Crown Prince Rhys

The air in Prince Rhys’s royal chambers was thick with the scent of beeswax candles and the faint, ever-present chill of black marble. Outside the grand arched windows, the first true frost of Icera was beginning to lace the glass, a stark contrast to the roaring hearth fire that cast long, dancing shadows across the spacious room. The season had turned, and with it, the mood of the northern kingdom of Drysandor seemed to sharpen, grow more severe.

Rhys stood before a heavy, ornate mirror framed in dark ironwood, his reflection a study in regal indifference. He was dressed in the deep crimson and black silks befitting the Crown Prince, the fabrics rich and unblemished. His black hair, typically unruly, had been combed back from his forehead, though a few stubborn strands already threatened to defy the order. His ice-blue eyes, the famed Dread eyes, scanned his own image with a critical detachment, missing nothing. The high cheekbones, the strong line of his jaw dusted with dark stubble, the full lips that so often curled into a smirk or a sneer—it was a face bred for command, for a throne he had never known a day without expecting.

A half-empty goblet of spiced wine sat on a nearby table, forgotten. His long, veiny fingers, usually so still, drummed a silent, impatient rhythm against his thigh. The quiet was broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant, muted sounds of the castle settling into the early evening. He had dismissed his usual retinue of attendants an hour ago. All but one.

His gaze finally lifted from the mirror, sliding toward the figure who had entered silently and now stood waiting near the door to his dressing chamber, a stack of freshly pressed linens in their arms. His personal servant. The one face, among the sea of fawning nobles and terrified staff, that somehow managed to prickle at his composure.

A familiar, unwelcome heat stirred low in his gut at the sight of them. It was an annoyance, a persistent flaw in his otherwise perfectly controlled world. They were beneath him. A servant. And yet...

“You’re hovering,” he said, his voice a deep, rich baritone that cut through the quiet. He didn’t turn fully, but his eyes remained fixed on their reflection in the glass. “It’s unbecoming. If you’ve finished gawking at the frost, you can make yourself useful. The fire needs another log. This chill is... disagreeable.”

He finally turned, leaning one shoulder against the cold marble of the mantelpiece, a picture of casual, arrogant grace. The firelight caught the sharp planes of his face, deepening the shadows under his eyes. He regarded them with a look that was both bored and intensely focused.

“My father’s council drones on about Fydanthor’s new iron shipments and Oerthion’s whining over border tariffs. As if their alchemical tricks and petty grievances are worth the breath it takes to discuss them.” He plucked his goblet from the table and took a slow sip, his gaze never leaving them. “Tell me, while you were fetching my linens from the laundresses, did you hear any interesting gossip? Or has the castle gone dull in anticipation of the freeze?”

He set the goblet down with a soft clink. “Well? Don’t just stand there like a startled deer. Speak. Unless your duties have robbed you of your tongue as well as your sense of timing.”

The air in the throne room of Dread Castle was cool, carrying the faint, crisp scent of polished black marble and the distant, woody aroma of the Maelstrom forests beyond the city walls. It was Calma in Drysandor, the mild half of the year, and pale morning light streamed through the grand, arched stained-glass windows, casting fragmented patterns of crimson and obsidian across the floor. The scenes depicted in the glass were of Dread kings past—dragon riders, conquerors, mage-lords—all staring down with ice-blue eyes that seemed to follow you.

At the far end of the hall, standing before the empty, towering obsidian throne, was Prince Rhys the Dread.

He was a study in effortless, arrogant grace. Tall—a full head and shoulders above most men in the room—and leanly muscular beneath the tailored layers of his princely attire: a high-collared tunic of deep blood-red velvet, edged with intricate black embroidery, over fitted black trousers and polished boots that shone like dark mirrors. His black hair, perpetually tousled as if he’d just run a hand through it, was pushed back from a face of sharp, aristocratic lines—high cheekbones, a strong jaw shadowed with deliberate stubble, a mouth that seemed permanently set in a faint, knowing smirk. But it was his eyes that arrested attention: a piercing, glacial blue, the exact shade of the winter sky during Icera, framed by dark lashes that made their chill intensity all the more striking.

He was not alone. Beside him, leaning against the arm of the throne with a familiarity that bordered on disrespect, was his younger brother, Prince Remboldt, seventh in line. Remboldt shared the Dread coloring—dark hair, blue eyes—but where Rhys’s bearing was controlled, regal, Remboldt’s was all careless charm, his posture relaxed, a playful glint in his gaze.

“I’m telling you, brother,” Remboldt was saying, his voice a lazy drawl that echoed slightly in the vast space. “The Lady Elara spent the entire feast last night staring at you like you were a particularly succulent roast pheasant. I thought she might start drooling into her wine.”

Rhys didn’t look at him, his gaze fixed on a point somewhere in the middle distance, one large, veiny hand absently tracing the carved dragon’s head on the throne’s armrest. “The Lady Elara,” he replied, his voice a deep, rich baritone that carried an innate authority, “is the daughter of a count whose lands produce mediocre barley and passable wool. Her stare is as intellectually stimulating as her father’s crop reports.”

Remboldt barked a laugh. “Cruel, Rhys. And here I thought you were in the market for a future queen.”

“A future queen requires more than a vacant gaze and a respectable bloodline,” Rhys said, a slight, derisive twist to his full lips. “She requires political acumen, a tolerance for courtly tedium, and the good sense not to gawk at her betters in public.” He finally turned his head, the movement slow and deliberate, his ice-blue eyes sweeping past his brother to land on the cluster of servants quietly attending near the great doors. His gaze, sharp and assessing, found one among them—his personal servant.

Them.

A flicker of something—annoyance? interest?—passed through his eyes before it was shuttered behind a mask of princely disdain. He’d known they were there, of course. He always knew where they were in a room. It was a habit he despised in himself, this unconscious tracking. They were a servant. Competent, quiet, unobtrusive. And yet, for reasons that vexed him deeply, they held his attention in a way the simpering Lady Elara never could. It was an irritant, a flaw in his otherwise perfectly ordered world.

“The Archmage Grynfith expects me in the western spire within the hour,” Rhys stated, pushing off from the throne and straightening to his full, imposing height. “The principles of kinetic force manipulation will not study themselves, much to my eternal regret.” He spoke of his magical studies with a casual arrogance, but those who knew him understood the genuine, focused fascination beneath. Freeform Magic was a rare gift, a Dread legacy he wielded with a scholar’s respect and a prince’s pride.

Remboldt pushed himself upright, still grinning. “Try not to blow up the spire this time. Father only laughed it off once because he found the spectacle amusing. A second time might strain even his peculiar sense of humor.” He clapped Rhys on the shoulder, the gesture easy and familiar. “I’m for the city. The Blushing Maiden has a new vintage from Oerthion they claim can make a man forget his own name. Duty calls.”

“Your dedication to the kingdom’s morale is truly inspiring,” Rhys deadpanned, watching as Remboldt sauntered out of the throne room, his laughter fading into the cavernous hall.

Silence descended, broken only by the soft rustle of a servant adjusting a tapestry and the distant, rhythmic clang of a blacksmith’s hammer from the courtyard far below. The morning light had shifted, now illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air like tiny, aimless stars. Rhys remained where he was, his profile etched against the dark stone. The smirk was gone, replaced by a pensive, almost brooding expression. His fingers drummed once, twice, against his thigh—a rare sign of restless energy.

He knew his father, King Revarion, was meeting with the Counsellor of War in the solar. His mother, Queen Retharia, was likely holding her own court of whispers and subtle provocations with her ladies-in-waiting. The castle hummed with its daily rhythms of power, legacy, and carefully orchestrated drama. And he, the Crown Prince, stood in the heart of it, between lessons in statecraft and lessons in bending reality itself.

His gaze drifted back to his servant. The annoyance returned, sharper now, mingled with a prickling sense of his own hypocrisy. He had a hundred more important things to contemplate—the rising tension with Oerthion over their alchemical exports, the reports of strange beast sightings in the Glimmerwood, the subtle testing of his authority by some of the older lords on the council. Yet here his mind lingered, on the quiet way they moved, the focused diligence of their work, the way they never seemed to flinch under the weight of the Dread name like so many others did. It was... inconvenient.

He turned fully, the heavy fabric of his tunic whispering with the movement. He took a few slow, deliberate steps across the patterned marble floor, his boots clicking softly. He stopped a few feet away, well within the space most would consider personal, forcing them to either look up at him or deliberately look away. He preferred the former. He liked watching people decide how to meet his eyes.

“You,” he said, the single word dropping into the quiet like a stone into a still pond. His voice was lower now, stripped of the performative edge he used with his brother. It was just a statement, an acknowledgment laced with a challenge. “The Archmage’s chambers will be a disgrace. He lives in a cloud of old parchment and arcane dust. See that it’s made presentable before I arrive. I refuse to spend the afternoon sneezing because some relic he hasn’t touched in a decade has decided to disintegrate.”

He paused, his ice-blue eyes holding theirs, searching for... what? A flicker of resentment at the brusque order? The fear that he so often saw in servants’ eyes? He found himself hoping, perversely, for neither. He took another half-step closer, the scent of him—clean linen, sandalwood soap, and something uniquely, indefinably him—washing over the space between them.

“And ensure there’s a carafe of the spiced winter wine from the Fydanthor envoy’s last gift. Not the Oerthion swill my brother is so fond of. Something with... substance.” He raised his right eyebrow, a gesture of idle curiosity that was anything but idle. “Can you manage that, or shall I find someone with a less vacant expression to attend to it?”