“Never forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

The gravity in the king’s tone took him by surprise. “I promise, Father. Now will you tell me what this is all about?”

“You should have told me about the rumors earlier.”

“If I told you about all the farfetched gossip your kingdom loves to entertain itself with, it’s all we’d ever speak of. I only inform you of the things I can prove.”

“This is different and you know it.”

“Different how?”

“Tomas,” the king said flatly.

“You’re talking about Korsiris?”

“Who else would I be talking about?”

“I don’t know, someone other than a myth? Someone real, like the Fire Eater, a dangerous, murderous criminal who recently escaped from a prison that was more like a godsdamn fortress.”

“Watch your tone with me, Son, I’m still your monarch and father.”

“I’m sorry,” Tomas said. “It’s just that Korsiris’s existence was never proven.”

“There are things you don’t know, Son.”

“What things?”

“Eye-witness accounts of a winged demon matching the Fire Eater’s own tale. A tale that the Fire Eater has never wavered from, I might add, even after all these years. Even after my most talented torturers put him to the test.”

Tomas tried not to think about some of his father’s less…civilized methods of ruling. “Let’s say those accounts, as well as the Fire Eater’s own story, were all true. The Fire Eater also stated that he’d killed Korsiris, did he not?”

“He did, though that part of his story never sat well with me.”

“So he told the truth about everything else, but not that? How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know…”

“But there haven’t been any further accounts in all the years since he was incarcerated.”

“This is true. Until now.”

“Exactly! So either there was never anyone named Korsiris, or the Fire Eater is Korsiris. Unless you’re thinking this Korsiris devil was never killed in the first place or found a way to break the chains of death to return to the mortal coil.”

“I know not. I am but an old man with more gold than good sense. Thankfully I have you to do the thinking for me. Your move.”

Tomas had forgotten about the game entirely, but now made the move he’d been setting up this entire time, finishing off the last of his father’s light infantry with his cavalry and moving into siege position on the enemy fortress. “Do you surrender?” he asked, already knowing the answer. His father never surrendered, always preferring to fight to the last man. It annoyed him to no end; one needed to know when to submit and when to fight on.

His father met his eyes, and he was surprised to find a twinkle in them, along with several cataracts. “No, do you?” With that, he moved his mage from where she had been still the entire game—as she always was when he had a game with his father—to an undefended position directly in front of Tomas’s fortress. “I believe the game is mine, but that might just be my age-addled brain’s wishful thinking.”