The trouble started with a bird.
Orion was eight years old, sitting through another interminable history lesson with Master Varen, when a small brown sparrow flew through the open window and crashed into the wall. It fell to the floor in a flutter of feathers, twitched once, and lay still.
Master Varen stopped mid-sentence about the Third Border Wars. He stared at the bird. Orion stared at the bird. The bird did nothing, because it was dead.
"That's..." Master Varen started, then stopped. His face had gone the color of old parchment. "Stay here."
He left the room at a pace that was almost a run. Orion heard his footsteps echo down the corridor, then fade. He looked back at the bird. It was just a bird. Birds died all the time. But the look on Master Varen's face said otherwise.
Elara found him still staring at it an hour later. The servants had taken the bird away, but Orion hadn't moved from his chair.
"You heard?" she asked, sitting down across from him.
"Heard what?"
She blinked. "You don't know? That's why the bird—" She stopped, shook her head. "Never mind. Come with me. Father's called a council meeting. He wants us there."
The council chamber was packed when they arrived. Orion had never seen so many people in one room in the palace. Generals in uniform. Nobles in their finest robes. The Magister in his grey, flanked by two acolytes. And at the head of the table, his father, looking older than Orion remembered him looking that morning.
Kaelen waited until they were seated—Elara on one side of the room with the other young nobles, Orion on a small stool near his father's chair—before he spoke.
"This morning, a messenger bird arrived from the Northern Watch." His voice was calm, the voice he used when delivering news that was anything but calm. "It carried a single word before it died. That word was 'fire.'"
Murmurs rippled through the room. Kaelen held up a hand for silence.
"Since then, every bird in the city has died. Every single one. Sparrows, pigeons, the messenger birds in the mews. Even the crows. They fall from the sky, fly into walls, drop dead where they stand." He paused. "The Magister tells me this is not natural."
All eyes turned to the old man in grey. The Magister stepped forward, his dry voice carrying to every corner of the room.
"There is an old word for this. The Fall of Wings. It appears in the histories only three times in the last thousand years. Each time, it preceded something worse. A plague. An invasion. The collapse of a dynasty." He looked directly at Orion, and for a moment the boy felt like the old man could see straight through him. "It is a warning. Something is coming."
The room erupted. Everyone talking at once, voices overlapping, fear rising like heat. Kaelen let it go for a full minute before slamming his palm on the table. The sound cut through the noise like a blade.
"We will not panic. We will prepare. General Aris—double the watches on all walls. Lord Renfrew—I want every grain store in the city inventoried by nightfall. Magister—search the archives. Find everything you can about what followed the last two Falls. I want to know what we're facing." He looked around the room. "Everyone else, go back to your posts. Say nothing to anyone about this. The last thing we need is the city in a panic."
The room emptied. Orion stayed on his stool, not sure if he was supposed to leave. His father sat heavily in his chair, staring at the table. After a long moment, he looked up.
"You're still here."
"You didn't tell me to go."
Kaelen almost smiled. "No. I didn't." He gestured to the stool. "Sit. We need to talk, you and I."
Orion sat. His father leaned forward, elbows on the table, and for the first time Orion saw how tired he looked. Not just tired from a long day, but tired in a deeper way. The kind of tired that came from carrying something heavy for too long.
"You're eight years old," Kaelen said. "Too young for any of this. But you're also my son, and one day you'll be king. So I'm going to tell you something I haven't told the council."
He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small leather pouch. From it, he took a piece of cloth, old and frayed, stained with something dark. He laid it on the table between them.
"This belonged to my father. Your grandfather. King Aldric." He touched the stain. "This is his blood. He died when I was twelve years old. Killed in his bed by a man who had served him for twenty years."
Orion stared at the cloth. He had never heard this story. He had always been told his grandfather died in a hunting accident.
"The man was caught, tried, executed. He confessed before he died. He said he'd been paid by someone, but he didn't know who. The money came through so many hands the trail went cold." Kaelen's voice was flat, emotionless. "I've spent thirty years trying to find out who ordered my father's death. I've never succeeded."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because the Fall of Wings happened three years before my father died. The histories say it's a warning. My father ignored it. He thought it was a natural event, nothing to worry about. He was wrong." Kaelen looked at Orion, and for once there was no mask, no reserve. Just a father trying to protect his son. "I won't make that mistake. And neither will you."
He reached across the table and took Orion's hand. His grip was strong, almost too strong.
"Someone is out there. Someone who wants our family dead. I don't know who. I don't know why. But the birds falling means they're getting ready to move. You need to be careful. You need to watch. You need to trust no one completely. Not the servants, not the nobles, not even—" He stopped, swallowed. "Not even your mother's ladies. Anyone could be working for them."
"Even Elara?"
"No. Trust Elara. Trust her with your life. She's the only one in this palace besides me who would die for you without hesitation." He released Orion's hand and sat back. "But anyone else? Watch them. Learn them. Find out what they want and who they love and what they'd do for money. Because sooner or later, someone's going to try to use those things against us."
The door opened. Seraphina stood there, her face pale. She looked at the cloth on the table, then at Kaelen, then at Orion. Something passed between her and her husband—a look that carried years of conversation in a single moment.
"You told him," she said.
"He needed to know."
She crossed the room and knelt beside Orion's stool, taking his face in her hands. Her eyes were wet, but her voice was steady. "Your father is right. You needed to know. But listen to me, my love. Listen carefully." She pressed her forehead to his. "You are not alone. You have us. You have Elara. You have people in this palace who would die for you, and not because you're the prince, but because they love you. Trust them. Let them help you. Don't try to carry this alone."
Orion nodded, not trusting his voice. His mother kissed his forehead and stood, turning to Kaelen.
"The council's reconvening. They're waiting for you."
Kaelen stood, tucking the bloodstained cloth back into his pouch. He paused at the door and looked back at Orion.
"One more thing. The man who killed my father. The one who served him for twenty years. He had a wife and three children. They disappeared the night he was arrested. I've never been able to find them." He opened the door. "Think about that. Whoever's behind this, they're patient. They play the long game. We need to be patient too."
He left. Seraphina squeezed Orion's shoulder and followed. Orion sat alone in the empty council chamber, staring at the door, trying to process everything he'd just heard.
A conspiracy. An enemy who'd waited thirty years. A warning written in dead birds.
He was eight years old.
He had a second chance at life, and apparently the universe had decided to make it interesting.