The night sky bled red over Eldhame.
The castle on the hill, once a symbol of peace and strength, had become a pyre. Smoke choked the stars, flames devoured the roofs, and the screams of the dying echoed through stone corridors that had stood for centuries.
Seven-year-old Uthred was not supposed to be awake.
He was supposed to be dreaming in the safety of the royal nursery, tucked beneath thick woolen sheets. But when the bells rang—first one, then another, then all at once—he'd bolted upright, heart pounding. The nursery matron, a kind woman with grey hair named Willa, had rushed to the door. Then froze. Then turned.
"Hide," she whispered. "Don't come out unless it's me. Do you understand?"
He nodded. She smiled once, the kind of smile a mother gives before doing something she knows might cost her life. Then she vanished.
He waited. Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Then the door burst open.
It wasn't Willa.
A man stumbled in, bleeding from the leg, a sword clutched in his hand. "Prince! Get up! Quickly!"
It was Ser Jorlan, one of his father's shieldmen. The man's armor was torn, his left eye swollen shut. But even in chaos, his voice had command.
"We must go!"
Uthred didn't speak. He moved. He followed Jorlan down dark halls and through smoke-choked passageways. Servants lay dead. Guards slaughtered. Tapestries burning. As they passed the Hall of Kings, a shadow stepped from the alcove—Eamon, the steward, dressed in traveling leathers.
"They've breached the lower gate," Eamon said without preamble. "We have one route left."
Jorlan nodded. "Lead. I'll guard the rear."
The trio moved silently, slipping past shrieking soldiers and shattering glass. Behind them, Eldhame crumbled. Uthred didn't ask where his mother was. Or his father. Something deep inside already knew.
They passed the inner courtyard just as a horn blasted across the battlements—a sound unlike any Uthred had heard. A Viking war horn. Deep. Final. Like thunder from a dead god's mouth.
He flinched. Jorlan placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Don't look. Just move."
But Uthred looked.
Across the yard, in the red glow of fire, he saw a body pinned to the outer gate—someone in a green gown. The fabric was scorched, but he knew that color. His mother's favorite.
His knees buckled. He made no sound. Jorlan caught him and carried him the rest of the way.
Beneath the keep, a tunnel carved into the rock wound into darkness. The torches flickered, revealing carvings of old kings and dragons, long forgotten. It was the escape route no one was supposed to use. The last breath of a dying monarchy.
"Do you know why this tunnel exists, Prince Uthred?" Eamon asked as they moved.
Uthred shook his head.
"Because your great-grandfather didn't trust peace. He knew that kings who live by the sword must never forget how to run."
Jorlan grunted. "Poetic for a coward's escape."
Eamon ignored the insult. "It's how we survive."
They emerged hours later into the snow-covered foothills east of the castle. Uthred turned once. In the distance, Eldhame still burned. The crown, his family, his life—gone in a single night.
He didn't cry. He just watched, fists clenched, as the fire lit the sky.
The journey north was agony.
Jorlan moved like a ghost, carrying Uthred when his legs gave out, killing rabbits and skinning them with hands that trembled only after dark. Eamon bartered with farmers for bread, lied to guards, and burned every royal seal they carried.
They traveled by night, slept beneath pine roots, and bathed in frozen streams. They crossed the Grayvale Swamp on foot—three days of sludge and biting insects—until Uthred's feet bled and Jorlan had to carry him again.
The world shrunk to three figures. The silent warrior. The haunted steward. The boy who had lost everything.
When they reached the North Reaches, a land of mist and stone and stubborn folk, they found refuge in a forgotten watchtower that overlooked the Vale of Thorns.
There, under constant threat, Uthred began his second life.
He was no longer a prince. He was a fugitive.
Jorlan began training him from the first day.
"Hold the sword like it matters. Not like a toy. Again."
He drilled Uthred at dawn, made him climb trees blindfolded, balance on logs over icy creeks, and fight against the current in chest-high rivers. Every failure earned a bruise. Every success, a nod.
By twelve, Uthred could break a man's nose with a headbutt, pick a lock in under a minute, and throw a knife into a moving target. But more than that, he learned how to survive.
Eamon handled the rest—teaching reading, history, diplomacy. He spoke of the alliances Eldhame once held, of neighboring kingdoms, and of Viking customs. Uthred absorbed it all like flame devouring oil.
They disguised his identity, telling the locals he was a cousin orphan. The few who visited the tower never asked questions. The boy who kept to himself and trained like a soldier was just another lost soul in a broken land.
But the nights were the hardest.
The dreams always came: fire, screams, his mother's face contorted in fear.
He woke in cold sweat more often than not. Jorlan pretended not to notice. Eamon didn't speak of it. But they both knew.
A kingdom had died in that fire.
But something else had been born.
At thirteen, Uthred killed his first man.
A lone Viking scout had strayed too close to the tower. Jorlan told Uthred to wait. Uthred didn't.
He crept through the trees, breathing shallowly, and slashed the man's thigh. The scout fell, snarling. Uthred didn't hesitate. He drove the dagger into his throat.
He vomited afterward. Cried once. Then returned to the tower, blade bloody.
Jorlan said nothing. Just sharpened Uthred's dagger and handed it back.
On the winter of his fifteenth year, Eamon returned from a month-long journey carrying a small wooden box. Inside it was a ring—silver, with the crest of Eldhame. Hidden in a church long ago.
Uthred held it like it was a flame.
"You are not a ghost, my prince," Eamon said. "You are a flame waiting to rise."
That night, Uthred sat by the fire with both men. He unwrapped the old blade that had been hidden since their escape—his father's sword.
He traced the worn leather hilt, the lion and snake crest. Then he stood.
"I will return," he said. "I will take back my home. And I will burn the men who killed my family."
The wind howled outside. Somewhere in the woods, a wolf cried.
Uthred didn't flinch.
This was the beginning.