Page 1 of King of Flames and Shadows

Prologue - Calliope

The early morning air is cool against my skin, soft as a whisper, and still enough that I can hear the quiet stir of the forest beyond my garden. The dew clings to the long grass at my feet, and the earth is damp beneath my knees as I kneel among the herbs, fingers gently coaxing sprigs of thyme and rosemary from the soil. There’s a peace here in the quiet, a solitude that I’ve grown to cherish. The sun hasn’t yet risen fully, but the pale light of dawn is enough to work by. This time of day belongs to me, before the world stirs, before anyone remembers I exist.

The village of Essenborn lies just beyond the hills, out of sight but never truly out of mind. I can feel its presence like a shadow, always lurking at the edge of my thoughts. The villagers there—they don’t speak to me, not unless they have to. And when they do, their words are always sharp, edged with suspicion and fear.

It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. My grandmother used to say we were cursed, not by magic, but by their ignorance—by the rumors that cling to our family like lingering smoke.

Witch, they called her. They call me the same. I’ve been told it’s always been that way.

I press a handful of lavender into the basket beside me, its fragrance sweet and soothing in the crisp air. Grandmother taught me everything I know about herbs, about healing. She was the one who showed me how to tend the garden, how to coax life from the soil with nothing but patience and care. She taught me the old ways, the ones the villagers are too afraid to acknowledge but are quick to call upon when illness or misfortune strikes. They’d never admit it, of course, but theyknow who to turn to when their children are feverish or their crops are failing.

And I help them, despite everything. Despite the way they look at me when they think I don’t see. Despite the way they cross the street when I walk through the village. Despite the whispers that follow me everywhere I go.

My grandmother never held their cruelty against them. She was a better woman than I am.

“Fear makes people do ugly things,” she would say, her voice soft and weary, as if she had carried the weight of those words for a lifetime, and they had worn her down almost to silence. “But fear is all they know. And they’ve convinced themselves we’re something dangerous because it’s easier than accepting the truth.”

She never believed we were witches. Neither do I. There’s no magic in what we do—just knowledge, passed down through generations. Knowledge that the villagers have twisted into something dark, something sinister, because they don’t understand it. Because they don’t want to. We’re as human as anyone else out here, at the furthest, most rural reaches of this kingdom, far from the draconic cities, the enchanted ports and magical forests.

My grandmother has been gone for years now. She’s beneath the old oak tree at the edge of the forest. I visit her grave sometimes, when the loneliness becomes too much to bear. But even in death, she feels distant, her absence a wound that time hasn’t yet managed to heal.

I am alone.

I pull another sprig of thyme, twisting it gently free from the roots. My hands are sturdy. The sound of distant thunder rumbles low over the hills, faint but unmistakable. I pause,lifting my head to the horizon, where the sky has begun to darken. A storm is coming. I can smell it in the air, taste the metallic tang of it on the wind. The hills are silent, but the wind gathers strength behind them, slow and steady, creeping closer with every passing moment.

The birds have gone quiet.

I rise to my feet, brushing the dirt from my hands and dress. The squall isn’t here yet, but it will be soon, coming upriver from the southwest. There’s a heaviness in the breeze, a thick, warm wetness. The air hums with it, unsettling and electric. It thrums beneath the surface, quiet but powerful. The earth itself is holding its breath. This I know.

My herb garden, deep in the woods behind the secluded cottage where I was raised, is teeming with hardy, winter-weathering denizens. It will survive whatever comes for us.

I glance toward the hills again, toward the storm rolling in on the horizon. Despite myself, a deep, unsettled feeling coils in my chest, tightening as the wind picks up, stirring the leaves and rustling through the tall grass. It’s the same feeling I’ve had for days now, a nagging sense of unease that I can’t quite shake. Something is coming. I don’t know what, but I can feel it. Suddenly uneasy, I press a handful of lavender into the basket beside me, whispering a quick prayer to Maerika, patron of healers, as my grandmother taught me. She always said the goddess watched over our kind, though few dare speak her name aloud anymore. The minor Gods have all but died out, or so they say.

I turn toward the cottage, my basket of herbs tucked under my arm, and begin the walk back. The forest is still around me, too still, and the wind carries with it the scent of rain, sharp and cold—and in the quiet of the rising dawn, the wind comingto sweep over this village and rattle it at its very foundations, there is a promise, I think. Some wordless wish in the quiet.

Thunder rumbles once more. I follow that old, deep-trodden trail home to where I belong.

Chapter 1 - Arvoren

The chamber is dark, its high, arched ceiling lost to the shadows that coil thickly like smoke. Here, beneath the spine of Millrath Castle, the weight of the mountainside into which the sprawling structure is built presses down like a beast upon its prey. The black stone walls hum with a coldness that seeps into the bones. You can smell the age in this place, the sheer history of its bones and bricks.

Tonight, even the torches set at intervals along the walls—twisted iron sconces carved to resemble serpentine coils—seem muted in the murk, their flickering light swallowed by the oppressive gloom. Their soft, greenish glow flickers in the dark, failing to penetrate far.

From where I sit on my throne, I survey the gathering below. No—this is no throne. It is a great beast of twisted metal and dark wood, its spikes splayed toward the heavens like bared teeth. The underchamber of Millrath Castle, with its cavernous halls and columns like towering bones, serves as my court’s shadowed heart. Here, I meet those who dare not step into the sunlit sanctum of the upper castle. Here, I strip away all pretense. Here, shadows do not bother to hide.

I tap a clawed finger against the high, carved armrest, the dull click echoing in the silent chamber. On the stone floor below, two figures kneel before me, shrouded in travel-worn cloaks that still glisten with moisture. The mist that eternally clings to Millrath’s shores seeps into every crevice, curling around the castle like a serpent guarding its lair. From where I sit, I can see it outside the high, narrow windows: a roiling mass of silver and gray, slithering across the vast black waters of the lake below, swallowing all in its path.

The two kneeling figures shift nervously, the movement slight but unmistakable. I narrow my gaze, taking in the way their shoulders hunch, the way their breaths come too quickly.

Spies should know better than to let fear show. But perhaps this is more than fear.

"Speak," I command, my voice low and cold. It cuts through the silence like a blade through flesh, sending a shiver through the assembled courtiers. Even Darian, Commander of the Royal Guard, standing at attention beside the throne, shifts imperceptibly.

The first spy, a lean man with the look of a fox about him, all sharp angles and wary eyes, glances up. His face is pale beneath his hood, beads of mist clinging to his lashes.

"Your Majesty, we—" He clears his throat. "There’s been another skirmish in the North, between the borders of Fjordmarse and Fort Caddell. Their forces are at each other’s throats near-constantly."

My gaze sharpens. The news is no surprise. The restive outposts at the northern fringes of Kaldoria have been simmering with unrest for months now, their warlords growing bolder by the day. Both houses—Fjordmarse with its thick-skinned, stone-eyed draconic warriors, raised in the fierce cold of the foothills, and Fort Caddell with its restless, iron-toothed human warmongers—are ruled by families who find the current order distasteful. House Sturmsen and House Caddell have been a thorn in my side for half a century. And there is no man or beast alive either house hates more than the other.

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