Riven’s boot knocked against the empty ale jug, sending it rolling into the reeds with a hollow clunk. He scowled.

  "Third time this hour," he muttered, squinting at the fishing line tangled in his gauntlet. The riverbank was too quiet, the air too still—no birds, no breeze, just the sluggish lap of water against the rocks. A terrible day for fishing. A worse day for thinking.

  And he’d been doing far too much of the latter.

  Last night’s dream clung to him like wet parchment: Sorin on his knees, golden scars splitting open like seams, the Hollow King’s crown hovering above him like a blade. Riven had wrenched himself awake before it landed, but the image had fossilized behind his eyelids.

  A twig snapped behind him.

  "Planning to brood the fish to death, or are you actually trying to catch one?"

  Virellia’s voice was all smoke and embers, the way it got when she was trying too hard to sound amused. Riven didn’t turn. "Go away."

  She dropped onto the rock beside him, her fire-dancer’s bracelets clinking. "Can’t. You’re my favorite distraction."

  That got his attention. He side-eyed her. "What’d you do?"

  Virellia grinned, all teeth. "Remember those ceremonial banners the Sanctum hung for the Remembrance Day parade?"

  Riven groaned.

  Virellia’s prank was simple, stupid, and borderline suicidal: swap the Sanctum’s holy banners with ones embroidered with the Hollow King’s sigil—a cracked crown wreathed in thorns.

  Riven should’ve refused.

  Instead, he found himself crouched behind a market stall, watching two Knights struggle to yank down a banner that now read "Nothing Lasts—Not Even You" in gilded thread.

  "Told you they’d lose their minds," Virellia whispered, her breath warm against his ear.

  Riven elbowed her. "You used real sigil thread. That’s not a prank—that’s a death wish."

  She shrugged. "Worth it."

  The Knights were red-faced now, barking orders at a trembling scribe. Riven’s gut twisted. He’d worn that uniform once. Knew the fear in the scribe’s eyes.

  Virellia’s smirk faltered. "You’re doing that thing again."

  "What thing?"

  "Where you forget how to breathe."

  Riven forced his shoulders to loosen. "Just planning how to drag your corpse back when this goes sideways."

  She flicked his temple. "Optimist."

  A fish leaped from the river, its scales flashing gold for a heartbeat before it vanished beneath the surface.

  Riven stiffened.

  Virellia followed his gaze. "See a ghost?"

  "Fish had golden eyes."

  "Probably just the light."

  But the river was murky, the sun hidden behind clouds.

  The Sanctum Knights finally tore down the last banner, their faces purple with rage. One of them—a hulking brute with a broken nose—snatched the fabric and held it up to the light, as if expecting it to burst into flames.

  Virellia muffled a laugh into Riven’s shoulder. “Look at his face. Priceless.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Riven didn’t laugh. He was too busy counting exits. The market square was too open, the alleys too narrow. If the Knights turned their attention toward the stalls, they’d be cornered.

  “We need to go,” he muttered.

  Virellia rolled her eyes. “Relax. They’re too busy being furious at a piece of cloth to notice us.”

  Just then, the broken-nosed Knight snarled and turned toward the crowd, his gaze sweeping like a blade. Riven yanked Virellia behind a cart of bruised apples.

  “You were saying?”

  She grinned. “Still worth it.”

  They took the long way to the river, sticking to shadowed alleys where the scent of rotting fruit and wet stone clung to the air. Virellia hummed a tavern tune, but the melody kept fraying at the edges, slipping into something darker.

  Riven recognized it.

  “That’s Kael’s song.”

  Virellia stopped humming. “Maybe.”

  “You dreamed it too, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  The riverbank was empty when they returned, Riven’s abandoned fishing line still tangled in the reeds. He knelt to salvage it, his fingers stiff.

  Virellia crouched beside him, her voice low. “Sorin was crowned in my dream. Not like a king. Like a sacrifice.”

  Riven’s gut twisted. “Same.”

  A beat of silence. Then Virellia flicked water at him. “So. Fishing?”

  He exhaled sharply. “Fishing.”

  Riven cast his line again, the hook slicing the water with a quiet plink. The river was too calm, the surface like tarnished silver.

  Virellia skimmed a stone across it. “Think the Knights will burn the banners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let them waste their fire.”

  Riven’s line jerked. He reeled it in, expecting a trout or a waterlogged boot.

  Instead, he hauled up a fish with scales like tarnished gold—and eyes that glowed faintly, the same molten hue as Sorin’s scars.

  Virellia went very still.

  Riven held the fish aloft, its gills flaring. “This isn’t—”

  The fish dissolved.

  Not into water. Into smoke—thin, shimmering tendrils that curled around Riven’s wrist before vanishing.

  The air smelled like burnt sugar.

  Virellia stood abruptly. “We should find the others.”

  Riven stared at his empty hands. “And say what? ‘We caught a ghost fish and now we’re scared’?”

  “Yes.”

  He barked a laugh. “Since when do you run toward trouble?”

  “Since trouble started wearing his face.” She kicked the empty ale jug. “You felt it too. That wasn’t just a dream. Something’s coming for Sorin.”

  Riven’s jaw tightened. He’d spent years pretending he didn’t care about prophecies, about kings and crowns and cursed histories. But this? A fish made of memory and smoke? That wasn’t prophecy. That was a warning.

  Virellia held out her hand. “Come on, knight. Day off’s over.”

  Riven took it.

  As they walked, the wind carried the distant sound of Sanctum bells—and beneath it, a whisper neither could place:

  "You were never meant to endure."

  The scent clung to them as they left the riverbank, that sickly-sweet odor of caramelized sugar left too long in the pan. Riven scrubbed at his wrist where the fish’s smoke had touched him, but the smell wouldn’t fade.

  Virellia sniffed the air. “Blackspire.”

  “What?”

  “That’s where it’s coming from.” She pointed northeast, where the ruins of the old city loomed above the rooftops. “The wind’s carrying it.”

  Riven’s stomach dropped. The last time he’d smelled burnt sugar in Blackspire, he’d found Sorin kneeling in the ashes of a memory, his scars bleeding gold.

  “We’re not ready for this,” he muttered.

  Virellia was already walking. “Since when does that matter?”

  They found the others at the edge of the Sunken District, where the cobblestones gave way to cracked earth. Aeris was sharpening her dagger with methodical strokes, Kael plucking at his lute with uncharacteristic silence, and Sorin—

  Sorin stood apart, staring at his reflection in a rain barrel. His scars pulsed faintly, like embers stirred by bellows.

  Riven cleared his throat. “So. We caught a ghost fish.”

  Aeris didn’t look up. “We’re busy.”

  “It dissolved into smoke,” Virellia added. “Smelled like Sorin’s bad decisions.”

  That got their attention.

  Kael’s fingers stilled on the strings. “Golden?”

  “Like sunshine in a piss pot,” Riven confirmed.

  Sorin finally turned. His eyes were too bright, the way they got when the crown’s memories pressed too close. “Where?”

  “Riverbank. Half-mile east.” Riven hesitated. “You know what it means.”

  The silence that followed was thicker than the burnt sugar stench.

  Virellia broke first. “We dreamed about you last night.”

  Aeris’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “Crowned and bleeding,” Riven said bluntly. “Don’t suppose you’ve got an explanation?”

  Sorin’s laugh was hollow. “I’m the Hollow King. Isn’t that enough?”

  Kael strummed a discordant note. “Not even slightly.”

  Aeris sheathed her dagger. “The Archive’s ink mentioned a lullaby. The fish smelled like Blackspire. And now this?” She gestured at Sorin’s glowing scars. “It’s all connected.”

  “No shit,” Virellia muttered.

  The wind shifted, carrying with it the distant toll of the Sanctum’s alarm bells. Someone had noticed their prank.

  Riven cracked his knuckles. “We need to move.”

  “Where?” Kael asked.

  Sorin looked toward Blackspire. “Where else?”

  As they gathered their gear, Riven caught Virellia’s arm. “You sure about this?”

  She met his gaze, her eyes reflecting the dying light. “When have I ever been sure?”

  They’d barely taken ten steps when the rain barrel shattered.

  No one had touched it. No stone had struck it. One moment it stood whole, the next—

  Shards of wood exploded outward, water sluicing across the stones in a wave that shouldn’t have been possible from such a small container.

  And floating atop the flood, bobbing like a cork, was a single scale.

  Gold.

  Glowing.

  Gone before it hit the ground.

  Somewhere in Blackspire, a crown waited.

  And the city held its breath.