of twelve housemaids, two royal tutors, a pair of exasperated chamber guards — and, as always, Seraphine's bright laughter. He stumbled often, chubby hands clutching at polished marble walls, delicate drapes, sometimes an unlucky hound that yelped and squirmed away.
One morning he tripped over the hem of Seraphine's flowing gown as she moved from the window to the hearth. He fell face-first into a pile of soft furs. There was a split second of silence — then a tiny wail that split the stillness like a cracked bell.
Seraphine turned, her laughter dancing over the wails. She sank to her knees beside him, gathering him up in her arms with a single practiced motion. His golden curls stuck to her lips when she kissed his forehead, her fingertips brushing the beginnings of tears from his eyes.
"Oh, my little sun…" she murmured, pressing her cheek to his warm crown. "Even the brightest dawn stumbles before it rises."
He hiccupped into her neck. His tiny fists curled into the silk at her shoulder, clutching tight as if he might fall through the floor without her.
When Lumiel turned three, the palace gardens became his first kingdom. He would toddle through beds of night-blooming lilies and pale roses that leaned toward him like courtiers bending their heads. The orchard trees were his sentinels, the marble fountains his audience, the pale stone lions flanking the inner gate his loyal knights.
It was there, beneath the tangled arms of a sprawling ash tree, that he learned the world could be bigger than marble and silk. His mother found him there one spring dusk, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, crown of grass on his head, giggling as a stable boy — no older than him but leaner, rougher, hair dark as damp bark — helped him poke sticks into the earth.
Seraphine tilted her head, watching the pair through the dusk shadows.
"Lumiel, my light, who is your new friend?"
The stable boy froze mid-stick, eyes wide as saucers at the sight of the queen. He scrambled to bow, nearly toppling into the hole they'd dug.
Lumiel just laughed, bright and golden. "His name's Caelum! He shows me worms!"
Caelum flushed scarlet. "I–I'm sorry, my lady, I didn't mean—"
Seraphine knelt in the grass beside them, heedless of the dew dampening her silks. She reached out, brushing dirt from Lumiel's cheek with her thumb, then rested her palm briefly on Caelum's trembling head.
"Thank you for watching over my sun," she said softly, voice so warm it pulled the boy's shoulders down from his ears. "I trust you, Caelum. Look after him, yes?"
Caelum's eyes darted between queen and prince, dirt under his fingernails, knees stained green — and in that moment, he felt like a knight sworn beneath no banner but the dawn itself.
As the seasons turned, the orchard and gardens became more than playground — they became sanctuary. While Thalior stormed through war councils and sharpened steel along border lines no map could hold forever, Seraphine shaped her son's world with gentleness.
In the mornings, Lumiel sat curled beside her in the royal library. Rows of ancient tomes towered around them like silent cathedrals. She would pluck volumes from the shelves — poems of old kings, songs sung to sleeping giants, fables of heroes who bled but never bent.
She never read to him as if he were a prince destined for a crown. She read to him as if he were a boy who deserved to dream.
Sometimes, Caelum slipped in through the servants' entrance, tiptoeing through marble and shadow to crouch behind a tapestry near the hearth. Lumiel would catch his eye, grin wide enough to split his face, and Seraphine would sigh without looking up from her page.
"Caelum, if you must listen, at least come sit by the fire before you catch your death."
He would creep forward, sheepish, boots leaving faint muddy prints on pristine carpets. Seraphine would open the tome wider, beckoning him closer with the curl of her finger.
"The light is for everyone, not just for kings," she'd murmur, tracing the runes beneath her fingertips. "Remember that, both of you."
When storms rattled the palace walls at night — thunder so loud it cracked the sleep from Lumiel's eyes — he would run barefoot down the candlelit hall, Caelum's quick steps echoing behind him. He'd burst into his mother's chamber, heart hammering, cheeks flushed pink with fear.
She would lift the sheets without a word, gathering him into the hollow of her arms. Caelum would curl up on a low rug beside the hearth, half-asleep but awake enough to keep watch, just in case monsters hid in the shadows.
"Why does thunder roar so loudly, Mother?" Lumiel asked once, voice muffled against her collarbone.
She smiled, threading fingers through his hair.
"It reminds the world that the sky, too, has a voice. Never fear voices that roar, my light — fear the ones that whisper poison while you sleep."
So the years turned, and so the dawnstar grew — bright, soft, curious. A prince with scraped knees and dirt under his nails, whose laughter rattled the stone colonnades of Aetheris more surely than any siege.
And all the while, behind the high windows, his father watched. And behind the walls, the world shifted — alliances bristling like drawn blades, treaties inked in blood no court bard dared to rhyme about.
But in the heart of it all, Seraphine's smile burned like a lantern — a promise that her boy might rise beyond iron and war banners.
No kingdom, she believed, was truly ruled by kings.
It was ruled by who they loved — and who dared keep that love alive when the world came to collect its debts.