The tunnels beneath Aegrostin were older than the kingdom itself older than every banner that had ever flown in its streets, older than the cracked stones now resting under torch-smoked archways. They were carved long before mortals claimed the land, back when dragon gods roamed the deep Cradle and left their marks in claw and flame.
To the people above, they were nothing more than old drainage channels, forgotten mines, abandoned foundations.To those who knew better, they were grave paths.
Tonight, they were the only place a terrified young woman could run.
Her breath trembled in her throat as she sprinted deeper into the darkness, clutching her newborn son close to her chest. His tiny breaths were warm against her skin warmer than any child's should be. A faint, unnatural warmth, like the hush of a smoldering ember.
The soldiers' boots thundered somewhere behind her.
"Fan out! She can't have gone far!"
"Check the tunnels! The king wants that boy!"
Her heart lurched. She stumbled, nearly falling, but kept moving. Stones scraped her bare feet, the cold air sliced her skin, and the shadows pressed close around her. The lantern she carried flickered weakly.
The child stirred, letting out a soft cry.She pressed his head to her shoulder.
"Please, baby… please, don't cry."
He quieted and she tried not to think about how the air warmed each time he breathed.
Ahead, the tunnel split. She veered right, then right again, twisting through forgotten passageways she barely remembered from her childhood. She had played here long ago, when the tunnels were harmless mysteries instead of desperate escapes.
Behind her, the voices grew louder.
"Down here! I heard something!"
"Move! The king wants the child alive!"
Alive. Alive for what?
She didn't want to know.
Her lantern sputtered again. Shadows thickened around her legs, stretching long and thin against the walls. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, echoing like a heartbeat.
Then silence.
The soldiers' voices vanished, swallowed by stone.
Her chest heaved. She pressed her back to the wall, cradling her son tightly. His eyes fluttered open, reflecting the faint lantern glow. Ash-gray, strange and luminous. Not supernatural, not divine but undeniably other.
"I'll keep you safe," she whispered. "I'll do anything."
She did not realize then how true that promise would become.
She took one more step
And froze.
A figure stood ahead in the tunnel.
Tall. Still. Wrapped in black armor that swallowed what little light her lantern gave. A hooded mask concealed their face, the metal shaped into the expressionless smoothness of a predator. Two narrow slits gleamed where eyes should be.
The king's assassin.
The silent blade of the crown.The shadow that murders in the name of order.The one her husband once warned her about.
"Stop," the assassin said. Their voice was low and hollow under the mask. "Give me the child."
Her limbs locked. "P-please… don't hurt him. Take me instead."
"No."The assassin stepped closer. "Only the boy."
She shook her head violently, tears blurring her vision. "He's just a baby."
"He is the child from the prophecy."
Her blood froze. She clutched the boy tighter.
The assassin moved a fraction closer, enough for the dim lantern light to touch the mask.
Then they saw the child's eyes.
They stiffened.
"…Ash-gray."A whisper, almost reverent."Just like Xaryon's last known heir."
The woman swallowed hard. She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand. Her son was not a warrior, not a monster, not some prophesied creature.
He was hers.
"Give him to me," the assassin said quietly. "It will be quick."
"No!"
Her scream cracked through the tunnel.
The assassin lunged.
Instinct shrieked through her. She twisted, clutching her child protectively, turning her back to shield him. She closed her eyes, bracing for steel
A roar shook the air.
Heat exploded outward.
A blast of fire not conjured, not aimed, but released burst from the space between her and the assassin. A torrent of Blue flame engulfed the tunnel, devouring shadow and stone alike.
The assassin had no time to scream.
The fire consumed them.
The blast threw her backward. She tumbled across the cold ground, shielding her son with her arms. The lantern shattered, plunging everything into darkness. Smoke burned her eyes. She coughed, gasping for breath.
When the air finally stilled, she dared to open her eyes.
The assassin was gone. Only ash smeared the stone.
She looked down at her son.
He slept.
Peaceful. Innocent. As though nothing had happened.
Her hands shook. fire had erupted the moment the assassin lunged. The moment danger touched them.
But she had not summoned it.
He had.
She began to cry silently, holding him close, unable to understand. Unable to decide whether to fear him or fear for him.
Footsteps echoed behind her.
She gasped, tensing
A man stepped from the smoke.
He wore a deep red hood, its cloth draped low to hide his face. His clothing was travel-worn, his boots caked with old dust. His posture was unthreatening, yet unmistakably powerful.
He raised his hands to show he held no weapon.
"Do not fear me," he said softly.
She backed away, trembling. "Stay back."
"I am not here to hurt you," the man said. "If I meant harm, I would not have intervened."
She blinked. "Intervened?"
He nodded toward the scorch marks on the walls. "The fire would have taken you as well. I shielded you."
Her breath hitched. "Who… who are you?"
The man hesitated.
"…Someone who knows what your child carries," he said at last.
Fear threatened to crush her. "What does he carry?"
The hooded man did not answer.
Instead, he stepped aside and pointed deeper into the tunnels.
"Go," he said. "Before more soldiers come. They will not stop until the boy is theirs."
She swallowed hard. "Thank you."
He gave a single nod.
She turned and ran.
She didn't look back.She didn't see the hooded man watch her disappear.She didn't see the flicker of warmth in his hidden gaze.
She only ran until the tunnel finally sloped upward, toward faint moonlight.
Hours passed.
She walked until her legs shook, until the boy stirred, until dawn painted the edge of the world gold. Fields stretched ahead. Then forests. Then, in the distance
A ruined town.
Stone buildings sagged under collapsed roofs. Vines crawled across empty windows. An old well sat cracked and dry.
It was abandoned.
Safe.
She slipped inside the nearest house a shattered place with broken furniture and dust thick as winter frost. A single shaft of morning light fell across the floor.
She set her son down atop an old blanket, her breath softening.
"You're safe now," she whispered.
He blinked up at her with those strange ash-gray eyes, eyes that reminded her too much of his father. Too much of the night he died in her arms. Too much of the necklace she still carried in her pocket.
She pulled it out.
A small silver pendant on a worn leather cord. Marked with a symbol a spiral of flame split by a streak of lightning. She had always thought it a simple family crest. A craftsman's mark from some ancient artisan.
She didn't know it was the emblem of Xaryon's line.She didn't know it had once hung around the neck of the first dragon god's mortal heir.She didn't know the pure-blood houses had killed to claim or hide it.
She only knew it belonged to the man she loved.
She looped it gently around her son's tiny neck.
"This was your father's," she said softly. "He would have wanted you to have it."
The boy blinked. His hand curled around the pendant.
She felt tears swell again grief and hope tangled together.
She stroked his cheek. "You need a name."
The breath caught in her throat.
She knew what she wanted to say what she needed to say.
She kissed his forehead.
"Your name… is Kaelen," she whispered. "Named after your father."
Her voice broke.
"Kaelen Xaryonson."
She didn't understand the weight of the name she had just spoken.She didn't understand the storm she had named into being.She didn't understand that the last essence of a fallen god stirred quietly inside the small, warm bundle in her arms.
She only held her child her son,her last hope,and the heir to a destiny she could never comprehend.
Outside, wind whispered through the empty streets.
In the shadows between broken stones, something old shifted a flicker of warmth,a whisper of flame,the first awakening of Xaryon's final ember.
The world did not notice.
But Soon it would