It was snowing lightly when Soren pushed opened the gate leading to his parents' home. A cover of frost had accumulated on the ground, yet the chickens clucked without a care. They paid little to no attention to Soren, so caught up they were in their little chicken world. Soren smiled. He would have to ask Mom if he could feed them tomorrow morning before he would have to leave, just for old times' sake.

Soren hesitated in front of the door, wondering whether to knock or not. He had his hand up in the air when the window to his left flapped open. His mother's head sprung out from the opening.

"Hey, kiddo!" she said, a manic grin spreading on her face. "I didn't think you'd arrive so soon!"

"Hi, Mom," Soren answered. "How did you know I was here?"

"That damn gate creaks something fierce," she said. "I've been meaning to repair it for a while, but I didn't have the time. And you know how useless your dad is with that kind of work."

Soren grinned. His dad was the smartest person he knew, but with a hammer or rake in hands the man had always looked so lost.

"Come in, come in!" his mother finally said. "Don't just stand there in the cold! Sheesh, if I knew you'd be here so early, I would have started dinner sooner!"

"It's okay, Mom," Soren said as he went inside. He had barely put his luggage on the floor when Raynie crushed him in a bear hug. Soren patted her head with a soft smile, and she looked up at him with misty eyes.

The years had been good to the woman: the streaks of silver in her hair offered a striking contrast with the jet-black shade she'd passed down to her three children, while the lines creasing the corners of her eyes only highlighted the mischievousness still alight within their dark depths. Her soldier's lean and muscled frame had given way to a mother's soft plumpness, but it seemed to bother her very little. Soren remembered someone had once made a disparaging comment about it—it had been during the party celebrating her retirement from the city guard, he remembered —but she had only grinned, saying, "Nah, I'm good, now I've got the hips and the butt to go with my fabulous rack." She had gone and sat in his father's lap then, and the latter had only given a nod to show his silent approval. Soren had been rather young then, and so he could recall that his only response had been to want the ground to open up and swallow him whole. The twins, for their parts, had all but roared with disgust.

"You been taking good care of yourself?" Raynie said as she let him go. "I mean, you've got enough to eat and—?"

"Everything's fine, Mom. I'm not starving or anything."

Raynie gave a sheepish laugh. "I know, I know! I shouldn't worry so much. After all, you're the only one among my three kids who can cook something worth a damn."

"Sia's in good health too, if you're wondering. And Kale's a bit touched in the head, yes, but I'm sure he's alright too."

"Kale!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Dammit, I forgot to tell him you were coming!" She rushed toward the door, grabbing her coat. "I gotta send him a message, so—"

"It won't be necessary, Mom," Soren said. "I'm just staying for the night. Tomorrow, I have to go to the capital. I'll see him then."

"Oh. You sure you're not staying longer? I could use a hand around the house for a bit."

"Sorry," Soren said. "I have to meet someone at the university for an interview."

"An interview?" Raynie joined her hands together. "Like a job interview?"

"Yeah. Professor Arden needs someone to help with her classes, and since she liked me well enough when I was having her course, well…"

"Soren, that's wonderful! In a few years you could land up a gig as a teacher!" She seemed barely able to contain her glee. "My kids all ended up being such important people, I just can't believe it!"

Soren hid a chuckle. The father of your kids happens to be an honest-to-god prince. I can't see how we compare. "I don't have the job yet," he said. "But it would give me enough spare time to finish my book, so it'd be great if it did work."

"How is your book going along, anyway?" She motioned for him to follow her to the kitchen. "D'you learn anything new from your aunt?"

"I did," Soren said. There was a pot over the hearth. He could smell the lovely aroma of his mother's chicken broth coming from within. "You want me to help with the cooking?" He noticed the pile of vegetables on the table and sat down, taking a knife in order to start peeling the potatoes. "By the way, where's Dad?"

"Oh, you know, running errands for everybody and their grandmas." Raynie rolled her eyes. "They sprung this up on him without any warning at all. It made him so mad too, since he knew you were coming home today. I wish they'd give him a break. I mean, the academy gave me the day off when I told them you'd come visit today." She sighed. "And he's not so young anymore."

Soren replied with a shrug. His father appeared much older than he was, in truth. The terrible weight of his duties had probably aged him over the years, Soren realized with a dull pang.

"He's got an important job, Mom," Soren said. His father had never told his children just what his profession entailed, but Soren had figured it out by the time he'd hit the age of nine. Still, he had never breathed a word. Even as a child, Soren had understood the importance of secrecy in his father's line of work.

"I know! But sometimes, I just want to smack his dumb face and make him think of himself for once." Raynie stabbed at her piece of chicken meat. "Damn him and his dumb pretty face."

"Whose pretty face?" said a tired voice some paces away.

"Stocke!" Raynie nearly dropped everything she was holding. Soren's father was indeed standing in the doorway, one corner of his mouth curled into a little smile. "Dammit, I didn't even hear you coming!"

Stocke shrugged. He was a middle-aged man who appeared about ten or fifteen years older than Soren's mom. Time had only enhanced a naturally handsome and regal appearance. His silver hair was neatly combed back and his sideburns seemed to have been trimmed down this very morning. "That squeaky gate almost gave me away."

Raynie walked up to him, poking his chest with a finger. "You have to stop doing this, you moron. You're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days!"

"Sorry. Force of habit." Stocke accepted Raynie's brief squeeze, then his eyes came to rest upon Soren. "It's good to see you, son. How have you been?"

Soren stood up and shook his father's extended hand. "Good. Sia, Auntie and Phe all send their love, by the way."

"Is Sia settling down nicely?" Raynie asked Soren. "She was so anxious at the knighting ceremony..."

"She loves her new position," Soren said with a grin. "I pity the idiot who ever entertains the idea to hurt Phe or Auntie Eruca."

"Hmm," Stocke said. "That's good."

Soren exchanged a smile with his mother. He was fluent in dad-speak, and in truth, those few words meant that Stocke was proud of his daughter.

Raynie's gaze flicked from Stocke to her son. "You know what? You boys ought to go on upstairs for some catching up. I'll take care of dinner."

She laughed when they both looked at her. Soren realized he probably sported the same expression as his father right now. Everyone always told him he was just a chip off the old block, despite his darker colouring.

"Alright," Stocke said. "But you call us downstairs the moment you need help." He went over to Soren's mom and gave her shoulder a light pat before leaving the kitchen. Soren followed after him.

The second floor hadn't changed at all in the past year Soren was gone. He stole a glance to the room he and his siblings had shared growing up. His parents had left it looking the same—Soren's corner was clean and spotless, while it seemed a tornado had gone over the twins' things.

His father's study seemed equally unchanged. The man spent more time here than he did anywhere else in the house. He did, however, devote some of his spare moments to the little garden he'd planted behind their home. Funnily enough, Soren was under the idea the man wasn't very fond of gardening. When Soren had asked him, once, why he wasted so many hours on something he didn't seem to enjoy much, Soren's father hadn't been able to provide a satisfying answer. It's just something I feel like I need to do, was all he could say.

His father lit up a fire in the hearth with his magic before sitting down at his desk. Soren looked upon the well-worn bookcases and desk with fond eyes. Growing up, he would often steal a book or two from his father's collection, losing himself in some adventure or fanciful tale while the man did his paperwork.

And on many nights, whenever Soren would wake up to fetch something to drink (or because he'd been scared from a nightmare), he'd often spy a small light burning from his father's desk. The man had trouble sleeping—as did Soren's mom, in fact. Soren had often heard Raynie crying herself to sleep whenever he stalked past their bedroom. Thankfully, Dad had always been there to comfort her; Soren would then return to his bed on tiptoes before clutching his favourite blanket until he could no longer hear the soft sobs coming from beyond the door.

But whenever Stocke had been the one to be plagued by nightmares, he would steal away to his desk and his books rather than wake up Raynie. Soren could recall a number of moments where he had stumbled upon his father reading by the candlelight while the rest of the house slept. He would then always climb into Stocke's lap, and the man would stroke his hair until Soren was lulled back to sleep.

"How did your visit go?" Stocke began, breaking the ice. "Did you find what you needed?"

"I did, but…" Soren sat down and produced a sheet of paper and a quill from his bag. "There's a topic on which I'm not finding much info. I asked Aunt Eruca, but she said you'd be much more of a help than her."

"I see. What did you ask her?"

Soren could feel his cheeks heating up. "I'm pretty sure it's a sore subject for you and, well, I don't want to dredge up bad memories, so…"

"Spill it, son. I'm sure I can take it."

"Alright," Soren said. "If I get too noisy for your taste, you can just throw me out of your office. I'll understand."

His father gave a little snort. "Your suggestion is duly noted."

"It's about something called… the Ritual of Flux." Soren gulped down, closely gauging his father's reaction. The man hadn't budged an inch. "Um, reading the royal records, well, I've noticed that there are to be a lot of… early deaths in our family." He winced as he said the next sentence. "Including your own."

Now, Soren's father almost seemed amused. His real identity as the supposedly deceased Prince Ernst of Granorg was something Soren and his siblings had figured out even earlier than his profession. Soren's aunt—the reigning Queen of Granorg—had come up with the flimsiest of cover stories to keep the truth of her elder brother's survival from ever leaking out. Many years before Soren's birth, Auntie Eruca had dragged Stocke in front of her court, claiming that he was her bastard half-brother, the old king's unacknowledged son, born in the early years of his first marriage when his queen hadn't been able to conceive. Still, a few nasty tongues had dreamed up other theories. The one that seemed to entertain Stocke the most suggested that he was the product of an affair between King Victor's first wife and the man's elusive and mysterious younger brother.

"I won't give away your secret, don't you worry," Soren said. "Obviously, you had a good reason for faking your death." He thought back to the horrific circumstances surrounding his father's supposed execution and shuddered. Grandfather must have been a nasty piece of work…

Soren's dad looked through the window; his eyes were fixed on something only he seemed to see. "I haven't faked my death."

"Oh." Soren didn't know what to say to this. "Well, um, you—"

Stocke turned to his son, his piercing blue-green gaze pinning him into place. "My father executed me. The records have it right. I died that day."

The paper crumbled in Soren's hands. "What?"

"I died. Your grandfather killed me thirty years ago."

"But, but…" Soren could only sputter.

Stocke groaned as he leaned back into his chair. "I should have told you kids much sooner. Eruca's right to be mad at me. It's just... well, I never thought it would be so hard."

"What? What would be hard?"

"You figured half of the puzzle yourself," Stocke said. "The Ritual of Flux."

Soren remembered the records he'd found in the bowels of the royal archives. He recalled the shock and horror that had crept up on him as the names of the Granorgite princes and princesses who had died an early and unexplained death just kept piling up. "The Ritual? You participated in the Ritual? But the people who take part in the in the Ritual usually end up—"

"Dead, yes. But there's a little more to that than what the books say."

A chill went down Soren's spine. He wasn't so sure he wanted the truth anymore.

"The people who participate in the Ritual are killed, yes," his father said. "But first, they have to live."

"What? What do you mean?"

Soren's father steepled his hands together. "The Sacrifice is killed a first time by another member of their family—the Caster. The Caster then splits up their soul and give half of it to their now dead relative… so they might live again."

Disgust made Soren's head swim. "W-What…?"

"In my case, Eruca was the one who brought me back." Stocke tapped at his chest, a soft, sad smile playing along the edges of his lips. "Your aunt and I share a soul, and that's the only thing that keeps my body alive and functioning."

"What? No, no, that's just… that's just so wrong…" The horror seemed too great to be put into words.

"When the Sacrifice has come to an awakening," Soren's father's continued, "they offer their soul to the world and finally pass on." The sad acceptance in Stocke's eyes was almost more horrible than anything he had said so far. "I haven't reached that part yet, but it will come."

Soren felt the blood drain from his face. "And then you'll—"

"I'll die," Stocke said. "I'll die, and there'll be nothing wrong with that. I'll leave knowing that everything is in your capable hands. Parents should not outlive their children. It's the natural order of things."

Soren struggled to find the words. "And afterwards, what will happen?"

"By then, I hope there will be no need to continue with that despicable practise." Stocke's eyes flashed with something—it seemed to be anger, Soren was surprised to find. "So that you kids won't have to live through all of these horrors as well."

The words seemed too hopeful, too hollow, to Soren's ears. His father was nothing but coldly pragmatic in everything else—this didn't sound like him.

"But we might have to, won't we?" Soren said. "I mean, I might have to die or it'll be Artemisia or Kale or—"

"No!" Stocke said through grit teeth. "No, I won't allow it!"

The violent hint in his father's tone sent Soren reeling back. Now, that wasn't like the man at all. "Dad…"

It took some time for Stocke to regain back his composure. "Was this how he—how they felt?" he murmured. "I thought I understood back then, but now…"

"What? Who are you talking about?"

His father waved a dismissive hand. "No one. Listen, Soren… I'm…" Stocke sighed. "I'm only alive because hundreds of people died for my sake. I have no right to be so selfish. And yet…"

"You're alive because hundreds of people died for you?" Soren repeated, staring at his father in mute shock. "You're not making any sense. What do you mean?"

"I met only one other Sacrifice in my lifetime," Stocke said. "He… he was…"

Soren wondered what had prompted the change of subject, but he tossed his interrogations aside and only waited for his father to continue. "What kind of person was he?"

Stocke rubbed his temples. "You can infer from my words. He was a mass murderer."

"A what?" Soren nearly tumbled out of his chair. It wasn't enough that they had two tyrants in the family; they needed a mass murderer as well? A shocking realization then began to creep up on him. You can infer from my words, his father had said. "Did he… did he kill all of these people because of...?"

…because of you?

"You see now," Stocke said in a weak voice—Soren noted he had not dignified his last question with a response. "I'm not in any position to ask more of the world. Yet, I'd give just about anything so you kids can never experience what my sister and I had to go through."

"There's nothing wrong with that, Dad," Soren said.

"No, I don't think you understand fully. If there was a choice between your life and the life of just about anyone else I care about…" An almost frightening intensity settled in his gaze. "I'd choose your life over theirs without even stopping to think about it."

Soren held onto his father's stare, feeling a lifetime's worth of weariness through the contact. And that terrifies me, was what Stocke was not able to say out loud. "I guess that's normal. I'm your child."

Stocke shook his head. "It's not just because of some biological imperative. My own father murdered me." He suddenly seemed lost in some memory. "I recall the moment your cousin was born. Eruca had sworn on her life that she'd never put any children she might have before you or the twins if the Ritual needed to be done again. And yet, I remember the day she presented Ophelia to me, the way she looked at her and then looked at me…" He rested his chin on his joined fingers. "You see? It's not so easy."

"Dad," Soren said. Stocke wasn't looking at him. "Dad," Soren said a little more firmly, reaching to touch the man's arm. Stocke's face snapped toward Soren, and their eyes met again. "It's okay. I understand. I'm sorry to have brought up so many bad memories. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No," Stocke said, "you don't need to apologize. I should never have kept this from you and the twins."

"I understand why you did," Soren said. "You didn't want us to be hurt or afraid."

"Hmm," was all Stocke replied.

Soren rose from his chair. "Well, I should be going. I've done enough damage, anyway."

"Wait," his father said. "Didn't you want me to tell you about the Sacrifices?"

Soren lingered on his spot. He'd learned so little about them from the history books in Granorg. There was something heartwrenching in the fact that the world they have saved knew so little of them. "I did, but I feel like I've already dug into so many upsetting things already, so…"

"I'm fine," Stocke said. "Sit down, and I'll tell you what I know."

Soren did as he was told, giving the man a weak smile. "Thanks, Dad."

Stocke shrugged. "My knowledge isn't much. I only met one of them, after all."

"What was he like?"

"Hateful," Stocke replied at once. Again, he seemed about to stagger under the tides of horrible memories that must have threatened to engulf him. Whoever that other Sacrifice had been, Soren's father had felt very strongly about him. "And sad. He was sad. That's what I remember the most."

"Did you know him well?" Did you care about him? "He was a member of our family, right?"

"I… don't remember much about him." Stocke closed his eyes. "You kids must have realized now that I have no memories of my childhood."

Soren nodded. It was another badly kept secret. And our family has still plenty lots to spare…

"We were close when I was a child, apparently," Stocke said. "He… he killed a lot of people for me. Because he was afraid."

He was afraid to lose me, was what Soren understood. "That's horrible."

A bizarre expression settled on Stocke's face. "Yes. I guess that's how it looks in hindsight."

Soren only stared at his father, his quill hovering in the air. That's... the understatement of the year.

"He stole me from my family. And he slaughtered hundreds and hundreds so I might live. Your mother would kill him on the spot if she were to see him again. And your aunt Eruca would do the same."

And what would you do, Dad, if you were to meet him again? "I see."

"He was a despicable and sad excuse for a human being. And yet, now that I have you and Sia and Kale…"

…it's harder to hate him than it was all those years ago. "I understand, Dad."

"This isn't the kind of things you can put into your book," Stocke said. "I'm sorry. I'm not being very helpful."

"No, actually, that's perfect," Soren said. "You gave me a good measure of the man. The monsters in our history books are never really monsters. They're just humans."

Soren's father nodded gravely. "Yes. They're just humans. That's all they are." He appeared oddly comforted by that thought.

"What was his name?"

There was some hesitation from Soren's father. Then…

"Heinrich," Stocke finally said. "He was called Heinrich. And he thought me so precious he named me after his favourite flower."