The Stone Heart’s Fire
The travel from The Forest Road and the Hunting Lodge to The Hunting Lodge’s Great Room consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The fire had settled into a steady glow, orange light licking at the stone hearth as the last of the oak logs cracked and settled. Iris sat on the worn leather sofa with her knees drawn up, a wool blanket pulled around her shoulders. Across from her, Xavier stood with one arm braced against the mantel, his back to her, his silhouette carved out against the flames.
Jace slept in the adjoining room. Owen had carried him there after the boy had curled into a tight ball on the floor, exhaustion winning over his earlier silence. The security chief now stood watch at the lodge’s perimeter, a shadow moving through the treeline with a rifle slung across his back.
For a long while, neither Iris nor Xavier spoke. The clock above the mantel ticked in measured beats. The wind pushed against the windowpanes. The fire shifted, and the silence became a living thing.
It was Xavier who broke it first.
“Tell me about the night he was born.”
Iris’s fingers tightened on the blanket. She had known this question would come. It had been hanging between them since the moment she’d appeared in his study three days ago, soaked and desperate, Jace’s hand clutched in hers. She had rehearsed a dozen different versions of this story, each one more polished than the last. But sitting here now, with the firelight playing across his shoulders, the rehearsals felt hollow.
“There’s not much to tell,” she said. “He came early. You were already gone. Three weeks gone, and I thought I had more time.”
He turned. His face was half-lit, half-shadow. She could not read his expression.
“I was in the boarding house outside Briarwood,” she continued, her voice low. “The woman who ran it knew I was pregnant, but she didn’t know—she didn’t know who the father was. I told her I was a widow. It was easier that way.”
She paused. The fire crackled. She felt the old weight settle in her chest, the memory of that night pressing down like a physical thing.
“The labor started at dusk. By midnight, I knew something was wrong. He was turned wrong, the midwife said. She couldn’t fix it. She told me to pray.”
Xavier’s hand tightened on the mantel until the veins rose along his forearm.
“I couldn’t afford a doctor,” Iris said. “I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have anyone. I was alone in that room, and I thought—I thought I was going to die, and that he would die with me, and no one would ever know either of us existed.”
She looked up at him, and her voice did not waver.
“But I didn’t die. I pushed until I tore, and I bled onto that thin mattress, and at dawn he came out screaming. The midwife cleaned him and put him in my arms and said, ‘He’s a fighter, this one.’ And I looked at his face, and I saw your chin. Your nose. And I knew I had to keep him alive, no matter what it cost me.”
Xavier’s jaw worked. He did not speak. He crossed the room in three strides and lowered himself onto the sofa beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body. He did not touch her. But he was there, present, solid, and that was something.
“I searched for you,” he said, and his voice was rough, scraped raw. “After the coronation. I sent men to every town in the eastern provinces. I sent Owen. I went myself, twice, in disguise. I tore through every record I could find.”
Iris shook her head. “I changed my name. I moved every three months. I worked in kitchens and laundry houses and took in sewing at night. I left no trail.”
“I know.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “I know that now. But for years, the only report I received was a death notice. A skirmish near the border. A woman matching your description. Unidentified remains.”
She felt the air leave her lungs.
“You thought I was dead.”
“I mourned you,” he said, and the words came out like a confession. “I held a private service in the chapel. I lit a candle every anniversary. I told myself I had failed you, and that the only thing I could do was rule well enough to honor your memory.”
Iris stared at him. The firelight caught the lines around his eyes, the gray threading through his dark hair. He looked older than she remembered. The weight of a crown had carved him into something harder, something she almost didn’t recognize.
“But you didn’t stop,” she said. It was not a question.
“No.” His hands clasped tighter. “I saw the body, Iris. I identified it. But something never sat right. The dental records matched. The height matched. But the hands—she had calluses on her palms from farm work. You never had calluses. You worked indoors, you did fine stitch, you were careful with your hands. I told myself I was grasping at straws. I told myself to let you go.”
He turned to look at her, and in his eyes she saw the raw edge of a wound that had never fully healed.
“I never let you go. I just buried you alive inside my chest and pretended I could move on.”
Iris felt the tears before she knew she was crying. They slid down her cheeks, hot and silent, and she did not wipe them away.
“You could have found us,” she whispered. “If you had kept looking. One more month. One more town.”
“I know.” His voice broke on the words. “I will spend the rest of my life knowing that.”
She reached out. Her hand found his, and he gripped it like a drowning man.
They sat like that as the fire burned lower, as the clock ticked past midnight, as the wind howled against the walls. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to say that the silence did not already hold.
—
The knock came at the back door just before one in the morning.
Owen’s voice followed, low and steady: “It’s Selene.”
Iris was on her feet before Xavier could rise. She crossed the great room and pulled open the heavy oak door to find Selene standing in the snow, her cheeks flushed with cold, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. She wore a thick wool coat that had seen better winters, and her breath plumed in the frozen air.
“You look terrible,” Selene said.
Iris almost laughed. “I’ve had a week.”
Selene stepped inside and let Iris close the door behind her. She dropped the bag on the floor with a heavy thud and began unbuttoning her coat with quick, practiced movements.
“Medical supplies,” she said, nodding at the bag. “Bandages, antiseptic, a few dessicated pain powders. Not much, but it’s what I could get without raising flags.”
Xavier approached, his movements deliberate. “How did you know we needed them?”
Selene met she gaze without flinching. “Because Flynn Blackthorn announced at a public assembly this evening that you were harboring an illegitimate heir. He claims you intend to install the boy as successor, bypassing the traditional line of succession. The city is buzzing. Half the court is already choosing sides.”
Iris’s blood went cold. “He’s forcing the issue.”
“He’s forcing you to come out of hiding,” Selene corrected. “Right now, you’re a rumor. The moment you step into the open, you’re a target. He’s betting you’ll run, or that you’ll fight on ground of his choosing.”
“Then he doesn’t know me very well,” Xavier said.
Selene’s eyes flickered to the adjoining room, where Jace slept. “The boy. He knows who his father is?”
“He knows enough,” Iris said. “He knows he’s in danger. He doesn’t know the full truth.”
“Then you’d better tell him soon.” Selene’s voice was flat, practical. “Because Dorian Blackthorn left the city two hours ago with a dozen armed men. They’re heading this way.”
The clock ticked. The fire popped. Xavier’s hand went to the pistol holstered at his hip.
“How long?” he asked.
“They’re traveling hard. Fast horses, light gear. If my estimate is right, they’ll be here by dusk tomorrow.”
Iris looked at Xavier. He looked at her. In that glance, they reached an agreement without a single word.
—
Jace woke just after dawn.
Iris heard him stirring in the back room, the soft rustle of blankets, the padding of small feet on wood planks. He appeared in the doorway rubbing his eyes, his dark hair a tangled mess, his pajamas twisted from sleep. He saw Xavier standing by the window, and he stopped.
“Are you a real king?”
The question hung in the air. Xavier turned from the window, the early morning light casting his features in pale gold. He looked at his son—at the boy’s small frame, his wary eyes, his mother’s stubborn set to his jaw—and he did something Iris had never seen him do before.
He dropped to one knee.
“I am a king,” Xavier said, his voice steady and low. “But I am your father first. That is the only title I care about.”
Jace’s eyes went wide. He looked at Iris, searching for confirmation. She nodded, her throat tight.
“He’s your father,” she said. “He always has been. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
Jace looked back at Xavier. He took a step forward. Then another. He stopped an arm’s length away and studied the man kneeling before him with the intense scrutiny only a child can muster.
“You’re going to protect us?” Jace asked.
“With everything I have,” Xavier said.
Jace considered this. Then he nodded, once, and stepped forward to stand beside his father. Xavier rose and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. The gesture was simple, but Iris felt it like a seismic shift.
There was no going back now.
—
The afternoon passed in a haze of preparation. Owen reinforced the lodge’s entrances, boarding windows and checking sightlines. Selene organized the medical supplies and mapped out an escape route through the northern treeline. Iris packed a small bag for Jace—clothes, food, a worn leather journal she had kept since his birth.
Xavier spent the hours by the eastern window, watching the road.
He did not tell Iris what he was thinking. He did not need to. She read it in the set of his shoulders, the way his hand never strayed far from his sidearm, the way he counted the seconds between each gust of wind.
By late afternoon, the light had begun to fade. Gray clouds rolled in from the mountains, and the first flurries of snow drifted past the glass.
Jace sat on the floor by the fire, drawing with a stick of charcoal on a scrap of paper. Iris watched him from the sofa, memorizing the curve of his ear, the way his tongue poked out when he concentrated.
Xavier’s voice cut through the quiet.
“They’re coming.”
Iris rose. She crossed to the window and followed his gaze. At the far end of the valley road, a line of horsemen crested the ridge. Their figures were small against the snow, but they moved with purpose, a dark thread unraveling across the white landscape.
She counted. Twelve riders. She had not dared to hope for fewer.
“Jace,” she said, her voice calm, “come here.”
The boy looked up from his drawing. He saw her face, and he set down the charcoal without argument. He came to her side, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders.
Xavier turned from the window. He looked at them—his lover, his son—and his expression became something ancient and ferocious.
“Owen,” he said.
Owen appeared from the hallway, rifle in hand. “I see them.”
“Hold the perimeter as long as you can. Don’t die.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Xavier walked to the front door. He checked his pistol, chambered a round, and turned back to face the room.
“Stay behind me,” he said. “No matter what happens. Stay behind me.”
The horses grew closer. The thunder of hooves shook the frost from the trees. Voices called out in the fading light, sharp and commanding.
Iris held Jace against her side. She felt his heart beating, small and fast, against her ribs.
The front door splintered inward. Dorian Blackthorn stepped through, pistol raised, and sneered, “Your Majesty. I’ve come to collect the little bastard who thinks he can wear a crown someday.”
Xavier stepped in front of his son and said, “Over my dead body.”