The road stretched pale beneath the early light, a ribbon of gravel flanked by dark trees whispering in the wind. Lucarion rode beside his gilded carriage, cloak trailing, armor catching the first sun. The carriage, draped in royal sigils and ringed with guards, was a silent display of power. Yet he chose the saddle—the height, freedom, and readiness mattered more than comfort.
Kael rode just behind, eyes sharp on the treeline, every muscle wound tight.
Trailing the royal coach came another carriage. Inside, Eva lay swathed in bandages, pale and trembling. Even so, her half-lidded eyes carried the faintest spark of fire.
Lucarion's gaze scanned the road, every rustle measured, every shadow catalogued. Terrain, angles of attack, fallback routes—all calculated in silence.
And then it came.
A shriek split the morning—a clash of human rage and feral howls. The treeline erupted: men and werewolves, a dozen at least, coordinated, ruthless. They came for her.
Lucarion moved toward her without hesitation. Horse and rider flowed together, his blade flashing in arcs of steel, commands cutting through the chaos. Kael was a shadow beside him, matching his rhythm stroke for stroke. The guards fought well, but the enemy had speed, hunger and feral cunning.
Through it all, Lucarion's focus never wavered. Protect the Spear.
Minutes dissolved into smoke and blood. When the last attacker fell, silence pressed down, broken only by hooves against mud.
Lucarion rode forward, chest heaving, gaze fixed on her carriage. Its door hung open, wood splintered.
The prince slid from his horse, boots landing with barely a sound on the soft earth. Kael dropped beside him, scanning the trees one last time.
"No more," Kael muttered. His voice was steady, but low. "Fast, but no reserves."
Lucarion said nothing. He was already moving.
The healer lay crumpled in blood. Eva slumped against a dead man's chest, dagger buried to the hilt in his gut. Her wrists shook, her breathing ragged, but her eyes—fierce, unbroken—found Lucarion. Even half-destroyed, she had been able to kill.
Lucarion pulled the body free with practiced ease, dropping it to the ground. His focus stayed on her, steady, unblinking.
Her head lolled, eyes half-shut. Weakly, her trembling hand pointed to the healer's bag. Kael caught the gesture, dragging it close. Her fingers fluttered toward a vial. He uncorked it, lifting it carefully to her lips. She swallowed, each breath a shallow rasp.
Lucarion's voice was calm, edged with command.
"Kael. Stay with her. Take the healer's place. She does not slip from your hands."
Kael nodded and climbed into the carriage beside Eva.
Lucarion swung back into the saddle. His face was carved from stone, but every glance swept the treeline, the road, the flanks. The column moved forward once more.
Inside, Kael steadied Eva. She shivered, body wracked with weakness. He pulled a blanket around her shoulders. Still she trembled, teeth chattering, until he shed his cloak and tucked it close around her.
She fought to stay awake, eyes stubbornly on the road, though her lids sagged. She dozed in fits, waking again, forcing herself to hold the world in focus.
"Water," she rasped once, voice no more than a breath. Kael helped her drink, holding the cup steady against her trembling hands.
Her eyes lingered on the horizon. Kael found himself watching her, silent. Broken, fevered, yet sharper than most men at their peak.
At last, the castle rose before them. Its spires carved the sky, pale against the fading light. Eva's gaze fixed on it, sharpened, hungry. Then, at last, her strength failed. Her head tipped, and she slid into darkness.
The gates yawned wide, iron groaning as the procession thundered inside. Torches flared against the dusk. Lucarion dismounted before the marble steps, cloak trailing as he turned to Kael.
"See her inside."
Kael obeyed. Guards moved forward, but Lucarion's voice cracked like a whip.
"Carefully. If you jostle her, you answer to me."
They carried her through the vaulted arches. A chamber had been readied; a castle healer was already arranging vials and cloths. He bowed low, promising her care. Lucarion stayed long enough to see her laid out, then turned away. His duty lay elsewhere.
The Next Morning
The Spear, King Valtherion had said—two words that carried the weight of a continent. Now the prince and his father stepped into the quiet of the recovery room.
Eva lay swathed in clean linen, breath shallow but steady. Sweat clung at her brow; the color in her cheeks had returned by degrees. The healer straightened as they entered and bowed.
"She is stable, Your Majesty," he said, voice small with relief. "Remarkably so. Her body has endured more than most could survive."
The king's lips curved, a wolfish, satisfied line. His gaze slid to Lucarion. "Explain."
Lucarion's reply was spare, each syllable a steel edge. "Conventional questioning yielded nothing. I lost three men who drew too close. When I compelled her—she resisted."
A faint tilt of his mouth betrayed the memory; disbelief flitted in his eyes. "She broke herself rather than give us words: punctured her throat, shattered both wrists. On the road we were attacked—half-dead, she still slew a man herself. Her strength is… not ordinary."
The king's smirk deepened. Even the healer made a soft, involuntary sound of wonder.
The king raised a hand. "Leave us."
The healer bowed low, and withdrew, the door closing with a muted finality.
The old monarch stepped forward until his shadow fell across the still form. He drew the lid of her eye back with a slow, deliberate finger. For a moment gold flared faintly around the pupil, dulled though it was by fever. Satisfaction and something like awe softened the lines of his face.
"There it is," he murmured. "The mark of the Gods' Spear."
He let her eyelid fall and turned, cloak whispering on the floor. "Come. You will see the truth for yourself."
King Valtherion's study
Books lay in ordered chaos: tomes of lineage and war, maps annotated in a dozen hands. The king moved with sure purpose, drawing a heavy volume and cracking it open on the desk. Branching names and dates glared up like exposed veins.
"Her brother," the king said, low and deliberate. "Taken twenty years past. Consigned to a Lycan princess. Their spawn cleave through men like harvest blades—monstrous and swift. I watched them tear knights as if they were children."
He turned the page, his fingertip trailing the parchment like a blade across skin.
"And her mother—vanished twenty-five years. The Black Hunt took her. I saw the truth only when I watched the progeny in action: stronger even than her son's children. Demigods who crush men like twigs. And she herself—" his mouth curled into a thin smile—"a Spear. Blood hammered on the anvil of the War God. One Spear scatters battalions."
He leaned forward, hunger sharpening his voice. "For centuries I scoured the earth. I chased whispers, dug graves, burned villages for rumor alone. I hunted a way to steal her mother when your letter arrived—Asgeirn: a general who killed as easily as breath. At last, I understood. I had found my Spear."
Lucarion's hand closed against the desk. "So Eva—"
"—is rarer than any jewel," the king interrupted, voice smooth as obsidian and edged with possession. He straightened, the room's light falling across him like a crown. One heavy hand settled on his son's shoulder, iron and inevitable.
"You will take her," he said. "Her blood will be ours. Together you will sire heirs who eclipse them all—children forged for war, children fit to rule the night."
Lucarion felt the sentence press against his throat. He held the king's gaze without wavering. In the silence his mind returned, unbidden, to the fevered woman below.
A weapon, a legacy, a charge placed into his hands. With that hand on his shoulder and the king's command laid before him, the design of his future took shape.