The tower fell. The prince laughed. And somewhere in the rubble of carved wooden blocks and a one-year-old's total lack of remorse, a friendship began that would outlast kingdoms, outrun death, and somehow still end up in an argument about a girl.
But before the girl, before the argument, before any of it, there was a palace with floors too slippery and a prince with a laugh too loud and a baby who had no idea what he was.
Fin watched himself grow in fragments. A toddler learning to walk on marble floors that were too polished for small feet and produced spectacular wipeouts that the palace staff learned to anticipate and the palace prince learned to laugh at.
The palace prince was Tristan Aelindor.
