Two men entered.
Draven's eyes moved from the painted ceiling to the doorway, taking in the newcomers with an awareness that no infant should have possessed. The man in front stopped him cold.
Karneth.
Even in this body — this small, infant body with its limited reach and its unsteady focus — he felt it. The presence that Karneth Whitlock carried was not something that required adult perception to register. It was simply there, radiating outward the way heat radiates from something that has burned long and hot, filling the room before the man himself had fully entered it.
Karneth Whitlock stood at six feet four, broad through the shoulders, his silver-white hair — the Whitlock bloodline's signature — tied back in a warrior's knot that left his face fully exposed. It was a hard face, all sharp angles and weathered planes, the face of someone who had made decisions that cost people their lives and had learned to make those decisions anyway. His eyes were deep-set and grey, cold as winter steel, carrying the automatic vigilance of a man whose attention never fully left a room even when it appeared to. A thin scar ran from his left temple to his jaw — a specific engagement Draven couldn't quite place yet, the memory still reorganizing itself in this younger mind.
He wore a simple black tunic embroidered at the chest with the Whitlock crest: a sword driving through a crescent moon. Even casual clothing couldn't disguise the way he moved — measured, economical, every step placed with the unconscious precision of someone who could draw a blade and strike in the time it took most people to register the intention.
Father.
The word felt strange. In his previous life — his future life — Karneth Whitlock had existed primarily as a portrait in the clan hall, a name spoken in reverence at ceremonies, and a closed casket in the rain when Draven was twelve years old. He had stood at that funeral and listened to clan elders speak about honor and sacrifice and had understood almost nothing of it, because twelve was too young to understand what you were losing before you'd had a chance to know it.
He had learned the truth much later. Karneth hadn't died in battle. He'd been assassinated — poisoned by betrayers within the kingdom, people who had calculated that the Whitlock clan's growing influence was beginning to threaten the advantages that had quietly accumulated on the demon side of the war. By the time Draven discovered this, he was already a mid-grade warrior and the trail was cold and the clan had been weakening steadily for two decades.
"So this is Draven Whitlock," the second man said, looking at the cradle. "Your new son."
"Yes." Karneth turned slightly to reply, and Draven saw his face straight on — harder than the portrait had suggested, more immediate, the tension in the jaw constant and habitual. "While I'm away, I need you to take care of him. Teach him what he needs to know. Don't coddle him the way they did with Dorian."
I never saw you look at me like that, Draven thought. Did I? Was I simply too young to remember?
"Understood, my lord," the second man said, with the bow of someone who had served a long time and understood exactly what that service required. "The young master will be ready when you return."
Karneth looked at the cradle for a moment. Something moved briefly in his expression — something that existed in the space between command and tenderness, visible only because Draven was looking for it and knew now what to look for.
"Grow strong, Draven," he said, quietly enough that the second man might not have caught it. "Stronger than I ever was. This world will ask everything of you."
Then the commander's mask returned, seamless, and he turned and walked from the room. His footsteps echoed down the stone corridor beyond, measured and receding, and then faded entirely.
The second man stepped forward to the cradle. His face was weathered and deliberate, the face of someone who chose each action with the same care he chose each word. He met Draven's gaze with a directness that suggested he understood, on some level, that more than a newborn's awareness was looking back at him.
"I am Gareth Thorne," he said. "Your tutor, from today."