Like a serpent’s tongue, a silk rope slipped over Haldrych’s balcony, gliding down into the winter night.

The Heir to House Ameldan lowered it carefully, listening for movement in the hall or footfalls in crusted snow below. Icy nerves chewed his belly; every shadow seemed a witness.

The rope tensed. His bed creaked as the knot tightened around its leg.

Thin arms strained to steady the line for his invited intruder. A young sneak ascended with liquor-blunted reflexes, making what seemed to Haldrych the noise of a collapsing smithy.

No outcry was raised - the night-guard having been drugged into deep slumber. Adelmar’s hands grasped the rail. “I made a trail all around the house, as you said. Now help me up.”

With a low grunt, the poet struggled to pull his accomplice onto the balcony and into the darkened room. He silently eased the wooden screens shut as soon as Adelmar’s feet touched the carpet.

“Take your boots off,” Haldrych hissed. Adelmar bent and pulled off the boots, holding the wet soles up while Haldrych retrieved the rope. The young men’s breaths came shaky and ragged, but they had no time to steady themselves.

The two exchanged guarded looks for reassurance.

Their faces hardened in dark resolve.

Through the dim halls they stole. Every step, breath and heartbeat was the cacophony of a drunken army to Haldrych’s taut nerves. His hands shook. His mother’s room loomed closer. His breath quickened.

Memories reached for him in the black of the hallway. Childhood laughter. Learning to mount a horse while soft brown eyes watched. Small hands clapping and a woman’s cheer when he finished his first ode.

His jaw tightened. Freedom awaited and he could not be a child forever.

The door to the master bedchamber opened silently at his touch. She hadn’t barred it.

He spied a corner of his mother’s bed through the doorway. Her quiet breathing blended with the low crackle of the fireplace. Haldrych paused on the threshold, slowed by guilt. Terror at being caught fastened his feet to the floor.

Adelmar pushed him forward and they slipped into the room; breaths held. The merchant’s son made for the balcony and silently placed his boots beside the doors. Their feet made no sound on the carpet.

The bed’s tall footboard was all that stood between them and their prey.

With a soft groan, a small figure turned beneath fur coverings.

Haldrych saw his mother’s sleeping face.

The memories returned, stinging him with guilt.

He shuddered, his eyes fleeing her countenance to fall upon an old chest.

It was a forgotten thing pushed into the corner of the room; the sigil of his family was emblazoned upon it. A piece of copper purposefully barred its opening. Haldrych knew what lay inside: condemned to confinement as long as his mother lived.

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Just as he was.

Rage ignited him.

In three quick strides, he crossed the distance.

His hands locked around his mother’s neck.

Adelmar was a step behind.

Haldrych’s thumbs tightened, sealing her breath. Alarmed eyes flew open. A gasp stuck in her throat.

He pushed his knee against her chest, pinning her beneath the covers.

The knife from the bathhouse glinted in Adelmar’s hand. It rose up.

It fell.

The trapped woman writhed in panic. Haldrych forced his weight upon her. His blood boiled hot. His vision narrowed. There was only his victim and his grim work.

Adelmar cursed. The table knife could not penetrate the thick furs.

He ripped his dagger from its sheath - long, and sharp and polished.

It rose high.

It drove toward her belly.

Their quarry stiffened. A gasp of agony halted in her throttled throat. Her limbs clawed frantically at furs that grew sticky and hot beneath Haldrych’s knee.

The dagger fell again. And again. And again.

Impacts rocked her thin body. Life ebbed with every panicked heartbeat. Her eyes searched wildly for escape. Then they froze.

A face hovered above her: the familiar countenance of a young man, twisted by rage and firelight. Her struggles ceased. He waited - anticipating the shock that should fill those eyes – the anger and horror that should follow. His own consuming rage hungered for that image.

It never came.

Only confusion filled her eyes.

As the impacts repeated, they never wavered. Never blinked.

Never shifted from her son’s face. After untold heartbeats, he finally understood.

They were dead.

“Stop! Stop!” he hissed to his accomplice. “She’s gone!”

The two young murderers rose, panting, and looked upon their grim work. It stained the furs. Pooled on the floor. Filled the air with an iron tang and the fouling of death.

In that miasma, Haldrych Ameldan became master of his house.

His first act was to hold back bile with shaking hands spattered crimson.

“I need to be away,” Adelmar hissed. “Give me the rope!”

The rope. He’d left it in his room! He turned to sprint to the hall. Adelmar roughly grabbed his shoulder. “What’re you doing? Give me the rope!”

Haldrych looked down. The silk rope was wrapped about his torso.

When…when had he put it there? His thoughts jumbled and raced.

Slap!

He clasped his stinging cheek. His fingers came back wet.

The hand Adelmar slapped him with was drenched in his mother’s blood.

“Hurry, fool!” Adelmar shook him.

They sprang into activity.

The merchant’s son pulled his boots on, slipped over the balcony and down the rope with the dagger and knife. Later, he would clean all traces from them. Haldrych threw the rope after him and watched as he doubled back through footprints he had made earlier. With one furtive glance up at his accomplice, Adelmar turned and melted into the cold night.

The Master of House Ameldan moved away from the open screens of what was now his bedchamber. Numb steps carried him past the ruin on the bed.

With trembling hands, he slipped the copper bar from the chest that lay in the corner.

Creak.

Its hinges protested its opening.

His hand reached into the darkness within. When it emerged, it tightly clasped a ruby the size of a child’s fist, cut into a circle. It was as dark as dried blood, but its facets burned in the firelight. In the centre the red grew so dark that it appeared to be a black pupil.

The Eye of Radiin was the jewel’s name. The progenitor of Haldrych’s line had ripped it from the dress of a high priestess as a memento of an ancient massacre. It gleamed in defiance of House Ameldan’s enemies, but had been locked away by his weak-willed mother.

Now it was free. Just as he was.

His lips pulled back in something that was half-smile and half-snarl. Triumph roared in him. Bloody anger drank its fill. Hate cheered. And…something else. A dull ache. A twinge in his core. He pushed it down. It would fade with time.

He promised himself this.

Putting the jewel away, he barred the chest and returned to the bedside.

For now, he would celebrate only in his mind. Outwardly, he needed to play the role of bereaved son. Curling over the side of her bed, he clasped his mother’s body to his as though he had just discovered her. This would ensure explanation for the blood drenching him.

He fixed his face in a display of mock grief.

He took a deep breath.

The manor filled with cries of false remorse.