Valenor, the walled jewel.

The flags of Valenor waved with the calm of something that had never needed to tremble.

Eryon watched them from the balcony, his hands pressed against the cold stone of the railing. The sea breeze brushed his face with the quiet familiarity of things that had always been there. Below, the Noble Circle spread out in perfect order: streets laid with precision, immaculate façades, and royal banners hanging from every corner as reminders of who it all belonged to. Beyond the second wall, the Commoners’ District hummed with a muffled noise, as if it existed in another world.

Eryon had been wearing the ceremonial armor since dawn. It felt heavier than he remembered.

“Son?”

He didn’t startle. He knew the voice before the word was even finished. A gentle hand rested on his shoulder, and when he turned, he found his mother, Avelia Thyrr, watching him with that look mothers have when they see straight through you and choose not to speak it aloud.

“Relax,” she said simply. “It’s only a ceremony.”

Eryon nodded. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t sound like a lie.

He descended the stairs.

The castle’s main hall looked different that morning. Nothing had changed—the same furniture, the same flags, the same jewels embedded in the stone columns—and yet everything seemed to shine with a sharper intensity. As if the place itself knew today mattered and had decided to remind him of it.

“Finally,” said a voice.

Aldric Thyrr, King of Valenor, stood waiting by the main doors. He was not a man who needed to raise his voice to command a room. His posture alone was enough.

“Yes, Father. Here I am.”

“Good.” Aldric studied him with the brief, clinical gaze of a man assessing a tool before using it. “It’s time. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Eryon swallowed. A bead of sweat traced down his temple.

Grandfather, he thought, I wish you were here.

“What did you say?” Aldric asked, not looking at him.

“Nothing, Father.”

The doors began to open.

The sound came first: two massive wooden panels groaning apart, the castle bells answering from above, and then the roar of the crowd—like a living tide. Eryon squinted against the bright light. When his eyes adjusted, Valenor received him.

Hundreds of people filled the plaza in front of the castle. Banners fluttered, flowers rained from the windows of the Noble Circle, and children sat on their parents’ shoulders to see better. His name rose in unison, echoing off the stone façades.

“Attention!” the herald announced, his voice cutting through the air. “Their Majesties, King Aldric Thyrr and Queen Avelia Thyrr, and Crown Prince Eryon Thyrr!”

Applause erupted.

Eryon descended the steps feeling the weight of every gaze like something physical. He waved, shook hands, and spoke the right words in the right tone. Little by little, almost against his will, something in his chest began to unclench. People looked at him with genuine admiration, with hope, with a faith he had not yet earned.

Somehow, that frightened him more than rejection ever could.

From the edge of the formation, a group of soldiers watched the ceremony with the weary disinterest of men who had seen too many parades.

“That’s the famous heir?” one of them muttered. “I thought he’d be taller.”

Stifled laughter rippled down the line. The speaker leaned casually on his spear, the posture of someone who had long since made peace with discomfort. He stood out from the others: darker skin, long reddish hair tied back carelessly, and sharp eyes full of lively curiosity—the kind that expected the world to do something interesting at any moment.

When Eryon glanced in that direction from the plaza, the soldier gave him a casual wave. No reverence. No protocol. Just a familiar gesture, as if they were acquaintances.

Aldric noticed it too and looked away with the same indifference one gives to something unworthy of attention.

The soldier raised an eyebrow. “Now what did I do?” he muttered.

The Four Pillars of the realm waited at the side of the plaza, separated from the crowd by the invisible distance that power creates.

Aldric introduced them one by one with the efficiency of someone who had done this many times before.

Sir Arthur Morvayne, head of House Morvayne and Royal Treasurer. A man of impeccable manners and a carefully calculated smile, his fingers accustomed to counting things of value.

Chancellor Ordan Karvhen, head of House Karvhen. Eryon recognized him before his father finished speaking. He was Lyra’s father. The same dark eyes, the same way of holding a gaze as if always reading between the lines.

Lord Garrick Aethryn, Grand Marshal of Valenor. A man built like the castle walls: made to endure and to stand firm.

And finally, High Hierophant Aro Velkar, head of House Velkar. His white robe with golden embroidery caught the light in a way that seemed deliberate. When he spoke, his voice carried the cadence of someone accustomed to being heard in silence.

“What a blessed day this is, young prince,” he said. “Vaelron Thyrr smiles upon us from his rest.”

Eryon inclined his head with respect.

The Four Pillars, he thought as he looked at them. The ones who hold all of this together.

“It is an honor to meet you all,” Eryon said, his voice steadier than he felt. “I am Eryon Thyrr, Crown Prince of Valenor. I will be grateful to have your guidance when the time comes.”

They nodded. One of them murmured something about the honesty of youth. Eryon smiled—not from happiness, but from nerves—and knew no one noticed the difference.

The explosion came without warning from the side of the Noble Circle.

It wasn’t a thunderclap. It was sharp, violent, the kind of sound that sends pigeons scattering in panic and silences a crowd in an instant. A column of dark smoke began rising above the rooftops, shattering the pristine image of the plaza.

A soldier hurried to Lord Garrick and whispered in his ear. Garrick’s expression didn’t change.

“Send a squad,” he ordered. “Thieves in the Noble Circle. Apprehend them.”

“Father,” Eryon said.

Aldric turned toward his son.

Eryon didn’t know exactly when he had stepped forward. He only knew he had.

“Let me go. I’ll lead the squad.”

The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds, but it felt much longer.

“Those soldiers need to start knowing me,” Eryon continued. “I’m not a prince who belongs only in the throne room.”

Aldric held his gaze for a moment, searching for weakness, doubt, or fear. He found none.

“Recover what was stolen,” he said at last. “And catch those thieves. Uphold the legacy of House Thyrr.”

Eryon was already turning toward the soldiers.

“You lot,” he called, pointing at the group still leaning lazily on their spears. “Gear up. You’re with me.”

The red-haired soldier looked at him with an expression caught between surprise and comic resignation.

“Now?” he said. “Right when I was about to get my lunch?”

A few chuckles rose. Eryon pointed directly at him.

“One more word and you’ll spend the week in the pit. Understood?”

“Understood, my prince,” the soldier replied, his tone respectful enough to avoid punishment, yet insolent enough to be noticed.

The three thieves knew the Noble Circle better than the soldiers who guarded it.

They darted through alleyways with the agility of men who had mapped escape routes long before there was anything to escape from. They overturned market stalls, shoved passersby, and used every corner as if the district belonged to them.

“Two flanks!” Eryon ordered without slowing down. “Cut them off from the wall!”

The soldiers obeyed. The red-haired man slipped out of formation without a word.

Eryon charged straight at the main group. Training took over: first thief—off-balance with a submission hold, strike to the temple with the pommel of his sword, unconscious. Second thief—sword against sword, a desperate struggle.

Then he heard movement behind him.

He had no time to react. The third thief was coming at his back, and his sword was locked with the second. His eyes widened.

The blow never came.

A boot slammed into the thief’s side with pinpoint accuracy, as if the attacker had calculated the trajectory from across the alley. The red-haired soldier landed lightly, glanced at the man on the ground, then at Eryon with that crooked smile.

“Your savior has arrived, my prince.”

Eryon finished subduing the second thief. He spat out a breath and looked around.

“The third?”

“Fleeing. Toward the outer wall.” The soldier was already moving. “If we run now, we can catch him.”

“Why did you break formation?”

“Because he was about to stab you in the back and you didn’t see it coming,” the man said without arrogance, just stating a fact. “Do we run or keep talking?”

Eryon ran.

The third thief was extraordinarily fast.

He leaped across rooftops with impossible agility, gained distance on the inner wall, slipped past the guards with a move no one anticipated, and jumped to the other side—into the Commoners’ District.

“Open the gate!” Eryon shouted as he reached the outer doors.

“Are you certain, my prince?” the red-haired soldier asked beside him, the mockery gone from his voice this time.

“Run.”

The guards opened the gate.

They burst through.

The thief was already a small figure in the distance, racing toward the Heights Mountains with the stolen goods still in his hands. The ground here was rougher, less maintained. The air smelled different. Eryon noticed it without fully understanding what had changed.

A horse stepped between them and the fleeing figure.

Lord Garrick Aethryn looked down at them with the expression of a man who had seen this before.

“By order of the king,” he said, “His Highness may not venture beyond the wall.”

“The thief is getting away,” Eryon replied.

“He’ll die in the mountains before he can sell what he stole. There is nothing beyond the walls, my prince.” Garrick spoke with the absolute conviction of someone who either truly believed it or had repeated it for so long that the difference no longer mattered. “Please, your father is waiting.”

Eryon clenched his jaw. He looked toward the shrinking figure, toward the mountains that sealed the horizon like a wall built by the world itself. He opened his mouth.

“With all due respect, Lord Garrick,” the red-haired soldier cut in before Eryon could speak, “he’s right. In a few days those items will turn up in some market in the Commoners’ District, and the noble who was robbed has enough money to buy them back. They always do.”

He said it lightly. But there was something heavier beneath the words.

Eryon looked at him. The soldier held his gaze for a moment, then turned his eyes toward the mountains with an expression Eryon couldn’t quite read.

“Very well,” Eryon said finally. “Lord Garrick, please have a horse brought.”

“Immediately, my prince.”

While they waited, Eryon turned to the soldier and studied him properly for the first time: the dark skin, the reddish hair, the features that didn’t quite fit with anyone else he had seen in the Noble Circle or the castle barracks. Like someone who belonged somewhere else and had learned to move through this world without anyone asking where he came from.

“Tell me your name.”

“Kael,” the soldier answered. “Kael Rhen.”

Nothing more. No lineage. No title. No story.

“Kael Rhen,” Eryon repeated. “You’ll be hearing from me soon.”

The horse arrived. Eryon mounted and took the reins. From above, he looked down at the soldier one last time.

“And my horse, my lord?” Kael asked.

“You have legs. The day isn’t over yet.”

Eryon turned the horse and galloped back toward the castle.

Kael watched him ride away. Then he looked at his own legs. Then at the long road back to the barracks.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “time for a walk.”

He raised a hand toward passing carts. None stopped. He kept walking.