The storm over the Maahri Empire was ordinary.
Thunder rolled across the sky. Rain battered the stone walls of the royal palace. Such nights were common in Maahri—loud, violent, quickly forgotten.
What happened inside the palace was not.
Queen Nyra Kaelion screamed as the pain tore through her body. Her cries echoed down the corridors, past guards who stood rigid at their posts and servants who lowered their eyes. No one moved faster than required. No one lingered longer than necessary.
In Maahri, even childbirth was observed carefully.
Outside the chamber doors, King Arveth Kaelion waited.
He had commanded armies. He had ordered executions. He had signed treaties that erased bloodlines from maps. Yet now he stood still, his hands clasped behind his back, his face carved into something unreadable.
The cries stopped.
For a moment, there was only rain.
Then a different sound rose—thin, sharp, alive.
The door opened.
An elderly handmaid stepped out and bowed low.
"Your Majesty,"
she said, choosing her words with care,
"a daughter has been born."
Arveth did not react at once.
A daughter.
Not disappointment. Not relief. Calculation flickered briefly in his eyes before it disappeared behind the discipline of a king.
He entered the chamber.
Queen Nyra lay pale against the sheets, her breathing shallow but steady. In her arms lay a child wrapped in crimson silk, her face creased in protest at the world she had entered.
Arveth took the child without ceremony.
The infant's fingers closed around his thumb, tight and instinctive.
He felt it—warmth, pressure, undeniable life.
"Our daughter,"
he said quietly.
The handmaid hesitated. Then, softly,
"Your Majesty… the Queen's body has suffered greatly. Another pregnancy may not be survivable."
Arveth's gaze lifted at once.
"Was her life in danger?"
The handmaid lowered her eyes.
That was answer enough.
Arveth looked again at the child. He said nothing more, but something shifted behind his eyes. A king did not need to voice every thought.
That was how courts learned to fear him.
Three Years Later
The palace had not changed.
The court had.
Queen Nyra noticed the way conversations slowed when she entered a room. How smiles tightened. How congratulations for the princess came paired with long, thoughtful pauses.
Princess Elyra Kaelion was three years old—quiet, observant, far more attentive than children were expected to be. She noticed when her father's gaze drifted past her toward council doors. She noticed when her mother listened more than she spoke.
Nyra understood the reason.
The Maahri Empire had survived for centuries by controlling succession. Stability required certainty. Certainty required sons.
And sons required women who could bear them.
Nyra could not.
No one said it aloud. They never did. But the silence grew heavier each day.
...
The Feast
The palace hosted a celebration when Lord Vaedric Morholt, one of the king's oldest allies, arrived with his household. His wife had given birth to a daughter, and tradition demanded courtesy, wine, and smiles.
Lord Morholt brought his son with him—Cael, eight years old and already aware of his importance.
The boy laughed too loudly. He lingered too close to Princess Elyra. He spoke to her as though she were something decorative.
Elyra said nothing.
Lord Morholt corrected his son half-heartedly, then turned to the king. Arveth listened, nodded—and praised the boy's confidence.
Elyra left the hall without permission.
Later, Cael followed her into a side corridor and continued his amusement.
This time, Elyra struck him.
The sound of her fist against his face echoed sharply off the stone.
Cael ran to his father, furious and humiliated. Lord Morholt scolded his son instead—publicly, sharply, for all to hear.
When King Arveth was told what had happened, he did not punish Elyra.
He summoned her.
He knelt before her, placed his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her into an embrace—brief, firm, deliberate.
No words were spoken.
But those watching understood.
For the first time, the court saw clearly what had always been true:
the greatest threat to an empire is not rebellion—
it is uncertainty.
And uncertainty had just been born into the House of Kaelion.