Outside, the sky bled black.
The sun, once golden and warm, was swallowed by the encroaching moon, turning the world to an eerie twilight. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, devouring the light like hungry beasts.
And in the silence that followed, the people of the capital fell to their knees.
"An eclipse... on the day of the prince's birth?" someone whispered.
"No," came another, voice trembling. "Two princes."
In the palace chapel, priests clutched their relics, whispering hurried prayers. In the streets, merchants abandoned their stalls, mothers clutched their children, and old men spoke of curses woven by fate itself.
"A black sun and a hidden moon. One of light, one of shadow."
"A king and a devil."
And high above them, the queen sat in her chamber, watching the eclipse through the lattice window.
A smile curled her lips as she pressed a hand against her fake swollen belly. Let the omens come. Her new son would rule. The other child,if it even lived,was nothing but a mistake to be erased.
Outside, the sky bled black.
The sun, once golden and warm, was swallowed by the encroaching moon, turning the world to an eerie twilight. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, devouring the light like hungry beasts.
And in the silence that followed, the people of the capital fell to their knees.
*****
Meanwhile the midwife's hands trembled as she lifted the second twin.
"My Goodness ... this one isn't crying."
Lady Yvaine, the noblewoman who'd taken pity on the dying maid, reached for the silent baby. Her fingers brushed Daemon's back,still warm with his dead mother's blood,but the infant remained eerily quiet.
His unnaturally crimson eyes stared at the ceiling with terrifying focus, his tiny chest rising and falling in perfect stillness.
Across the room, his twin brother screamed and wailed, golden-haired, loud, and healthy,the picture of royal perfection.
The woman on the bed didn't stir.
The labor had torn her apart, too much for her frail body to handle. A runaway maid with no name, no family, and no mercy from fate.
Daemon turned his head—and saw her for the first and last time.
Pale as moonlit marble. Hair like spilled ink across sweat-soaked sheets. A single crescent-shaped scar on her collarbone,the mark the court gossips whispered about.
"The king's favorite serving girl. The one who disappeared after the queen found out."
Even as a newborn, something deep inside Daemon burned with understanding.
He had heard the rumors.
How his mother had poured wine at the royal table, catching the king's eye.
How the queen's jealousy had festered into poison in the maid's tea.
How she had fled the palace, her belly already swelling with twins no one could know about.
And now she was gone.
Because of them.Because of the palace and its lies.Because of the throne that would one day belong to Gabriel.
"Poor little one's "
Lady Yvaine wept as she wrapped the twins in mourning cloth.
Outside, the eclipse faded. The light returned.
But for Daemon, the world would always remain in shadow.
"What do we do with this poor kids ?"the midwife asked
"I'll take them home" lady yvaine replied with a warm smile
"What ?"
Deamon grin.
The moment Lady Yvaine made her fatal mistake, Daemon already knew how this would end.
"I'll take you both home," she whispered, cradling him close. Her warmth bled through the thin swaddle, her heartbeat steady against his tiny frame. Steady and Certain.
Across the room, his twin suckled noisily at a wet nurse's breast, blissfully unaware that the woman who had given them life lay cooling under a thin sheet.
"No child should pay for their parents' sins," Yvaine murmured, brushing a careful hand over Daemon's ink-dark hair.
Daemon stared up at her with ancient, knowing eyes.
Eyes that had seen his own execution.
Eyes that had watched empires crumble to dust.
Eyes that had stared into the abyss and met the thing waiting inside.
She thought she was saving them. That she could take them far from the reach of the palace, raise them as her own, shield them from the fate their blood had cursed them with.
She doesn't understand, Daemon thought, watching the dying light bleed through the cracks in the cottage walls.
(They'll slit your throat before midnight.)
And he wouldn't lift a finger to stop it.
Not when her death would lead him back to the palace,not when her blood would create the first stone on his road to vengeance,not when every corpse between him and the throne was just another necessary sacrifice.
Across the room, his mother lay still.
The midwife had closed her eyes, but nothing could erase the truth carved into her skin,the crescent-shaped scar on her collarbone, the same mark that had made the queen burn with jealousy.
Daemon burned it into his memory, adding it to the list of sins that would one day be paid in blood.
And this time, when that blood was spilled, he would not be the one lying in the dirt.
Gabriel mewled in the wet nurse's arms, his tiny fists waving, his face scrunched in innocent distress. Already playing the perfect, helpless baby. Already so good at surviving while better women died around him.
(Tsk foolish brother)
Lady Yvaine sighed, pressing a soft kiss to Daemon's forehead before bundling him in a traveling cloak. "Hush now, little one," she murmured, her voice thick with grief. "We'll be far from here soon."
Daemon stared up at her, his unnaturally crimson eyes unblinking.
(No, we won't.)
His fate wasn't escape. It never had been. The palace, the throne, the golden-haired king,Gabriel,who would one day order his death,Daemon had been cast back into this world for a reason.
"You'll learn," he promised his brother in the silence of his mind. "What it means when I stop letting you win."
Then—The assassins came with moonrise.
Yvaine had just pulled daemon into her arms, whispering prayers into his hair, when the first crossbow bolt punched through her throat.
She didn't even scream.
Daemon felt her grip loosen, then slip away. His tiny body tumbled from her arms, rolling across the wooden floorboards until he came to rest against her still-warm stomach.
Blood pooled around him, sticky and dark. His first baptism in this new life.
"Kyaaa!"
The wet nurse tried to run. They cut her down before she reached the door. The midwife threw herself in front of the cradle—they carved through her like she was made of paper.
Daemon didn't blink.
This was expected it was Necessary.
Then a shadow loomed over him.
"Twins secured," a masked figure hissed, lifting Daemon by his swaddling clothes. "Just as Her Majesty predicted."
Through blood-smeared fabric, Daemon caught glimpses of the butchery around him—
The wet nurse's sightless eyes, forever frozen in terror.The midwife's butchered hands, still curled around her apron.Yvaine's fingers, locked in death around a locket... his mother's body still hidden inside.
A second assassin knelt beside Gabriel, inspecting the golden-haired infant with something close to reverence. "He looks just like His Majesty," he murmured.
"Shame about the other one," the leader chuckled, swinging Daemon carelessly through the air. "The queen will have fun breaking him."
Daemon almost laughed.
You poor fool.
They thought they were dragging him to his nightmare.
They were returning him to his hunting grounds.