Paradox Sovereign

I was dreaming of warm honey cakes when the door burst open with a crash. My blanket disappeared in one violent yank, exposing me to the cruel morning air.

"Rise and shine, Princess!" Therion crowed, his voice cracking mid-taunt. At fifteen, his attempts at sounding intimidating still wavered between a boy's pitch and a man's growl. "We're going hunting!"

I cracked one eye open to see him standing triumphantly in a shaft of dawn light, his boots tracking mud across my floor. His cheeks were flushed—not from drink, but from running through the village. A half-eaten apple was clutched in his sticky fingers.

"Go 'way," I mumbled into my pillow. "It's not hunting if you're just terrorizing squirrels again."

Therion pounced on my bed, knees first. "Wrong!" He shoved the apple core in my face. I caught a whiff of cinnamon—he'd definitely stolen it from Old Baker Thom's window again. "Today we're terrorizing deer. Pa's orders!"

That got my attention. Gareth Duskbane only invoked "orders" when something was wrong.

The Walk to Duskbane Stead

Mother intercepted us at the door, her arms crossed over her flour-dusted apron. "You'll take the smoked venison from the cellar," she said, tucking a wrapped parcel into my satchel. Her fingers lingered on my shoulder for half a heartbeat too long.

Therion shifted from foot to foot by the threshold, clearly itching to use his Spatial Recall. I saw the exact moment he considered grabbing me and jumping—and the moment he remembered what happened last time he'd tried transporting someone else (RIP Widow Marl's prize melons).

The morning mist clung to our clothes as we trudged through the village. Therion kicked a pebble along the path, his energy buzzing like a trapped hornet.

"You're thinking too loud," he announced, hurling the pebble at a sleeping chicken. It squawked indignantly.

"I'm not thinking anything."

"Liar. You get that wrinkle." He poked between my eyebrows. "Like when you're trying to solve one of those stupid number puzzles."

I batted his hand away. Ahead, the Duskbane homestead loomed—less a house and more a fortress that had taken root at the forest's edge. Smoke curled from its chimney like a warning signal.

The Duskbane Homestead

The scent of woodsmoke and sizzling venison greeted us as we entered. Gareth stood by the hearth, running a whetstone along his great-axe with deliberate strokes. The old bear claw marks on his face deepened as he scowled at our arrival.

"Took you long enough."

Lira emerged from the pantry, her arms full of fresh honey rolls. She smacked Gareth's shoulder with her wooden spoon. "Don't mind him. He's been brooding since the boar incident."

Therion froze mid-step, his boot hovering above the freshly scrubbed floorboards. "We swore never to speak of that!"

Gareth's scowl cracked into a grin. "That squeal of yours still echoes in these hills."

"I was twelve!" Therion's face burned crimson. "And it had tusks longer than your arms!"

Lira hid her smile behind a honey roll as Gareth's shoulders shook with silent laughter. The memory played clear in the firelight - a gangly Therion scrambling up a tree, his pants torn by the boar's charge, his Spatial Recall failing him spectacularly.

"Boar won that day," Gareth rumbled, cuffing his son's head with affectionate roughness. "That's life. Now eat. We've hunting to do."

Therion muttered into his roll, but the spark in his eyes betrayed his grudging amusement. The scars of childhood humiliations, it seemed, ran deeper than any wound from blade or claw.

THE HUNT

We didn't find deer.

We found the temple just as the sun dipped below the pines, its crumbling stone walls veined with ivy that seemed to pulse in the fading light. The carvings along the archway were worn smooth by time, but I could still make out the shapes - winged figures with too many eyes, their mouths open in silent screams. The kind of place Old Nan whispered about over winter fires, where the old gods' breath still stirred the dust.

Therion's entire body thrummed with energy beside me, his fingers twitching at his sides. "Treasure," he breathed, eyes reflecting the last golden rays of sunlight.

"Death," I corrected automatically, my hand going to the knife at my belt. The air tasted metallic, like licking a rusted blade.

"Treasure," he insisted, and then - with that familiar pop of displaced air - he was gone.

Gareth's sigh came from behind me, heavy with decades of paternal exasperation. "Boy's got no sense of self-preservation."

A beat of silence. Then from inside the temple's gaping maw:

"Oh shit." Therion shouted.