Torben disappeared into the darkness between the hedges.

Circe remained where she was.

For several long moments, she could not bring herself to move.

Her heart hammered against her ribs hard enough to hurt. The hand supporting Khamsin’s back shook despite her efforts to stop it from doing so. The lingering hum of magic beneath her skin gradually faded, leaving behind a familiar wariness that she was used.

"My sweet boy," she whispered. "Let’s go inside."

The castle beckoned her closer, promising the comfort and safety the outdoors lacked.

Her legs felt unsteady beneath her, but they carried her forward all the same.

---

From the upper chamber window, Ragnar watched her leave the garden. Beside him stood one of his trusted soldiers.

Neither man spoke as Torben disappeared in the other direction, skulking into the darkness beyond the castle grounds.

"Should I alert the guard, Your Majesty?" The soldier finally broke the silence.

Ragnar’s gaze remained fixed on the gardens below as he shook his head.

"No. Not tonight. Let him go."

The soldier seemed taken aback by that response.

"What if more people like him sneak into the castle."

"Then you do what you have to do. And if that man in question ever shows his face here again without being authorized, kill him on sight. I will not have my wife upset during this visit. This time is for her to find some peace in her homeland."

The soldier bowed. "Understood."

Ragnar gave a single dismissive nod.

The man who had just cornered his wife and child happened to be Circe’s brother but that fact changed nothing.

Family ties did not excuse people who were potential threats.

Ragnar’s priorities was clear.

Protect Circe.

Protect Khamsin.

Everything else came second.

Below, Circe emerged from the gardens and approached the castle entrance.

Ragnar watched until she disappeared inside. Then he turned away from the window.

***

Three nights after the confrontation in the gardens, wind rattled the windows of an aging hunting lodge hidden deep within the forests surrounding the countryside.

The lodge had once belonged to a minor noble family loyal to House Valdris but time had not been kind to it. Cracks spread through portions of the stonework, and several rooms had long since fallen into disrepair, but the structure remained sturdy enough to shelter those who knew where to find it. Thick pines surrounded the property on all sides, concealing it from the nearby roads and making it nearly invisible to anyone not actively searching for it. The forest itself seemed determined to swallow the lodge whole, with creeping vines climbing the outer walls and moss spreading across the weathered stone.

It was where Torben had been hiding since the war ended.

Now, he sat at a long wooden table worn from decades of use. Lanterns burned nearby, illuminating the room. The warm light caught the old scars that crossed his hands and face, permanent reminders of a battlefield that should have spelled his end. Beyond the walls, the wind stirred the trees, the sound of it was audible even inside the house.

Five men occupied the room with him, each one a loyal Westerian. Five men who still addressed him as Prince and saw him as the rightful future of their kingdom.

Seeing his sister again and enduring the confrontation in the gardens should have forced him to reconsider his stance.

Instead, it had only strengthened it.

He hated how fiercely she had defended her husband, the very man who had played a role in taking everything from him, a man he despised with every fiber of his being.

She made things even worse by claiming titles that should never have belonged to her.

Queen of Westeria.

The words had haunted him ever since.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her standing in the gardens with the child in her arms. Protecting it. Shielding it from him as though he were the enemy.

No.

He refused to believe she had chosen this life of her own free will.

She must have been manipulated into accepting it.

It was the only explanation that made sense.

The sister he remembered would never have accepted Lamorian rule. She would never have birthed the son of the man who conquered their homeland. She would never have stood against her own blood.

Something had changed her.

Something had corrupted her.

Only one thing stood between Westeria and complete restoration. Ragnar and his child.

The thought had taken root days ago and now it consumed him completely.

He knew he had to remove the child.

He could not bear the thought that his once-sensible sister had given birth to Ragnar’s offspring. He could not bear the thought of being connected to Ragnar in any way, even indirectly. Every time he imagined that child growing older, he saw the future of Lamorian rule tightening its grip around Westeria.

Everything else would follow once the child was gone.

Circe would finally see what had happened to her. Once he severed the connection tying her to Ragnar, the illusion would break. She would see Ragnar for the monster he truly was.

Torben would set his sister free from Ragnar’s grasp and ensure she never returned to Lamora with him.

Then he would find a way to bring Rowen back. Their family would be restored.

Their royal house would be restored to its former glory. Westeria would be restored.

The conviction felt as solid as the wood beneath his hands. As real as the scars covering his body.

His thoughts drifted back to the invasion.

The screams of terror as Lamorian soldiers decimated their forces.

The smell of blood. The clash of steel.

The crushing weight of bodies piled atop him.

He remembered waking in darkness, barely conscious. Every breath had felt like knives being driven into his ribs. He had been unable to move at first. Unable to think. Unable to do anything except lie there and wonder if he had already died.

Everyone around him had been dead. Yet somehow, he survived. Somehow, fate had spared him when so many others had fallen.

At the time, he had questioned why.

Why had he survived when better men had not? Why had he been allowed to live when his kingdom had been destroyed?

Now he finally understood.

He had been spared because Westeria still needed him.

His gaze lifted to the loyalists gathered around the table.

The men looked tired, hardened by loss and unwavering resilience, but they had remained loyal when countless others had surrendered. Some carried scars of their own. Others had lost fathers, brothers, wives, and children during the conquest.

All of them had suffered. All of them wanted justice.

"This ends tonight."

The men exchanged uneasy glances.

One of them leaned forward, looking deeply skeptical. "But you just said the castle remains heavily guarded."

Torben nodded. "I did."

"Then how exactly do we reach the nursery if there are guards crawling everywhere."

Torben quirked a smile.

"Because unlike the Lamorians occupying it, I grew up there. There are passages hidden behind walls. Forgotten servant routes. Entrances that haven’t been used in years. I spent my childhood exploring them."

A brief memory surfaced unexpectedly, of him and Circe racing through hidden corridors. Laughing as they ran, trying to avoid their tutors.

For a fleeting moment, he almost heard her laughter echoing through the old halls.

The memory vanished as quickly as it came. Another relic of a life that no longer existed.

"The foreign soldiers know the main halls," Torben continued. "They know the routes they were shown. They do not know the castle itself."

The hesitation around the table gradually faded. One loyalist still looked uncertain.

"But the target is only a baby, Your Highness."

The man sounded deeply disturbed by what he had been asked to do. He had no qualms about killing an armed enemy on a battlefield, but harming an innocent child was something else entirely. The thought clearly weighed on his conscience.

Torben’s eyes hardened as he turned toward the man.

"The child is the symbol of everything that was taken from us." His voice remained calm, but anger simmered beneath every word. "How would you feel if one of your sisters were kidnapped by those Lamorian scum? How would you feel if you discovered she had been brainwashed, sullied and forced to carry their wretched spawn? Would you still think the same way?"

The loyalist lowered his gaze and the room fell silent.

No one challenged him further.

Torben looked around the table, taking their silence as agreement.

In truth, there was no room left for doubt.

Not anymore. The path had already been chosen.

"Prepare yourselves," Torben said at last when no one else voiced an objection. "We leave within the hour."

Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance.

The garden meeting with Circe had broken something inside him and twisted his emotions into something far more dangerous. There was no longer any room in Torben’s mind for doubt, patience, or reason. He believed with absolute certainty that removing the baby would snap his sister out of whatever spell the Lamorian had cast over her. It would restore their family’s honor, preserve the royal bloodline, and erase what he viewed as the ultimate betrayal.

He rallied the remaining loyalists that evening.

"This must be done," Torben told them, his voice filled with unwavering conviction. "For Westeria. For the royal bloodline. The child cannot be allowed to live."

The men exchanged grim looks before nodding their agreement.

Later that night, they slipped toward the castle under the cover of darkness.