Sunspire greeted the morning the way it always did: with quiet defiance.
The runes along the inner walls shimmered faintly as dawn tiptoed across the capital, their glow steady and opaque. From the balcony of House Therion's manor, I could see the city slowly coming to life—merchants lifting shutters, Wardens rotating their watch, children chasing one another between stone pillars etched with ancient definitions that kept the world stable. Beyond the walls, far enough not to be seen but close enough to be felt, the land grew sick in ways no one liked to talk about. Here, within the Bastion Capital Sunspire, we pretended tomorrow was guaranteed.
I was sixteen that morning, heir to one of Sunspire's oldest houses, and—for the first time in my life—everything felt possible.
"Elrin," my father called from behind me.
Lord Caelen Therion stood in the doorway, already dressed in ceremonial black trimmed with silver thread. The sigil of our House—the Severed Sun—rested over his heart, worn smooth by generations. He looked tired, but not weak. He never was.
"You'll wrinkle your mantle if you keep leaning like that," he said, faint amusement in his voice.
I turned, grinning. "I just wanted to see the city wake up."
He stepped closer and adjusted the clasp himself, as he always did. Servants waited outside, pretending not to notice. "Sunspire waking is a good thing to remember," he said quietly. "Most of the world doesn't get that luxury anymore."
I nodded. Bastion Cities were rare. Fragile. They existed because enough people survived the Blight and believed—defined—them into being.
Mother was waiting in the hall when we descended. Lady Sera Therion kissed my forehead, smoothing my hair with a practiced gentleness. "You'll do well today," she said, as if the day were no more dangerous than a formal dinner. Her calm had always been contagious. I smiled because she expected it.
The Hall of Succession was already filled when we arrived. Stone pillars rose high above us, carved with layered runes that reinforced truth, authority, and continuity. These were not spells meant to dazzle—they were laws made visible. At the center stood my grandfather.
Duke Emeritus Aldric Therion.
He no longer ruled, but tradition granted him this right: when a ruling Duke deemed his line secure, the former ruler would name the next heir years prior. It was meant to prevent ambition from rotting a house from within. Everyone trusted this tradition.
My uncle certainly did.
Lord Marius Therion stood near the front, posture straight, expression composed. He had the look of a man already certain of the future. Many assumed this ceremony was a formality—that the Duke Emeritus would pass the mantle's future to the brother who had fought, negotiated, and bled for the House.
I stood beside my father, hands folded, heart steady. I expected nothing. I wanted nothing. I was content to learn, to serve, to become useful in time.
My grandfather raised his staff. The hall fell silent.
"House Therion has endured," he said, his voice old but firm. "Through war. Through famine. Through the slow unmaking of the world beyond our walls."
A faint pressure settled in the air—the subtle response of Axiom recognizing authority.
"Our strength has never been how much power we claimed," he continued, "but how carefully we defined it."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"Today, I name the next bearer of this House's future."
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
"Elrin Therion."
The name echoed once against stone before silence swallowed it whole.
I felt my father's hand tighten on my shoulder—not in warning, not in pride, but in genuine shock. I turned just enough to see his eyes widen, then soften. My uncle did not react at all. He simply stared at my grandfather, then slowly, inevitably, at me.
Something in his gaze hardened into something colder than anger.
"Step forward," my grandfather said.
My legs moved before my thoughts caught up. I knelt.
"Elrin Therion," he said, his voice quieter now, meant only for me and the House, "you were not chosen because you are flawless. You were chosen because power does not distort around you. Remember that. Others will not."
I bowed. When I rose, my uncle was already gone.
The afternoon light felt warmer than it should have as I left the hall. Lyra was waiting near the inner gardens, where the city wall curved inward and the runes were carved openly into the stone. She always said it helped her feel safe—to see the definitions that held the world together.
"You survived," she said, smiling as she approached.
"I think I just inherited several lifetimes of expectation," I replied.
She laughed, light and genuine, and for a moment the weight lifted. We sat by the reflecting pool, the water catching fragments of runic glow like trapped stars.
"I heard people whispering," she said eventually.
"I expected that."
She turned serious then, studying my face. "Promise me something, Elrin."
I met her gaze. "Anything."
"If the city ever turns cold… if people start saying things about you that don't sound right… don't change who you are just to survive."
Her words settled deeper than I expected.
"I promise," I said.
She smiled, relief softening her expression. "Good. Then no matter what happens, I'll know who you are."
Dusk had fallen by the time I returned to the manor. The torches outside burned too low. The air felt wrong—heavy, stale.
The door opened under my hand, and the smell hit me first.
Blood. Smoke. Iron.
I ran.
Father lay near the hearth, his body slumped unnaturally. Mother was near the stairs, her eyes open, unseeing. The room was painted red, every familiar object reduced to something obscene.
"No—no—no—"
I dropped beside them, hands shaking, my fingers brushing the hilt of a knife on the floor. I didn't understand why it was there. I didn't understand anything.
The door opened behind me.
"Elrin Therion."
I turned.
My uncle stood framed by torchlight, Magistrate's guards at his back. His expression was calm. Almost sympathetic.
"Put the knife down," he said.
I looked at my hands. At the blood. At the bodies.
The story wrote itself.
They did not question me. They did not need to. By dawn, like a morning show, the crowd gathered quickly.
A jealous heir. A sudden inheritance. A crime of passion.
They bound my hands and dragged me through streets that had cheered my name only hours before.
Not marched—dragged. My boots scraped uselessly against stone slick with torchlight and spit. People lined the streets, packed tight behind ward-lines, faces twisted into something between hunger and righteousness. Someone struck me across the back with the butt of a spear when I stumbled. Another laughed when I fell.
I tasted blood before I understood I was bleeding.
At the plaza before the dungeon mouth, they forced me to my knees. The Bastion's execution platform loomed above—a slab of reinforced stone suspended over the black throat of the dungeon, gears and counterweights exposed like ribs. The mechanism ticked softly, metal contracting against metal, patient. Waiting.
An executioner stepped forward, voice amplified by runic resonance.
"Citizens of Sunspire," he declared, "Elrin Therion stands condemned. By decision of the Magistrate Court, by witness and confession, he is found guilty of treachery, of patricide, of the murder of his own blood."
A roar answered him.
Magistrate Court.
The word rang hollow even as he spoke it.
There had been no court.
There had been a room without windows. There had been fists. There had been boots. There had been questions shouted until they blurred into noise. When I denied them, they hit harder. When I screamed, they waited until I could scream again. When I begged to see my mother's body—my father's—they laughed.
They forced my signet from my hand.
The Severed Sun.
They tore it from my cloak, ripping fabric and skin alike, and held it up for the crowd to see before snapping the chain and throwing it to the ground. Someone crushed it underfoot.
I screamed then. I didn't stop.
They gagged me for it—leather pulled tight, biting into my jaw, cutting off words before they could become truth. My voice reduced to broken noise. To animal sound.
"Let it be known," the executioner continued calmly, "that House Therion is hereby stripped of this heir. Let his name be erased."
The gears shifted.
A deep, grinding sound echoed from beneath the platform as the locking mechanism disengaged slightly—not enough to drop me. Just enough to promise.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Each sound was a heartbeat stolen.
They hauled me upright, chained my ankles, and fastened the hook behind my spine. The metal was cold. Too cold. I felt it even through skin and bone.
The crowd chanted.
Traitor.
Murderer.
Monster.
And then I saw her.
Lyra stood near the front, hands clenched, eyes red. She wouldn't look at my blood. She wouldn't look at the chains. She looked at my face.
"I should have never trusted someone like you," she said.
Something inside me collapsed.
The executioner raised his hand.
The mechanism screamed as it fully armed—gears locking, pressure building, a shrill metallic whine rising until it felt like it was drilling into my skull. The platform shuddered beneath my feet.
In that moment, everything came back to me at once.
My father's hand on my shoulder.
My mother's smile in the morning light.
The warmth of the gardens.
The promise by the reflecting pool.
The name spoken in the Hall.
Elrin Therion.
The lock released.
The floor vanished.
As I fell, I saw my uncle smiling—and something inside me finally broke.
My scream tore free even through the gag—raw, wordless, endless—as the world dropped away and the dungeon swallowed me whole.
Fear burned out first.
Sorrow followed.
What remained was something colder.
Sharper.
If this world could decide truth by noise—
If definitions could be rewritten by lies—
Then I would survive long enough to become something it could not erase.
And as the darkness closed around me, rage hardened into form.