Chapter 33: THE CINDER AND THE CROWN

The corridor was a throat of black stone, and Konrad swallowed it whole.

Behind him, the nursery door had closed with a click like a tooth settling. The child’s breath—Wenceslaus, the lion’s cub—still clung to his sleeves, that warm milk-and-ash smell of infancy. He walked quickly, past the tapestry of Saint George and the dragon, past the alcove where a servant slept upright against a broom, until the cold of the winter garden seeped through the arrow slits and he stopped.

The ring was cold against his chest. His father’s ring. The wolf’s seal. The letter that named him heir to a name he had never been allowed to claim.

And now a brother.

He had not known. Rudolf had told him his father died in a skirmish near the Rhine, a lance through the throat, a soldier’s end. But Hedwig had said murder—Rudolf’s order, a fall from grace, a silence bought with a grave. And the boy in the cradle? The son of a Habsburg who had been fed to the Přemyslid lion to keep the peace? Or the son of some other man, some envoy, some hostage, some fool who had trusted the wrong hand?

The woman in grey had known. She had touched the cradle, had whispered the name *Eppenstein* like a curse and a blessing in the same breath.

“You move like a man who has seen a ghost.”

Konrad turned. Kunigunde of Brandenburg stood at the end of the corridor, a candle in her hand, her dark hair loose over her shoulders. She had changed from the feast—no jewels, no veil, only a plain wool gown the colour of old blood. Her finger rose to her lips. The same gesture as before.

“You have been watching me,” he said.

“You have been worth watching.” She stepped closer. The candlelight carved hollows under her cheekbones. “The nursery. You were in the nursery.”

“A child’s room. I was lost.”

“You were looking for the woman in grey,” she said. “And you found her. And she told you something that made you walk like a man who has seen his own grave.”

Konrad said nothing. The silence stretched between them like a rope over a river.

“I know who she is,” Kunigunde said. “I know what she carries. And I know what Ottokar will do when he finds out she has spoken to you.”

“Then tell me.”

“Tell you what? That the woman is your aunt? That the boy is your blood? That you are standing in a city that will burn for your name before the snow melts?” She shook her head. “You think you are the only one with secrets, Sir Konrad. But you are the only one who does not know what his own secrets are worth.”

She reached out and touched his wrist. Her hand was cold. “The river remembers. But so does the fire. And Ottokar has been building a pyre for the Habsburgs since the day your uncle took the crown. You are standing on the wood.”

Konrad looked down at her hand. “Then why warn me?”

“Because I am not Ottokar’s.” She let go. “And because I have seen what happens to men who are chosen by the serpent. They do not live to see the spring.”

She turned and walked away, her candle guttering, leaving him alone in the dark with the taste of ash in his mouth.

---

He returned to the feast hall by a side door, slipping into the roar of wine and music like a knife into a sheath. The tables groaned under boar and swan, and the Bohemian lords were deep in their cups, singing some song about the golden lion and the slaughter of the Saxons. Ottokar sat at the high table, his beard wet with mead, his eyes moving over the crowd like a hawk over a field of mice.

Those eyes found Konrad.

The king crooked a finger.

Konrad crossed the hall. The music seemed to thin around him; the laughter faded to a murmur. He reached the dais and knelt, one knee on the rushes, the way a supplicant should.

“Rise,” Ottokar said. His voice was a rumble, like distant thunder. “I have a question for you, Sir Konrad. And I want an answer that does not taste of honey.”

“Ask, Your Grace.”

“Your uncle,” Ottokar said, leaning forward. “Rudolf of Habsburg. What does he truly want in Prague?”

Konrad met the king’s eyes. The firelight danced in the gold of Ottokar’s crown, and the lion on his chest seemed to breathe.

“He wants peace,” Konrad said.

Ottokar laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Peace. Your uncle takes my lands, my titles, my crown—and he wants peace. You are a poor liar, Sir Konrad. I have heard better lies from my stable boys.”

“I do not speak for my uncle,” Konrad said. “I speak for myself.”

“And what do you want?”

The question hung in the air. Konrad felt the weight of the letter against his chest, the ring, the grey woman’s warnings, the child’s breath on his sleeve.

“I want to survive the winter,” he said.

Ottokar studied him for a long moment. Then he smiled, slow and wide, and raised his cup.

“Then you will drink with me,” he said. “And we will see if the winter is kind to you.”

A servant appeared with a goblet of dark wine. Ottokar held it out. Konrad took it. The wine was warm, and it smelled of cloves and something else—something bitter, like almonds.

He looked into the cup.

Then he raised it to his lips and drank.

---

Later, in the cold of his chamber, Konrad stood at the window and watched the snow fall over Prague. The city was a labyrinth of rooftops and spires, and somewhere in that labyrinth, a woman in grey was waiting for him. She had given him a letter, a ring, and a truth that burned like a brand.

And now he had a brother.

He touched the letter in his tunic. The wax bore the wolf’s head seal—the seal of his father’s house. The seal of the name he had never been allowed to claim.

The wine sat heavy in his stomach. Poison or not, it would pass. The night would pass. The winter would pass.

But the truth would not.

He heard a sound behind him—a scrape, a breath, the whisper of wool on stone. He turned, his hand going to the dagger at his belt.

Eliska von Kuenring stood in the doorway, her dark hair wet with snow, her eyes bright as the edge of a blade.

“The winter garden,” she said. “You never came.”

Konrad lowered his hand. “I was delayed.”

“By a child. And a woman. And a king’s wine.” She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. “You are making enemies, Sir Konrad. And you are not being careful enough with your friends.”

She crossed the room and stopped before him, close enough that he could smell the cold on her skin.

“My father is loyal to Ottokar,” she said. “But I am not. I have heard what the grey woman told you. And I have heard what Ottokar plans to do about it.”

She reached into her sleeve and drew out a folded scrap of parchment. “If you want to live until spring, you will read this. And then you will decide whose fang you truly are.”

She pressed the parchment into his hand, turned, and was gone.

Konrad stood alone in the silence, the snow falling beyond the glass, the parchment warm in his palm.

He unfolded it.

The words were written in a hand he did not know, and they read:

*The boy is not the only one. There is another. In Vienna. And he carries your father’s eyes.*