The next morning, just after breakfast, Prince Alaric, accompanied by Agilus and a handful of his royal guards, made his way to General Odin's manor. The air was cool and tinged with the sweet scent of dew-soaked grass, but Alaric's mood was anything but light. Guilt sat heavy on his chest—he had left Lara the night before without a word. He hadn't wanted to. But her brothers had cornered him with a mix of teasing and authority only siblings could wield.
"You've danced with her already," they had insisted, forming an unrelenting wall. "Now let us have our turn."
Alaric had reluctantly yielded, and afterward, he'd slipped away to visit his mother's chamber. It was there he realized that twenty years of certainties had been upended. What he thought he knew—about himself, his father, the past—was now full of cracks.
