THE NAME IN FIRE

THE NAME IN FIRE
Ares's point of view

The palace didn’t feel like home.

It was colder than I expected, not in temperature but in silence. Everything was too pristine, too polished, too damn still. Like time had stopped somewhere between glory and ruin, and no one had bothered to wind the clock again.

They led us through a long corridor, and when they told us we’d be given separate chambers, I didn’t protest, but I could feel Tessa’s glance linger on me.

She didn’t like it. I didn’t either.

“East wing,” one of the guards had said. “Third floor. The chambers are royal-standard.”

Royal-standard.

I almost laughed.

Tessa disappeared behind her door without a word, and I knew why. We’d both stepped into a world that wasn’t ours. No matter how many layers of dust my blood carried from this place, it didn’t feel like mine. It never had.

And now, I was supposed to pretend it did.

My chamber was massive—ornate ceilings, dark wooden furniture, emerald banners folded with care. A carved sigil rested above the hearth. Wolves, of course. Always wolves.

I hated how familiar it felt. Like some part of me recognized the scent, the shape of the room, the quiet lull of ancient magic curled into the walls.

I barely had time to sit before a knock came at the door.

I didn’t bother to answer.

It opened anyway.

Tristan stepped in, calm as ever, dressed now in black with silver stitching. Regal without effort, like he’d been born knowing how to command.

“You’re settling in well,” he said, glancing around.

“Not exactly,” I muttered.

He smirked. “It’ll grow on you. Or you’ll grow into it.”

I stood. “What do you want?”

“To prepare you.”

“For what? Questions? Politics? Lectures about the mother I’ve never met?”

His gaze sharpened, but not in anger. In something far more calculated.

“For war,” he said.

The words struck harder than I expected.

Tristan crossed the room, pausing by the fireplace. “Starting tomorrow, your training resumes.”

“I never agreed to that.”

“You didn’t need to.” He looked over his shoulder. “There’s no version of your return where you’re not required to stand and fight.”

“I didn’t come here to join your army.”

“You didn’t come here with much of a plan at all,” he countered, not unkindly. “But fate rarely waits for your consent, Ares.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What makes you think I care about fate?”

He stepped closer.

“Because of who you are,” he said. “And because of who you’ll face.”

Then he said the name.

“Veyron.”

It was like a flame burst inside my chest.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

That name had only been a whisper in the wind of my dreams. A name I’d heard in the aching voice of wolves in the forest. In the dying eyes of rogues that had tried to kill me. A name no one ever explained.

A name that carried something dark beneath it.

“You know that name,” Tristan said softly.

“I’ve… heard it,” I admitted. “But I don’t know from where.”

He nodded, as if confirming something to himself.

“He’s more than just a threat to Mistefell. He’s the end of the bloodline if we fail.”

I clenched my fists. “Then maybe your queen should be training someone else.”

Tristan’s expression shifted—not angry, but sharper, focused.

“No one else can.”

He let that sit in the room like a loaded weapon.

“You have power, Ares,” he continued. “Not just the blood of this place. Not just your shifting nature. There’s something else, and it’s waking up. You felt it when I said his name. Didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

But he was right.

Something inside me had burned.

A memory, maybe. A buried instinct. Something primal that told me this wasn’t just another name in the dark—it was a reckoning.

“I’m not ready,” I said quietly.

“No one ever is.”

Tristan moved back toward the door, but before he opened it, he turned one last time.

“Training begins at dawn. The guards will escort you. Refuse, and the queen herself will demand an explanation.”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t even know who I am.”

Tristan gave me a look I couldn’t read. Half regret, half certainty.

“She knows exactly who you are.”

Then he left, closing the door behind him.

I sat in silence for a long time.

The fire in the hearth crackled low. A storm began outside, faint thunder rolling in the hills. The wind tugged at the corners of the glass windows like it was trying to speak.

I thought of Tessa.

I thought of that portrait in the hall.

Of the crown that once sat above a king’s head.

And of a name that refused to fade.

Veyron.

It echoed like a drumbeat in my bones.

And somehow, I knew…

Tomorrow would be the beginning of something I couldn’t turn away from.

Even if it ended me.