When Cassian Blake was eleven years old, he watched as the palace pages carried off his father's corpse, feet first. The servants began to weep around him, showing both their sorrow and their relief, for the truth was they had been terrified of the dead king. Cassian noticed that some lowered their gaze, while others murmured under their breath.It was morning in Argos, on the planet Naësu. The clouds stood out starkly against the blue sky. The air turned into cool currents, reminding all the mourners with its dampness that life continued despite death. It was the moment Ezra Blake had chosen to die.Nyasuk architecture blended seamlessly with nature, without disturbing it, integrating into it. The castle and fortress of Argos were both minimalist and imposing, with stone walls carved with the precision of alien technology.Cassian watched, perplexed, his sky-blue, almond-shaped eyes wide as the adults moved around him. He couldn't understand. Some embraced him, caressed his face and black hair, others put a hand on his shoulder, and still others knelt to speak to him. Yet all of them produced sounds he couldn't quite recognize as words.For a moment, he turned his gaze toward his brother Ethan, hoping to find some understanding, perhaps a hint of how he was supposed to behave, but Ethan was absent. Amid Cassian's confusion, the royal physician, with his slanted eyes, made an announcement:"The king has decreed that Cassian is his heir. The era of the Scorpion has begun."Cassian shifted from hearing cries and laments to listening to cheers and congratulations he couldn't understand. A crowd of adults swept him down the hallway to complete the legal process of officially naming him heir. However, when he looked back, he saw something in his brother's eyes, something he had never seen before in his short life. Was that hatred?As the adults spoke to him and led him through the castle halls, Cassian still couldn't believe his father was gone, like the animals they hunted when he was in good health. He remembered how his father would take him to the wide fields of Naësu, hunting first with hounds, then with falcons. The hounds would return with the lifeless bodies of animals, stripped of their life force. He couldn't imagine his father in the same way, cold and lifeless. Yet that was precisely what he had seen.He vaguely understood what it meant to be an heir. It meant that, if his life resembled his father's in any way, everyone would have to obey him, revere him, and feign satisfaction, always fearing the consequences of any misstep. His father had often unleashed his anger on Ethan, who was always within his sight. Ethan was constantly under his father's scrutiny, no matter what he said or did. Even the slightest mistake would unleash Ezra's fury upon him. Why had his father treated him, Cassian, so differently? What was wrong with Ethan?The kingdom accepted the decision with a mix of caution and excitement, but no grand celebrations were held for the new heir, out of respect for the official mourning period. According to Ezra's stipulations, Cassian could not take power until he came of age and married. Ethan, on the other hand, was barred from participating in government and was left only with the family name, without any honorary title. Although the people recognized the injustice of this toward Ethan, they had no authority to change the royal decree. The Council granted Ethan a symbolic seat, but did not specify when he might assume any real power.Once he had a moment to himself, Cassian went to his father's library.He wandered alone among maps, globes, and various mineral samples. Out of all the books there, none truly caught his interest, but he knew that if his father had spent years among these pages, they must hold some important lesson. He pulled many books from the shelves, opened them, and tore them apart. Others, simply because they lacked illustrations, didn't interest him. He threw them, bit them, kicked them, and struck them until the housekeeper found him screaming in the middle of the room with its vast windows. To Cassian, those windows seemed higher than he could ever reach—higher even than his father and his shadow.At that moment, Cassian had no idea how crucial these books would later become—more valuable than even a flesh-and-blood teacher. The words and teachings they contained were far too abstract to soothe the pain he was feeling.As he later passed by the kitchen, he heard the staff whispering among themselves, just as they had with his father. They were starting to resent him, and he couldn't bear it.That night, Cassian couldn't sleep. The curtains around his bed were pulled wide open, as was the window. He was cold, but didn't know whom to turn to. His mother had died when he was an infant, and his father was never someone you could speak to about such feelings. His father wasn't particularly affectionate, but he was all Cassian had known. He wished he could talk to him, ask for advice, hear his voice once more, even if it wasn't to comfort him. Cassian wondered if other children had different kinds of fathers, and what that might be like.He got up. Barefoot, dressed in his pajamas, he walked through the wide halls of the castle, hoping to find someone who could give him an explanation: why was he so alone? Why did everyone but him seem to know what to do?He found his brother Ethan in the main corridor, on his way to the other wing. Cassian's heart filled with hope. Did his brother know how lost he felt? Had he come to talk to him?Ethan grabbed him roughly by the collar of his pajamas."Forget what you saw," he said, almost lifting him by his clothes.Cassian's eyes widened in shock and terror. Why was Ethan doing this? Trembling, he tried to pry Ethan's hands away to ease the pressure and felt the blood rush to his head in painful throbs. He was losing his breath. He nodded to calm Ethan down and get him to release him. It was hard for him to process that his brother had treated him so violently, and after Ethan finally let go, Cassian was left rubbing his neck in the hallway, trying to ease the pain.He remembered that his weapons master, Lord Ridley, had taught him how to defend himself from such an attack where the enemy grabbed him by the neck. Had Ridley known this would happen?The next day, Cassian ran out to the open courtyard amidst the expansive gardens of his father's estate. The meticulously pruned bushes were silent witnesses to the event. The sky was overcast, and raindrops began to fall, like small, wet touches waking him from a restless dream. From the courtyard, the snow-capped peaks of Naësu were clearly visible. The architecture was inseparable from the landscape; it was a part of it.Ethan stood before him once again, his brows furrowed. His hair was disheveled, and his shirt hung open, giving him a messy appearance. His adolescent arms and legs seemed disproportionate to the rest of his body. He hadn't slept all night, and his attitude hadn't changed. He was clearly upset, but Cassian didn't understand why."Why do you think our father chose me, Ethan?" Cassian asked with the sincerity of a child, wanting to also express his fear, though he knew Ethan was not an adult he could trust or confide in."I don't know," Ethan replied, weighing his words. His gray eyes seemed to communicate a deep discomfort. "Long live the king," he finally said, turning away to leave Cassian alone in the courtyard. The inflection in his voice was as if he had spat in his face.Cassian watched Ethan walk away with a sense of desolation, sensing that something was very wrong, but without the words to describe it. He stayed there for a while, confused and alone.The rain fell slowly, and soon the servants came looking for Cassian to keep him from getting wet, but he resisted, kicking and struggling against them. The servants and guards interpreted his behavior as a sign of his father's influence, and instead of reprimanding him, they celebrated it, as if it were an inheritance of his father's character. Every time the sky in Naësu clouded over and it began to rain, Cassian would run alone into the courtyard of the fortress, knowing that if he cried, no one would see him.As far as Cassian understood, he was now the one who would become king someday, not his brother. Despite this being clear, he had no one to ask what to do, because his father was gone, and whenever he spoke to the servants or the nobility, they all seemed to fear him in some way, as if his father's shadow were always standing behind him—tall, immense, looming, taking the words right out of anyone's mouth before they could speak to Cassian.The only one who didn't seem afraid—neither of Cassian, nor of the invisible shadow of his father Ezra, nor of Ethan—was Lord Ridley, his weapons master. When Cassian disobeyed, Ridley was the only one who guided him toward more constructive behavior.The kingdom of Argos, its Council, and by extension all of Naësu, now had this new heir, against all expectations. He was far too young to reign and had no role model to follow. He was nearly the only child in the castle and preferred being with the horses or the falcons rather than sitting down to write or study... and, besides, he could have a seizure at any moment.The raindrops fell on his face. The overcast sky threatened to collapse on top of him. Cassian didn't know how to express that he was sad about losing his father, that he wasn't ready for the weight of the crown. Not at this age. For a moment, he wished the water would wash away this destiny and grant him the chance to be another child. Any child, but one free to live his childhood.