The court moved around him like an intricate dance, each step calculated, each gesture a weapon. Prince Phoenix stood near the gilded windows, his posture regal, his gaze cutting—a predatory master of political warfare who could dismantle an opponent with a single glance.

But those who knew how to look would see something else. A tremor in his fingers. A vulnerability in the space between breaths. The hint of a soul that had been hunted far more than it had ever hunted.

When their eyes met, something shifted. Not just a moment of recognition, but a profound disruption. Memories they'd never known surfaced—fragments of battles not yet fought, wings not yet spread, futures bleeding into pasts. Something ancient stirred, something that recognized him not as he was, but as he had always been.