The silver fork felt like ice against Noctis's palm. He sat at the absolute edge of the twenty-foot oak dining table. Distance was the only mercy House Umbra afforded him. At the head of the table, Lord Alistair Umbra cut into a slab of bleeding venison. The sharp blade scraped loudly against the expensive porcelain.
"The Vanguard scouts confirmed the perimeter." Alistair wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. "Tomorrow's taming trials will proceed at dawn. Bastian, you will bond with the Forest Lynx. Do not embarrass this house."
Bastian cut a piece of meat and chewed it slowly. "I won't fail, Father."
He shot a look down the long expanse of wood. His lips curled, exposing food between his teeth.
"What about the bastard?" Bastian gestured with his knife. "Are we letting him bond with a kitchen rat? I hear the cellar is full of them."
Lady Isolde Umbra didn't look up from her wine glass. Her black silk gloves absorbed the candlelight, swallowing the glow entirely. She sipped her red wine, utterly indifferent to the boy sitting at the far end of her table.
Alistair swallowed his meal, then leveled his cold, steel-gray eyes at Noctis.
"You remain here." Alistair tapped his ring against the table. "Your presence at the trials is a liability. Keep to the servants' quarters. We can't have a problem wandering around the staging grounds and reminding the other noble Houses of past indiscretions."
Noctis stared at his empty plate. He received no food tonight. The reflection in the silver platter showed his erratic dark hair and his unnerving, pitch-black left eye. He tightened his grip on the cutlery. The cold metal dug into his skin, grounding him. Resignation was a heavy, familiar coat, and he wore it well.
"Yes, Lord Umbra," Noctis muttered.
* * *
Midnight swallowed the mansion. Noctis slipped past the sleeping guards, his bare feet making no sound on the freezing marble floors. He reached the main library, bypassing the vast rows of family history and tactical taming manuals. He knew exactly where the real knowledge hid.
He slid his fingers behind a thick, dust-coated spine: Chronicles of Valyria, Volume II. He pulled the hidden iron lever. The massive oak bookshelf ground open, scraping against the stone floor. It revealed a pitch-black passage.
Noctis stepped inside and pulled the shelf shut behind him. He struck a match against the stone wall. The weak flame illuminated rows of banned texts and heretical research hoarded by the first Lord Umbra. The air smelled of rotting paper, dry rot, and stale magic.
He walked straight to the back pedestal. Chronicles of the Primordial Era: Volume III sat on a frayed velvet cushion. Noctis opened the heavy leather cover.
The pale, brittle pages felt heavy in his hands. He ran a finger over the forbidden script. He read about the Great Collapse, an era where raw, untamed magic shattered the continents. He read about the Void—the vast, empty power that predated the sanctioned light magic of the Church.
The words did not just sit on the page. They dug into his skull. The strange, dormant energy in his blood snapped awake, thrumming with sudden violence. The ink on the page seemed to writhe and twist under his gaze. His pitch-black left eye burned with a freezing pain. For the first time in his life, the emptiness inside him felt like a weapon, not a defect. He leaned closer, desperate to read the next passage on drawing power from the shadows.
Searing light flooded the room.
"I knew I heard a rat."
Noctis spun around, dropping the book. Bastian stood in the doorway. An arcane lantern illuminated his sharp, cruel features. A massive, heavily muscled Forest Lynx paced at his boots. Its yellow eyes locked onto Noctis, a low growl vibrating in its throat. A glowing silver collar of obedience bound its neck.
Noctis stared at the beast, his pulse hammering against his ribs. "The taming trial isn't until dawn."
Bastian bared his teeth in a vicious smile. "Did you really think Father would leave a public spectacle to chance? The bond is already sealed. Tomorrow is just theater for the lesser Houses."
"You're cheating." Noctis tightened his fists. "The entire trial is a lie."
"This is my house, you piece of shit." Bastian spat on the stone floor. "Everything in it belongs to me. Including the truth. You're just a thief. Caught stealing family artifacts in the dead of night."
"I was just reading."
"Save it for Father." Bastian snapped his fingers.
The lynx lunged. The beast pinned Noctis to the stone before he could brace himself. Massive, razor-sharp claws dug into his shoulders, tearing through his thin shirt and biting deep into his flesh. Warm blood spilled across the cold stone. Noctis gritted his teeth, locking eyes with Bastian as he swallowed a scream.
* * *
Dawn broke through the stained-glass windows of Lord Umbra's private study. The light cast bloody red patterns across the floorboards. Two family guards stood behind Noctis, holding his arms in a bruising grip. Blood from the lynx's claws still dripped down his back, turning his shirt into a stiff, dark rag.
Alistair slammed his fist onto his massive oak desk. The wood groaned under the sheer force.
"You never learn!" Alistair roared. "You carry the Umbra name, yet you possess absolutely zero taming ability. You skulk in the shadows like a feral dog. And now you break into the forbidden vault to steal what isn't yours."
Bastian leaned against the stone wall in the corner of the room. He looked perfectly relaxed, inspecting his fingernails.
"He had the Primordial texts tucked into his shirt, Father." Bastian lied with practiced ease. "He was going to sell them in the Warrens."
"He's lying," Noctis shot back, tasting copper in his mouth. "He brought his bonded beast into the vault. Your precious public trial is rigged."
Alistair walked around the desk. He grabbed Noctis by the jaw, squeezing until the bone creaked under his thick fingers.
"A true Umbra controls the narrative," Alistair said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "You have no magic. You have no worth. You are a defective stain on this family's legacy. I kept you out of pity. And this is how you repay me."
Alistair shoved Noctis backward. The guards yanked him upright, wrenching his bleeding shoulders.
"Take him to the Deadwood Forest," Alistair commanded the guards. "Leave him past the perimeter."
Ice spiked through Noctis's veins. The Deadwood was an execution. It swarmed with untamed beasts and corrupted void logic. Nobody survived the Deadwood without a high-tier monster bond and a Vanguard escort.
"You're sending me to die." Noctis glared through his dark, disheveled hair, his pitch-black eye locking onto his father. "Do it yourself."
Alistair stared down at him. The gray eyes held absolutely no warmth.
"You're not my son. You're a mistake."
The guards dragged Noctis backward toward the heavy double doors. He dug his heels into the floorboards, fighting their grip until one of the guards drove a mailed fist into his stomach. The air rushed from his lungs. The heavy oak doors slammed shut, plunging Noctis into the shadowed hallway.
* * *
Morning frost coated the iron bars of the prison cart. The guards threw Noctis inside and locked the heavy brass padlock. The metal rattled as the draft horses pulled forward, their hooves striking the cobblestone.
Noctis sat on the splintered wooden floor. He pressed his face against the freezing bars. Mansion Umbra shrank in the distance, a dark gray monument of stone and gothic spires. Gargoyles perched on the slate roof, watching him leave.
The cart rolled out of the Noble District. Vast estates and manicured gardens blurred past the iron bars. Here, power was inherited, hoarded, and weaponized. Noctis lived here for sixteen years and never belonged for a single second.
They crossed the heavily guarded checkpoint into the Merchant District. The smell of fresh-baked bread and hammered steel filled the cold morning air. Coin ruled these streets. It bought safety and influence. It meant nothing to a bastard boy with empty pockets.
Further out, the massive white walls of the Inner Citadel loomed over the skyline. The Vanguard military and the Church of Light maintained their iron grip behind those walls. They dictated who lived and who died in Valyria.
Finally, the cart rattled into the Outer Warrens. Mud replaced cobblestone. Rotting slums pressed against the narrow dirt road. Emaciated commoners huddled around trash fires, watching the cart pass with hollow, desperate eyes. This was the bottom of the world. Even they had a place. Noctis had nowhere.
The enormous iron gates of the outer city walls came into view. Beyond them lay the jagged, black tree line of the Deadwood Forest.
The guards spurred the horses faster. They thought they were driving him to a graveyard. But Noctis closed his eyes and remembered the writhing ink in the forbidden archives. He felt the dormant, ancient energy pulsing beneath his skin.
He gripped the iron bars. His knuckles turned white. They called him a defect. They threw him to the shadows to die. But as the towering black trees swallowed the morning light, a cold, hard resolve settled in his chest. The dead woods didn't scare him. If the Void was waiting in the dark, he would find it.
He was going to survive. And he was going to make them bleed for this.