Fatima remembered the training ground the way some people remembered scars — by the little aches and the cold aftertaste of shame that clung to the memory. In those early Sant days, Valdemar's lessons were more punishing than patient; the instructor's voice was a rasp of expectation, and his corrections landed like stone. "You must kick higher, princess!" "Hold the sword steady with both hands and keep your back straight." What made it worse was that she was different from the other students. Where they were quick to flare and strike with an animal joy, Fatima moved like a careful root, hesitant and measured. Even a light tap in sparring put a knot in her chest; she could see a bruise on a friend's arm and feel as if she had broken something inside him.
They had welcomed the princess at first — broad smiles and bows, bright whispers of privilege and crown— but the faces that had once been warm soon turned thin. On the dusty field their friendliness became a performance. In Valdemar's presence, they bowed and grinned, but when he looked away, they sharpened their tongues. Rumors sprouted like weeds: that a princess who avoided harm must be soft, that a Sant who preferred books to blows was not fit for the throne.
"Are you even a real Sant, princess?" the orange‑haired boy sneered, the question skittering across the training field like a thrown pebble. He stepped close enough that Fatima could smell the iron of his sweat and the citrus tang of his oil. His smirk was wide and practiced; the other children clustered around him, their laughter rising, thin and high.
Words were worse than punches. "All she can do is pull tricks with the wind and leaves — any street magician could do that." The boy's voice was a blade dressed as jest, and the group's cackles fell on Fatima like cold rain. Her cheeks burned; the color of shame crawled up her neck. She had retreated to the temple library so often that the scent of old parchment and beeswax felt like sanctuary — the hush of pages, the soft scrape of a fingertip along vellum, the warm, papery breath of histories — but even those quiet pleasures couldn't stitch over the open wound on the field.
They pushed at her in small ways at first: an elbow in passing, muttering insults at her, a coil of laughter that didn't reach their eyes. When she learned to ignore them, they escalated. Then, one day one of them tipped over a water bucket and the splash was meant to humiliate. "Oh no! Princess, are you okay?" The girl gasped, feigning concern. Cold water soaked through her hair and training attire, each droplet a tiny accusation. The orange‑haired boy took his turn in the center of the mockery. "That's what you get for being a dead weight. Why don't you go cry to your sister now?"
Then — suddenly — Fatima moved, her momentum faster than the eyes could see. The memory of that moment was as crisp as the crack of a snapped branch. For nights she had mimicked Valdemar's motions in the pale afterlight — the way his shoulders rotated, how his weight shifted when he feinted, the precise angle that turned a blow into a redirection. She had practiced until her muscles learned the language of motion and her palms remembered the correct pressure. Now those borrowed motions braided with something else she did not quite name: a careful geometry of balance and touch. She struck not to harm, but with an economy of force so exact it unmoored their arrogance.
The orange‑haired boy staggered, clutching a bruised arm. His face went from bravado to a raw, shocked hurt; the breath left him in a startled yelp. Around them, laughter crumpled into a stunned silence, then rose in panicked squeals as the maids hurried forward. Valdemar stood with his arms folded, a statue in the wind, eyes narrowed so tightly they were almost a slit. "Master Valdemar I-I didn't mean to-" Valdemar's large hands patted her head gently, halting her words. "You needn't apologize princess. They simply had what was coming for them. I see now that you are no pushover, and my efforts were never lost on you. Good work." Fatima felt something small and tremulous — not triumph, not arrogance, but the warm certainty that came from a hard‑won realization: her body could do more than she had allowed it to.
The maids hauled the injured away, voices muffled, the scrape of sandals and the slap of skirts fading as a gust teased at Fatima's silver hair. "My arm!" "My leg!" Their complaints mingled with the warm dust and sunlight, with the faint scent of herbal salve carried on the air by a passing servant. In that mingling of pain and retreat, Fatima understood the world a fraction clearer: it was not made of endless gentleness. Strength and cruelty walked together in it, and she — the future matriarch — would have to learn to balance both.
The memory dissolved and the present pressed in: she inhaled, a soft sound, and took her fighting stance. The air around her now was different — thick with pressure, the darkness around them felt like velvet pulled over sound. Her feet found the space beneath them with the authority of someone who had practiced balance in loneliness. Confidence radiated from her like heat; the fight before her, she decided, would be brief. The man opposite her was all swagger and shadow, a voice too smooth for comfort. "So young, yet so brave," he taunted. "I am the only one who can see you in this maddening darkness. Think you can beat me, girl?"
His words were a challenge and a dare. Fatima's ears — always keen — picked up a soft intake of breath and the subtle click of the man's shifting weight. She felt the impact of a blow aimed at the back of her head, silent but lethal, but she slipped aside as if the move had been written in negative space. In the dark her body felt lighter, her thoughts clear as a bell; she realized the lack of sight trimmed away distraction and left only the geometry of movement.
"He throws words as armor," she murmured under her breath and then aloud, low and cool, "For one who can summon a realm, your punches are rather pathetic." The mockery stung; it was meant to gnaw at him. He snarled, voice reverberating off unseen walls. "Shut your mouth!"
She baited him gently, the way one might prod a rattlesnake with a stick. "Warlocks and sorcerers are physically weak compared to their vile magic," she said, and the memory of the priests' bets, their teasing about conjectures and lore, made a brittle smile touch her lips. The man's face contorted; anger turned physical, his muscles coiling. He lunged, a crude, angry punch meant for her jaw. Fatima's back arched with a dancer's poise; the air whispered across her skin as the blow whooshed past.
He escalated, a desperate side‑kick aimed at her neck. She folded out of sight and watched his balance betray him — he stumbled, grasping for purchase on a ground that didn't forgive. Then, with an economy of movement that made the strike seem inevitable, she landed a precise blow — too intimate a hit to be polite — and the startling sound of it landed in the air between them. He crumpled, the odd, shocked moan escaping him as pain folded him inward. The next hit to his head quieted the shriek that would have followed.
"How is this possible?" he groaned, hands clamped to himself, eyes wide and unfocused. His world had narrowed to a point: the realization that his assumptions about the girl were wrong. She crouched above him, the smell of rain‑damp earth and her own breath near; the darkness hummed softly as if listening. Her voice, when she spoke, was not small nor loud but full of carrying power. "Listen carefully. Leave here with your life. If you come after Dominique again, I will find you and the one who sent you. Are we clear?"
Her red eyes — bright and unyielding — gleamed with an unnatural light as they locked onto his, and the air between them tightened. She felt the pull of authority like a thread at her throat, a thing she had practiced wearing in private and in the hush of the temple stacks. The man's answer came out of him like a confession: "Y-yes. I will do as you say." The fear in his tone was raw as he shook his head vigorously.
Fatima tilted her head, not out of cruelty but puzzled by how readily he yielded, then stepped back and unknotted the time lock with a gesture that was practiced and sure. The night — or the darkness that had veiled them — pooled and shifted, and when it lifted, she felt the weight of the moment settle in her chest, not as triumph but as a bruise that would mark her.
**
Meanwhile, Alkaraz's grand temple—a sprawling sanctuary of polished marble and towering pillars that seemed to scrape the heavens—had been thrown into disarray. The echoes of hurried footsteps clattered across the stone floor, mingling with indistinct murmurs, startled gasps, and the faint metallic scent of incense burning unevenly in the distant braziers. At the entrance of the orphanage wing, a young cleric had collapsed, his body sprawled unnaturally against the paved pathway, and the whispers of alarm rippled through the air like a sudden wind through fragile chimes.
Down the vast pillared hall, a young man in a brown robe sprinted, his breath ragged and visible in the faint chill of the stone corridors. Sweat soaked the fabric at the nape of his neck, slicking his hair to his scalp, and beads of moisture traced paths down his temples, dripping into the folds of his robe. Every step reverberated through the cavernous space, and he could feel the weight of urgency pressing against his lungs.
He reached the prayer chamber just as Archbishop Michael emerged, his presence immediately commanding the room. The tall, white-haired man moved with an elegance that seemed almost untouchable, his opulent white robes catching the flicker of candlelight along the embroidered golden patterns. His piercing gaze, calm yet unyielding, fixed on the young messenger.
"What is all this commotion?" Michael's voice was low, edged with a tension that betrayed the burden of responsibility he carried. The young man doubled over, hands on knees, chest heaving as if trying to expel the panic that gripped him. "Your Holiness… Archbishop Michael… your presence is required in the healing room," he stammered finally, each word trembling as sweat continued to trickle down into the collar of his robe.
Michael's shoulders sagged briefly, a quiet sigh escaping him. Not again, he thought, his mind flicking to the memory of another cleric, lifeless on the cold stone, a case never fully solved. The weight of these mysterious deaths had been his alone to carry, a hidden wound behind the serene facade of the temple. The young man hurried on, voice urgent. "We found him near the orphanage entrance… coughing up blood. The sisters who saw him—they said his body was convulsing, a-as though he was possessed—" he faltered, shuddering— "A-and the blood… it was black… and it smelled foul. Something… unnatural."
The archbishop nodded solemnly and stepped through the doorway into the dimly lit healing room. The air was thick with the pungent stench of illness and something more, mingled with a faint, elusive tang that prickled the back of his throat, tugging at a memory buried deep within him—some scent he had encountered long ago but could not place.
There, on the long, worn wooden table, lay the young cleric, body limp and eyes glazed as though staring into a world unseen by the naked eyes, his breaths shallow and futile until his chest rose one last time and he was gone. Michael's chest tightened, a heavy ache pressing down as the enormity of the loss settled over him. He lifted his gaze, blinking back the first sting of tears that threatened to betray his composure. His voice, heavy and solemn, filled the quiet room. "It is with great sadness that I must inform you… our brother, cleric Samuel, has passed on. May his soul rest in the merciful hands of our holy God."
Outside the open door, a wave of muffled sniffles and quiet chatter rippled through the assembled clerics, a congregation of hope and sorrow clinging desperately to the possibility of a miracle that would not come. "One of you… go and relay the message to Priest Jeffrard immediately," Michael spoke softly, his tone firm yet tender. Several men bowed their heads in reverence before hurrying away, their robes swishing against the marble floor. Samuel had been one of Jeffrard's closest disciples, a pupil the priest held dear, and Michael knew the news would pierce him deeply.
A pang of sympathy tightened in the archbishop's chest as he thought of Jeffrard—so sensitive to the suffering of his charges, so devoted. Once again, he would be forced to lay a young soul to rest, the weight of loss pressing like a shadow across his heart.
**
Three days had passed, yet the image of Fatima's suffering remained burned into Nathaniel's mind. He could still see her eyes snapping open, her breaths ragged and shallow, crimson flecks decorating Dominique's pristine sheets. The memory of crimson liquid streaming not only from her mouth, but from her ears and nostrils, sent a shiver down his spine even now. His chest tightened at the recollection, his hands curling into fists as if reliving the panic all over again.
Sitting rigidly before her sickbed, he studied her face, noting the delicate rise and fall of her chest. The steady rhythm of her breathing brought an almost painful relief, contrasting sharply with the terror that had seized him when he first saw her state. Every shallow inhale and exhale felt miraculous, like a fragile promise that she had survived the ordeal.
He had been swift in getting her to Hayden's facility, but by the time they arrived, she had already lost consciousness. The helpless fury that had consumed him then had nearly driven him to violence. "Why are you all standing there like corpses? Save her if you want to walk out of here alive!" he roared at the trembling assistants, their wide eyes reflecting the severity of the scene. Only Hayden's arrival had brought him even a sliver of restraint, as the doctor took Fatima gently from his arms.
Now, Nathaniel pushed himself from the small, unassuming chair, the wood creaking under his weight. His sudden movement startled an elderly woman standing just outside the door. She clutched a basin brimming with steaming water, towels draped across its rim. As he passed, she bowed reflexively, goosebumps prickling across her arms as though acknowledging the prince's presence. I am far too old for this sort of terror, she thought, a quiet sob lodged deep in her chest as she entered the room, wringing her hands with helpless concern.
Nathaniel stepped outside into the sunlight, welcoming the warm breeze that carried the earthy scent of evergreens. The forest stretched around him, a sanctuary of green, golden light filtering through branches. He let his gaze drift skyward, watching birds flit freely from branch to branch, chirping joyously, untethered by duty or expectation. He envied them profoundly; freedom was a luxury he could never afford. From birth, his life had been a series of chains in the form of privileges—prestige and power, yes, but never liberty.
A soft voice broke through his reverie, gentle yet cautious. "Please excuse my rudeness, your highness." Nathaniel exhaled, a quiet sigh escaping him as he tore his gaze away from the carefree birds. "The young lady has awakened," the woman continued, her tone hesitant, as if she feared shattering his fragile moment of peace. "Where is she?" he asked, glancing sideways at the young servant, who kept her eyes lowered to the sun-dappled ground.
"She had just finished her bath and is now resting, your highness. However, she—um—uh…" the girl faltered, her fingers twisting nervously at the hem of her uniform, as if the words themselves were dangerous to speak. "Get on with it," Nathaniel urged, his voice clipped with mild impatience, turning to face her fully. "She said… your highness is to bring her fresh bread from the bakery she likes. She thought you would know which one." The words tumbled out at last, timid and careful.
Nathaniel chuckled, a low, warm sound that rumbled through him. Even from a distance, he felt a spark of delight at her boldness. No one of her stature had ever dared to issue such a request before, and the audacity, coupled with trust, intrigued him. He strode past the woman, heading for the horse that had carried him when he escorted Fatima here, the leather of its saddle creaking softly under his hand.
"Relay to her that I will return shortly with her bread," he instructed, his voice carrying a mix of amusement and resolve. The horse whinnied softly as he swung into the saddle, the rhythmic pounding of hooves fading gradually into the background as he rode away.
The young caregiver remained rooted to the spot, flushed and breathless. The image of his smiling face lingered in her mind, a vision so vivid it made her heart race, and her cheeks burn with heat. "What a handsome and magnetic man he has become," she whispered to herself, fanning her face nervously. "Oh dear… my heart is still pounding."