It was early still, the sun casting its golden rays across the earth with all the warmth it could muster—though even then, a certain wintry sharpness clung to the air like a stubborn guest who would not be dismissed.
The snow had come early this year—or so the older folk with red cheeks and cracking joints had taken to saying.
Arion, however, knew only that the world had turned white and cold, and that he was wrapped in so many layers of wool and fur that his limbs moved with the grace of a stuffed doll.
And yet he did not mind.
The weight of his clothes—layer upon layer bundled tight by fretful hands—slowed his steps, but not his will. He waddled through the snow like a small bear cub, determined, focused.
He walked at the side of his ever-watchful maid, Mary.
His mittened hands swinging clumsily at his sides, his breath rising in little clouds of mist that delighted him beyond measure.
He inhaled deeply, then exhaled with purpose, again and again, giggling each time the white smoke curled from his lips.
Snowflakes clung to his lashes and caught in his dark hair, and though his feet sank into the powdery drifts, he found the sensation exhilarating.
Before he had come to this strange and wondrous world, snow had existed only in the flickering light of a television screen or the glowing images of films.
The land he once called home had known rain, yes, and summer storms, but not this. Not the silence of snowfall.
Now, with his small fingers curled into snowballs, his cheeks reddened by the frost, and his laughter echoing through the courtyard, Arion could have been mistaken for any ordinary child. That, in itself, was something of a marvel.
From the gallery above, Lady Ariana stood watching—her figure cloaked in silks lined with fur, but her eyes—those cold blue eyes—never left her son.
She observed him with no small measure of wonder, particularly when he tumbled backwards into a snowbank and waved his arms like an overturned tortoise.
There was a pause, a moment of struggle, and then his limbs flailed in protest as he tried—and failed—to regain his footing. She smiled.
"At last, he plays like a proper child," she thought.
And yet, beneath that smile, there lay a mother's doubt—a creeping, persistent unease that she dared not speak of in drawing rooms or parlours.
Arion was her firstborn, and there was love in that bond, as any mother might know. But there was also mystery.
The children of other highborn ladies cried and giggled, simple as lambs. Her boy? He watched. He schemed.
She had seen it in the sharpness of his gaze, the too-still quiet when others entered the room.
In the night, he would cry with cunning precision—just long enough to rouse them, just long enough to leave her and her lord bleary-eyed with exhaustion.
He seemed to sleep only in the daylight, leaving his parents weary and watchful through the night.
Things had changed, somewhat, when the kitchen opened its doors to him. The smells—roasting meat, baked bread, and simmering stews—it tamed him, just a little.