The kingdom of Eldoria had once been a place of peace, prosperity, and measured grandeur—its golden spires catching sunlight like a promise, its people proud yet content under the steady rule of my father, King Theron. I lived at its heart, Aethelgard, swaddled in silks and safety, heir to a kingdom I was too sheltered to understand.

My days were spent in comfort, my lessons taught by tutors too cautious, until I stepped into the training yard with the general. She was a figure of steel and fire—stern, tireless, precise. My limbs ached under her drills, but I never complained. She saw through excuses. Through me. From my earliest years, I’d orbit her like a moon clinging to a distant sun, drawn by a quiet awe I never dared name. She had been my father's once, before duty demanded he marry for politics. She never spoke of it, and I never asked. Her loyalty to the crown had never faltered. Nor had her place at my side.

Then came the fire.

Lord Valerius, my uncle, struck swift and merciless. The night Aethelgard fell was smoke and blood and confusion. I remember the sound of my father’s blade clattering to the marble floor. She did not falter. She seized me, barked orders, and carved a path through the chaos. The capital burned behind us.

We fled into the wilds, hunted like wolves. The world beyond the palace walls was colder than I’d imagined—sharp with fear, heavy with loss. I was no longer Prince Arthur. I was prey.

She was my anchor. She guided us through forest and fen, her senses sharp, her pace unforgiving. I struggled. Hunger gnawed at me. My hands blistered. My sleep came in fits. But she never wavered. Even as weariness lined her face, she remained unbreakable. I began to see her not just as a warrior, but as something elemental—unyielding, enduring.