Chapter 1 - The Feast of Ghosts

## Chapter 1 - The Feast of Ghosts

The first thing Jack noticed was that the sky had cracked.

Not metaphorically. Not like lightning spreading across storm clouds.

The sky had split open directly above him, revealing something blacker than midnight, and something inside that darkness was calling his name.

Three minutes earlier, his greatest concern had been getting home before his mother noticed he was late.

Now he was falling through a hole in reality.

"Jack."

The voice was distant, almost swallowed by the deafening roar around him.

"Jack, don't let them—"

A violent burst of blue light erased the rest.

Then gravity returned.

Jack slammed onto a massive wooden table with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs.

Silver goblets scattered. Plates shattered. A roasted boar slid across the polished surface and crashed into a nobleman's lap.

For one absurd second, Jack thought he had fallen into a historical reenactment.

Then sixty swords were drawn.

"INTRUDER!"

The shout echoed through an enormous stone hall.

Jack scrambled backward, his sneakers slipping in spilled wine. Around him stood armored knights, richly dressed nobles, and servants frozen in terror.

Towering columns supported a vaulted ceiling. Hundreds of candles flickered beneath crimson banners embroidered with a golden lion.

There were no electric lights.

No cameras.

No familiar faces.

And every sword in the room was pointed at him.

"Wait!" Jack shouted, throwing up his hands. "I don't know where I am!"

A knight with a jagged scar across his forehead stepped closer.

"Identify yourself."

"My name is Jack!"

"Your house?"

"My what?"

The knight's expression hardened.

"Your allegiance, boy."

"I'm from Brookfield! I go to Westbridge School!"

The knight exchanged a troubled glance with the man beside him.

Jack swallowed.

He was fourteen years old. He had never been in a real fight. The closest he had come to holding a weapon was borrowing his friend's plastic sword for a school play.

Now a real steel blade hovered inches from his neck.

His smartwatch beeped.

Every knight flinched.

The tiny blue screen displayed a countdown.

00:00:08

Jack stared at it.

The birthday timer.

He had set it weeks ago, mostly as a joke. Eight seconds until the exact minute he turned fourteen.

But that made no sense.

He had been walking home just before midnight.

How much time had passed?

"Your wrist," the scarred knight whispered. "What sorcery is that?"

"It's a watch."

The knight raised his sword.

"Remove it."

"No!"

The word escaped Jack before he could stop himself.

The knight's eyes narrowed.

"Then I shall remove the hand."

"Enough."

The single command silenced the hall.

At the far end of the banquet table, a king rose from his throne.

He was tall despite his age, with a heavy grey beard and deep-set eyes. His gold crown caught the firelight, while a crimson mantle fell over his shoulders.

He did not look angry.

He looked as though he had seen a ghost.

"Lower your hood," the king said.

Jack hesitated.

"Now."

Slowly, Jack pulled back his damp hood.

The reaction was immediate.

A woman screamed.

An elderly noble dropped his wineglass.

One knight fell to his knees and began praying.

Jack looked from face to face, increasingly frightened.

"What?" he demanded. "What's wrong with me?"

The king descended the steps of his throne.

His movements were slow and deliberate, but his hands were shaking.

He stopped beside the table.

For several seconds, he simply stared.

Then he whispered something Jack could barely hear.

"John?"

Jack shook his head.

"No. Jack."

The king's expression twisted with pain.

"Look at me, boy."

"I am looking at you!"

"Who sent you?"

"Nobody!"

"Who taught you to wear his face?"

Jack felt a cold sensation spread through his stomach.

"Whose face?"

The king's voice dropped.

"My son's."

Silence swallowed the room.

Jack stared at him.

"Your son?"

The king reached toward Jack, then stopped as though afraid touching him might make him disappear.

"I buried him eight hundred years ago."

Jack gave a nervous, disbelieving laugh.

"That's impossible."

The king did not smile.

"I watched him die."

A chill passed through Jack.

The candles seemed to burn lower.

Eight hundred years?

That was older than the oldest buildings in his hometown.

"You're making a mistake," Jack said. "I'm fourteen. I live with my grandmother. I have school tomorrow. I don't even know your name."

At the mention of his age, the king went rigid.

"Fourteen?"

"Yes."

"When did you turn fourteen?"

Jack opened his mouth.

His smartwatch beeped again.

00:00:00

The birthday countdown disappeared.

A new message appeared.

HAPPY 14TH BIRTHDAY, JACK.

Jack stared at the screen.

"Just now," he whispered.

The king closed his eyes.

For a moment, he seemed to struggle against something unbearable.

Then he turned toward the scarred knight.

"Sir Aldric. Bring the reliquary."

"My king—"

"Bring it."

Aldric hurried toward a guarded alcove.

Jack tried to steady his breathing.

He had to think.

He remembered leaving school late after helping clean the science classroom. He remembered the rain. The narrow alley. The strange vibration of his watch.

And the voice.

Someone had called his name before the sky opened.

Someone who sounded almost like—

His mother.

But that was impossible.

His mother had disappeared before he was born.

At least, that was what his grandmother had always told him.

Jack had grown up with only three things belonging to Sarah: a faded photograph, an old silver pendant, and a birthday letter that his grandmother refused to let him open until he turned fourteen.

The letter was still locked in her bedroom drawer.

Aldric returned carrying an iron-banded wooden chest.

The king took a key from beneath his mantle.

His fingers trembled as he unlocked it.

Inside lay a yellowed portrait mounted on dark oak.

He turned it toward Jack.

Jack forgot how to breathe.

The boy in the painting was him.

Not someone similar.

Not a distant resemblance.

Him.

The same dark, unruly hair.

The same narrow jaw.

Even the tiny scar above his left eyebrow, earned when he fell off his bicycle at seven.

Jack reached toward the portrait.

"How did you get this?"

The king said nothing.

Beneath the painting was an inscription.

Crown Prince John.

Died Age 14.

Jack's fingers went numb.

"That's not funny."

Nobody answered.

"Who painted this?"

Still silence.

Jack looked desperately at the king.

"Tell me!"

The king's expression had hardened, but grief remained visible beneath it.

"The portrait was completed three days before my son's execution."

Jack recoiled.

"Execution?"

A murmur swept through the court.

Aldric lowered his gaze.

The king seemed to realize he had said too much.

"Take the boy into custody."

Two knights advanced.

Jack backed away.

"Wait! Your son was executed? Why?"

"That is not your concern."

"You just told me I have his face!"

The king's jaw tightened.

"Do not mistake resemblance for blood."

Jack felt anger rising through his fear.

He had spent his entire life wondering why his mother disappeared, why his grandmother avoided certain questions, why he sometimes dreamed about places he had never visited.

Now strangers were telling him he resembled a dead prince.

And they expected him to remain silent.

"Then why are you afraid of me?" Jack demanded.

The king's eyes flashed.

Before he could answer, a horn sounded outside.

Then another.

And another.

The hall doors burst open.

A young soldier staggered inside, his armor streaked with mud.

"Your Majesty! The northern watchtower has fallen!"

Aldric spun toward him.

"Impossible. The enemy was three days away."

"They crossed the river before sunset. Thousands of them. Black banners. Siege engines."

The soldier hesitated.

"And, my lord... they have surrounded the castle."

The nobles erupted in panic.

Aldric hurried to a narrow window.

Jack followed his gaze.

Beyond the castle walls, torchlights stretched across the darkness like a sea of burning stars.

An army.

An enormous army.

Jack's stomach dropped.

"Who are they?"

The king ignored the question.

Instead, he studied Jack with renewed suspicion.

"An army arrives on the anniversary of my son's death," he said quietly. "And a boy wearing his face falls from the heavens."

His hand closed around Jack's wrist.

"Coincidence?"

"You're hurting me!"

The king released him, but his gaze fell on the glowing watch.

For the first time, Jack noticed the ring on the monarch's left hand.

An hourglass pierced by a broken diagonal blade.

His heart lurched.

He knew that symbol.

His mother had worn it on a silver pendant in the only photograph he possessed.

Jack pointed at the ring.

"Where did you get that?"

The king's expression changed.

"What?"

"That symbol. My mother has one."

The room became strangely quiet.

The king slowly raised his hand.

"Your mother?"

"Sarah."

A goblet slipped from someone's fingers.

It struck the floor with a sharp metallic crash.

The king's face drained of color.

"Say that name again."

"Sarah."

The king stepped closer.

"Sarah what?"

Jack hesitated.

His grandmother had always refused to tell him Sarah's surname.

"I don't know."

The king studied him with a terrible intensity.

"Describe her."

"Dark hair. Silver necklace. That's all I remember from her picture."

"Her eyes?"

"Grey, I think."

The king turned toward Aldric.

For the first time, the knight looked genuinely frightened.

"Your Majesty," Aldric whispered, "perhaps we should speak privately."

"No."

The king's voice thundered.

"Not another secret."

He faced Jack again.

"Your mother is here."

Jack stared at him.

"What?"

"Sarah is standing in the adjacent hall."

Jack's heartbeat became painfully loud.

"That's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because she disappeared before I was born!"

The king's expression shifted from disbelief to something much darker.

"Then someone has lied to you."

At that instant, the great oak doors behind the throne began to tremble.

A low mechanical humming rose from beneath the stone floor.

The candles flickered blue.

Jack's smartwatch vibrated violently.

Its screen went black.

Then unfamiliar crimson numbers appeared.

00:04:59

00:04:58

00:04:57

Jack felt the blood drain from his face.

Another countdown.

But he had never programmed this one.

A woman's voice suddenly rang out from behind the trembling doors.

"Do not let him touch the throne!"

The king spun around.

"Sarah?"

The doors opened.

A woman stood in the darkness, wearing a torn midnight-blue gown. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, and a silver pendant rested against her chest.

Jack recognized her immediately.

He had stared at her photograph thousands of times.

"Mom?"

The woman looked at him.

Her expression broke.

For one brief moment, Jack saw overwhelming love in her eyes.

Then she looked at his watch.

And screamed.

"JACK, TAKE IT OFF!"

The king seized his sword.

Aldric stepped between them.

The woman rushed forward, reaching desperately for Jack.

But before anyone could move another step, the portrait inside the reliquary began to burn.

Black smoke curled from the painted prince's eyes.

The inscription beneath it changed.

The words Died Age 14 vanished.

New letters appeared, carved into the wood by an invisible hand.

CROWN PRINCE JOHN.

EXECUTION SCHEDULED: MIDNIGHT.

And beneath those words, a second sentence emerged.

THE KING MUST KILL HIS SON AGAIN.