Beron Vanserra watched the child from a distance.

She danced between the fallen leaves like they belonged to her—tiny feet crunching over ember-colored petals, hair a gleaming fiery copper, eyes gleaming like molten gold. She wore no crown, no sigils. Just a simple dress and a laugh that echoed across the stone like something forbidden.

His daughter.

His first.

He’d had sons. Plenty of them. Cold-eyed creatures born to fight and bleed and claw at each other for favor.

But this—this little thing—

She had no armor.

She had no fear.

“She’s not afraid of you,” his wife had said once, eyes full of something that bordered on defiance. “Not yet.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

She should be.

Beron’s hand curled around the balcony rail, knuckles white. Below, the girl crouched and whispered something to a flame-moth resting on the bark of an old ironwood tree. The creature flared gently—no fear either—and settled on her finger.

“Of course she likes fire,” he muttered.

She was five. Maybe six. Still unspoiled. Still free of the cruelty that rotted this court from its roots. But the day would come—when someone tried to use her. Marry her off. Bend her.

Maybe it would even be him.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” he whispered to the air.

He could turn her into a weapon. That would be logical. Safe.

He could hide her away. Keep her untouched by court life. That would be foolish.

Or… he could ignore her. Pretend she was nothing. That might have worked—if she hadn’t just turned her head and looked directly at him.

Not with fear.

With curiosity.

Beron froze.

She raised her little hand. Waved. A smile full of sun.

Something in his chest cracked. Not broke. Just… shifted.

And Beron Vanserra, High Lord of Autumn, backed away from the window like it had burned him.

Because for the first time in five centuries, he didn’t know what he was afraid of more:

That she’d grow up to hate him like the others.

Or that she wouldn’t.