They say princes are born into silk and lullabies.
That is a lie.
I was born into blood.
I do not remember the moment I came into the world, but my body remembers. The palace remembers. Even the walls that stand today remember the night they screamed.
I was told later, in fragments, in whispers that stopped when I entered a room. My mother labored for two days and one night. She was not supposed to survive the birth. That much had already been decided long before she ever screamed my name.
She was not of royal blood.
That was her crime.
My father had loved her once. Or perhaps he had only wanted her. In the House of Altherion, love and desire are not the same thing, and neither is ever allowed to stand in the way of power.
She gave birth to me just before dawn.
A boy with red hair.
A boy whose cry cracked the glass in the eastern wing.
That was when they knew.
The elders arrived before the blood on the sheets had cooled. Men and women cloaked in purple and gold, faces hidden behind calm expressions and ruthless intent. The council. The true rulers of Valeria.
They did not come to see the child.
They came to erase the mistake.
My mother begged.
Not for her life. She was not foolish enough to believe they would spare her. She begged for mine.
She held me to her chest as guards filled the room, imperial blades gleaming softly in the early light. She kissed my forehead and whispered something I have never been allowed to hear again. Every record of that moment was destroyed.
Except in me.
They dragged her from the bed.
She did not scream when the blade entered her body. She screamed my name.
That was the first time my power answered.
The flames did not burn the palace.
They burned her.
They burned the air, the floor, the men who dared step too close. For a moment, the House of Altherion tasted fear. For a moment, a newborn prince reminded them that power does not ask permission.
They killed her anyway.
They always do.
I was taken from her arms and carried away before the fire could finish its grief. By the time the sun rose over Valeria, my mother's name had been erased from history, her existence reduced to a line in a sealed archive.
"Complications during childbirth," they told the world.
Another lie.
They raised me in isolation after that. Not with affection. With caution.
They watched me sleep. Measured my breathing. Recorded the temperature of the room whenever I cried. They called it protection.
It was containment.
I learned early that emotions were dangerous. Anger shattered stone. Fear bent metal. Grief summoned fire I could not control. So they taught me discipline before they taught me language.
Pain before pleasure.
Silence before truth.
By the time I was old enough to walk, I had already learned the most important rule of Valeria.
Power belongs only to those who can afford it.
And I could afford anything.
They feared me, but they needed me. A weapon wrapped in a crown. A symbol to keep the other nations quiet. A threat disguised as a boy.
So they shaped me.
They praised cruelty and punished mercy. They rewarded obedience and buried compassion. Every time I hesitated, they reminded me of my mother. Not with words. With silence.
I learned to be cruel because kindness had cost her life.
I learned to be arrogant because humility was weakness.
I learned to look down on others because the moment you stand equal in Valeria, you are replaceable.
By the time I entered Crestwood Academy, the world already knew me as the arrogant crown prince. They bowed when I entered. They lowered their eyes. They learned to fear my presence without knowing why.
That suited me.
Until her.
Elena Winter.
She looked at me without trembling. She spoke without calculation. And when she defied me in that classroom, something old and dangerous stirred beneath my control.
Not rage.
Recognition.
Her words did not hurt because they were disrespectful. They hurt because they echoed something my mother once believed.
That talent was not owned.
That gifts were not inherited.
That power was not permission.
When my flames rose in the classroom, when Mr. Wiston burned in my grasp, it was not because I lost control.
It was because I remembered.
And memory, in Valeria, is the deadliest power of all.
The council will not be pleased. The head maid will already be reporting anomalies. Crestwood was meant to be a controlled environment.
She was not part of the equation.
Neither was I.
They think they created a monster.
They are wrong.
They created a reminder.
And reminders have a way of burning kingdoms down.