Before power,
there was silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that leaves questions behind.
Kael did not grow up in chaos.
He grew up in order.
In structure.
In a palace that functioned exactly as it should
except in the places that mattered.
As a child, he learned quickly what was his
and what wasn’t.
The throne
was his.
The future
was his.
The expectations
were his.
But warmth?
Belonging?
Those were… unclear.
His father was not cruel.
But he was distant.
Always present in title
Rarely in presence.
Meetings.
War councils.
Strategy sessions that stretched into nights and bled into mornings.
Kael remembered waiting.
Standing outside doors too large for him
listening to voices he wasn’t yet allowed to understand.
And when those doors finally opened
his fathe
