Chapter 2
TWO
ZORATH
The Council Chamber smells of sulfur and lies.
I sit at the edge of the round table, positioned where I can see every door and be ignored by everyone who matters. The vitreous stone beneath my fingers is warm—it’s warm everywhere in Ashkar Keep, but this table is supposed to burn those who speak false. Another legend. Another lie.
If it worked, the Triumvirate would be ash.
Regent Juk is speaking. His voice slides through the chamber, smooth and measured, the voice of a serpent explaining why it needs to swallow just one more mouse. “The treasury requires additional revenue. A modest increase in market taxes—”
“The market taxes have tripled in three years.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Everyone at the table goes still.
Juk’s gaze finds mine. Those yellow eyes, unblinking, assessing. Silver caps his tusks—a fashion statement the other nobles have started imitating. The look he gives me is patient, condescending. The look you give a child who has spoken out of turn.
“The costs of maintaining order have increased, my prince.” He uses the title the way other people use weapons. “Border skirmishes require soldiers. Soldiers require pay. Perhaps when you have more experience with governance—”
“Perhaps when I’m sitting in my father’s chair instead of watching you warm it.”
Burn. All of you. Burn.
I force my jaw to unclench. The muscle in my cheek is jumping—I can feel it, that tell I’ve never been able to control. My hand finds the knife at my belt without conscious thought. Not to use. Just to touch. To remind myself I’m not entirely powerless.
“My prince speaks from passion rather than wisdom.” Juk’s smile never wavers. “We understand. The anniversary of your father’s passing approaches. Such times are difficult for those who grieve.”
I don’t respond. Responding would give him what he wants—evidence that I’m ruled by emotion, that I can’t be trusted with the crown that’s rightfully mine. So I sit. I listen. I watch the Regents discuss the kingdom’s business while pretending I don’t exist.
Regent Dura reports on the border skirmishes with human territories.
She’s massive even by orc standards, her arms corded with muscle, her face a map of battle scars she wears proudly.
Unlike Juk, she doesn’t bother with pretense.
She states facts. Numbers. Casualties on both sides.
The war-axe at her hip is older than most noble bloodlines, its edge still sharp enough to split bone.
I respect her, in a way. She’s a warrior. She believes in strength, in order, in the iron fist that keeps chaos at bay. She helped steal my throne because she genuinely believes the kingdom needed stability more than it needed a grieving boy trying to fill his father’s boots.
She’s wrong. But she’s honest about being wrong.
Kreth is something else entirely.
The third Regent says nothing during the entire meeting.
He sits across from me, bulky and scarred, his smile showing too many teeth.
Blood crusts under his fingernails—a permanent stain, no matter how recently he’s washed.
The faint copper smell follows him everywhere.
And his eyes…flat. Empty. The eyes of someone who stopped feeling anything a long time ago.
Your death will be slow.
The thought surfaces with familiar comfort.
I’ve imagined killing Kreth a thousand times.
A hundred different methods, each more satisfying than the last. Blade.
Hammer. Bare hands around his throat, watching the light leave his eyes the way the light left my father’s.
The fantasies keep me company during these endless meetings, these careful performances of civility between my father’s killers and his son.
The meeting drags on. Trade agreements. Taxation schedules. A dispute between two noble houses over water rights in the southern territories. The Triumvirate handles each issue with practiced efficiency, never once acknowledging that they have no legitimate authority to make these decisions.
My birthday is in three weeks.
One hundred and twenty-four years old. The age of legitimate rule, when even ancient succession law agrees the crown should pass to the heir. The Regents have been pretending not to notice the approaching date. I’ve been pretending not to notice their preparations to ensure I never reach it.
They’re not going to let me take the throne.
I’ve known that for months—watching the careful positioning, the quiet conversations that stop when I enter a room, the servants who report my every movement.
They’re planning something. A convenient accident, perhaps.
A sudden illness that claims the last Flamebound heir.
Or something more direct, more final, more suited to Kreth’s particular talents.
Strike first. Every instinct screams it. Every strategy I’ve studied agrees. The one who moves first controls the battlefield.
But striking first means giving up the one advantage I have: legitimacy.
If I attack the Regents before my birthday, I’m a rebel, a usurper, a prince too impatient to wait for his rightful claim.
If I wait until I’m one hundred and twenty-four, the law is on my side.
Even nobles who fear me more than they fear the Triumvirate will have to acknowledge my claim.
If I live that long.
“The council is adjourned.” Juk rises, his silks rustling with the movement. “We thank our prince for his…contributions to today’s discussions.”
I stand without responding. My chair scrapes against the stone floor—too loud, too harsh. The minor nobles who’ve been pretending I’m invisible flinch at the sound. Good. Let them flinch. Let them remember that the prince they’ve been ignoring still has claws.
The corridors outside the Council Chamber are worse than the meeting itself. Servants who won’t meet my gaze. Warriors who straighten when I pass, hands drifting toward weapons they won’t use. Nobles who bow with perfect courtesy and eyes full of pity.
Poor prince. Trapped in his father’s Keep. Mad with grief, they say. Dangerous, they whisper. Better if he’d died with the king.
I hear the whispers even when no one speaks them aloud. Three years of being watched, analyzed, dissected by a court that’s already decided what I am. The broken heir. The weapon that will destroy everything it touches if it’s ever unleashed.
Sometimes I wonder if they’re right.
My boots carry me toward the training yard without conscious decision. My body knows what it needs even when my mind is still snarling at the injustice of council chambers and serpent smiles. Violence. Release. The only language that makes sense in a kingdom built on blood.
The yard lies in an open courtyard near the Keep’s eastern wall, where volcanic vents create natural warmth even in winter’s depths.
Training dummies stand in rows—straw-stuffed bodies that have absorbed the fury of a hundred warriors.
I’ve destroyed more than my share. The servants have learned to keep replacements ready.
Three warriors wait at the yard’s edge. Young, hungry, hoping to impress the prince with their skill. They’re not Triumvirate spies—I’ve learned to recognize those—just fighters looking for advancement. Looking for a patron. Looking for a chance to prove themselves against royalty.
I strip off my outer coat. The black fabric pools on the ground, mourning clothes I’ve worn for three years.
Beneath it, the warrior’s leathers fit like a second skin—supple, worn, designed for movement.
The Flamebound birthmark spreads across my shoulders, visible through the thin shirt.
Lighter skin against dark green, patterns that resemble cooling lava.
The mark that proves my blood. The heritage no one can deny, no matter how much they want me dead.
My grandfather’s war-hammer clears its loop. The frozen fire of the hammer’s head catches the light, dark and gleaming, its edge sharper than steel and harder than hate. I’ve trained with this weapon since I was old enough to lift it. It knows my hands. It knows my rage.
“Three at once.” Not a request. Not a question.
The warriors exchange glances. One of them—young, barely a century old, still carrying the uncertainty of youth in his stance—steps forward. “My prince, perhaps we should start with—”
“Three. At. Once.”
They attack.
The first one comes high, sword arcing toward my skull. Predictable. Trained. Exactly what his instructors taught him. I sidestep, let the blade whisper past my ear, and drive my elbow into his ribs. Bone cracks. He staggers.
The second and third coordinate better—flanking, trying to pin me between them.
A spear jabs toward my left side while a mace swings at my right.
I drop beneath both strikes, pivoting on my heel, hammer sweeping in a low arc that catches the spearman’s knee.
The joint shatters with a wet crunch. His scream echoes off the courtyard walls.
Good. Feel it. Let me feel something besides the rage that never stops.
The mace-wielder backs away, reassessing.
Smart. Not smart enough. I close the distance before he can set his stance, hammer rising in an uppercut that catches him under the chin.
Not hard enough to kill—I’m not trying to kill them—but hard enough to lift him off his feet, send him crashing onto his back, leave him gasping at the sky.
Three opponents. Perhaps fifteen seconds.
Not enough. Never enough.
I turn to the training dummies. The first one explodes under my hammer, straw and wood spraying across the yard. The second. The third. My arms burn. My lungs burn. My mind burns with images I can’t escape—
The fourth dummy becomes Kreth. I see his face in the canvas, his dead eyes, his too-wide smile. My hammer rises and falls. Rises and falls. Until there’s nothing left but splinters and rage and the sound of my own ragged breathing.
“My prince.”