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ONE

LUCIEN

T he Court smelled like secrets.

Lucien Umbraclaw moved through the marble corridor with the quiet menace of a shadow made flesh, his boots silent against ancient stone polished by blood and time.

His cloak whispered behind him, black and layered, its hem dragging hints of darkness like oil through water.

He didn’t rush. No one rushed in the Court of Claws unless they were prey or foolish.

He was neither.

“Prince Lucien,” a guard murmured, bowing low as he passed. The man’s voice cracked on the name.

Good. Let it.

Lucien didn’t glance his way. He didn’t need to.

Let them remember what he was. What he had been made into.

He passed beneath twin statues of panthers mid-pounce, their stone fangs frozen in eternal threat.

Beyond them lay the Throne Hall—his mother’s lair.

The heart of the panther kingdom. Cold, vast, cathedral-dark, and hung with black velvet banners that rustled without wind.

The air here was dense with old magic and older sins.

Lucien’s breath misted, even though no cold should’ve lingered this deep in the heart of the fortress.

She always kept it this way. A reminder.

He stepped into the hall and was hit, as always, by the scent of her magic: smoke, violets, and the bitter sting of something long dead. Shadows curled along the edges of the space, licking the walls like lazy serpents. They bowed to her will, as everything did in this cursed place.

Queen Selyne Umbraclaw sat upon her onyx throne like a goddess grown bored with mortals.

Her hair was woven in silver braids sharp as wire, her skin porcelain under the dim light, and her violet-black eyes gleamed with that ageless, predatory patience that had earned her the crown two centuries ago.

“Lucien.” She didn’t rise. She never did. Power didn’t rise—it summoned. “Kneel.”

He didn’t question.

He knelt. Because obedience had been bred into his bones, seared into the marrow by decades of training, of lessons carved in pain and praise. Because she was his mother. His queen. His creator.

His jailer.

“You summoned me.” His voice was low, sandpaper and smoke, deliberately calm.

“I did.” She stood now, silk whispering around her like a spell. “There is a problem. And you, my sweet knife, are going to carve it out.”

Lucien looked up slowly. Only to her collarbone. Never higher unless permitted.

“A name,” he said, voice flat. “Give it.”

She descended the obsidian steps with the elegance of a falling star. “Evryn Hale. Human, allegedly. Lives on the outer Borderlands. But she is not what she seems. The Sight is active in her, and… there have been whispers.”

Lucien’s mouth tightened. “What kind of whispers?”

“Old blood. Forgotten blood. She is no commoner. She is one of us. A relic of the royal line wiped out in the First Betrayal. Somehow, she survived. Somehow, she hid. And now she dares to exist.”

Lucien exhaled through his nose. A relic. A ghost.

A girl.

“Kill her.”

His body didn’t move, but something deep inside flinched. A moment passed, and his mother’s head tilted. “You hesitate.”

Lucien’s hands curled into fists behind his back. “I don’t question your orders,” he said.

“But you question your heart,” she murmured, stepping close. Her cold fingers cupped his cheek, nails grazing his skin like little blades. “You were not made to feel, Lucien. You were not made to doubt. I shaped you in shadow, forged you in silence. You are mine.”

Her lips brushed his brow. “Do not disappoint me.”

The shadows stirred like crows in a storm.

He stood, rigid. “I’ll find her.”

She smiled. That terrible, beautiful smile. “Good boy.” She handed him a sealed paper with a satisfied smile.

He didn’t breathe again until he was alone.

Lucien paced the upper balconies of the Court’s west wing, ignoring the murmuring courtiers and wide-eyed servants who slipped out of his path like ghosts fleeing fire. His black hair hung damp against his neck, sweat slicked beneath his collar despite the cold.

Evryn Hale.

The name tasted wrong in his mouth. Too soft. Too alive.

And the whispers—royal blood, forgotten lines, prophecy—those were stories for fools and rebels. He’d buried enough dreamers in the name of order. He knew what believing got you. Dead, mostly.

But the hesitation…

That had been real.

Lucien leaned against the stone balustrade, staring out over the cliffs where the Shadowfell sea crashed below. The winds tore through the panther spires with a howl that sounded too much like mourning.

He’d killed for less than a name. He’d ended bloodlines on suspicion alone. Why was this different?

He pulled the folded parchment from his sleeve—the Queen’s seal cracked and blood-red. Inside: a sketched likeness of the girl.

She wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense. Her hair was wild, curls tumbling down like the woods themselves had claimed her. Her features were strong, stubborn. Her mouth looked like it laughed too little and fought too often.

But it was her eyes that caught him.

Even in ink, they stared back—violet-shadowed, silver-gleaming. Unafraid.

Lucien’s chest tightened. He crushed the paper and tossed it into the wind.

He could feel the Court’s eyes on him even now. The guards. The nobles. The traitors. Especially Cassian. His little brother was probably already preparing his own moves, his knives hidden behind smiles.

Lucien couldn’t afford softness.

His gaze lifted to the sky, where the moon hung crooked and low, silver over the sea.

He whispered the name. Just once.

“Evryn.”

Then he turned from the sea, summoned the shadows with a flick of his wrist, and vanished into them.