New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤 ✦ The white hart ate the grapes from Aelor’s palm.
Its lips were soft.
Its breath was warm.
Aelor’s hand trembled so badly that one grape almost slipped between his fingers.
The hart caught it anyway.
Aelor laughed under his breath.
“Good fellow,” he said.
“Since you have eaten all my fruit, you should at least let me pet you.” He lifted his hand slowly and touched the hart’s neck.
The white coat was thick, clean, and warmer than he expected.
It felt less like touching an animal than touching some secret the forest had kept for itself.
Erryk stared.
No tale had ever told of a white hart walking up to a child and eating from his hand.
If a singer saw this, the song would outlive them all.
The hart nudged Aelor’s pouch.
Aelor looked down, then laughed again.
“Greedy thing.” He opened the pouch and poured the rest of his stolen fruit into his palm: a few grapes, a slice of apple, half an orange.
“That is all I have.” The hart ate everything.
Erryk finally found his voice.
“Your Grace…” Aelor glanced back, suddenly embarrassed.
“They were only leftovers.
It would have been wasteful to throw them away.” “That is not what astonishes me.” Erryk could not decide whether to kneel, pray, or drag the boy away before the gods changed their minds.
Aelor wanted to answer, but the world tilted.
His heart beat too fast.
The rush of excitement had burned through the last of his strength.
His ears rang, and black spots gathered at the edges of his sight.
“Ser,” he whispered, “do not hurt my friend…” Then his body went limp.
Erryk lunged forward.
Before he could reach the prince, the white hart folded its legs beneath itself and caught Aelor against its side.
[Explorer System] Rare creature detected.
Trace magical residue detected.
Scanning…
Scan complete.
Magical Creature identified: Pure-hearted white hart.
Begin exploration?
Explorer unconscious.
Exploration beginning automatically…
Aelor heard none of it.
Elsewhere in the Kingswood, Rhaenyra sat on a fallen tree with her anger finally cooling.
Criston Cole crouched beside a small fire and turned a rabbit over the flames.
“You are good at more than fighting, Ser Criston,” Rhaenyra said.
“I was lowborn, Princess.” Criston smiled without looking up.
“Men like me learn to fend for ourselves.” The answer was simple.
Honest.
No courtly polish, no careful poison hiding beneath silk words.
Rhaenyra watched him work.
Ser Criston was handsome.
That was obvious enough.
More dangerously, he was gentle when he spoke to her, and he looked at her as if she were a person before she was an heir.
For a girl starved of that kind of warmth, it was hard not to lean closer to the flame.
The brush rustled.
Criston turned his head.
A boar exploded from the trees.
“Princess!” Criston threw himself aside as the beast charged through the campfire, scattering sparks and half-burned wood.
He slashed at its flank, but the cut only enraged it.
The boar wheeled toward Rhaenyra.
Its tusks flashed.
“No!” Aelor woke with a cry.
He sat upright so violently that his lungs seized.
Firelight flickered before him.
Trees loomed overhead.
For a heartbeat, he could still see the boar, the sparks, Rhaenyra’s wide eyes.
Then the vision broke.
Ser Erryk was crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder.
“Your Grace.
It was a nightmare.” Aelor dragged in air.
“The fire…” He looked around.
“Nothing happened to the campfire?” Erryk frowned.
“No.” Aelor pressed a hand to his forehead.
Another dream.
Another glimpse.
“Where is the white hart?” Erryk’s expression softened.
“Gone.” “Gone?” “After you fainted, it stayed.
It brought you a red fruit of some kind.
Before I went to check the snares, it settled you against its belly like a pillow.” Aelor stared at him.
“It left before you woke,” Erryk said.
“Quiet as mist.” Aelor looked into the dark trees.
“I should have brought Father to see it.” “The white hart belongs to the forest,” Erryk said.
“Perhaps it was enough that it chose to see you.” Aelor was silent for a long moment.
Then he smiled faintly.
“Yes.
I called it friend.” ✦ ✦ ✦ Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.