Henry was born an only child into a life of wealth, comfort, and quiet privilege. His mother, Laena, adored him completely, treating him as the center of her world, and his father, Lucius, once shared that same affection. Even Duncan, the family’s assistant, had a soft spot for the boy, often looking after him with a kind of protective fondness that made the estate feel warm despite its grandeur. But everything changed when Henry was ten years old. One night, a fire tore through their home, swallowing the estate in smoke and collapsing wood. In the chaos, Laena became trapped beneath a fallen beam. Unable to free herself, she begged Duncan to take Henry and make sure he survived. Duncan carried Henry out of the burning house while Lucius searched desperately for Laena, but by the time the fire was controlled, she was gone. Lucius was relieved to see his son alive at first, but grief twisted quickly into bitterness. In his eyes, Henry became a living reminder of the person he had lost. The thought settled into him like poison: that Laena had died so Henry could live. Over time, resentment replaced the love he once showed his son. He never said it outright at first, but Henry could feel it in the coldness of his father’s voice, in the distance between them, and in the unspoken truth hanging over every interaction, Lucius wished it had been Henry trapped in that fire instead. After the fire, Duncan became the closest thing Henry had to a real parent. While Lucius withdrew deeper into grief and resentment, Duncan was the one who remained constant in Henry’s life. He made sure Henry ate, slept, studied, and endured the cold silence that had settled over the household after Laena’s death. Where Lucius looked at Henry and saw loss, Duncan looked at him and still saw a child who deserved care. As the years passed, the distance between father and son only worsened. Lucius never truly recovered from Laena’s death, and every resemblance Henry shared with his mother only deepened the wound. Henry grew up in a house filled with wealth but emptied of warmth, learning early how to stay quiet, composed, and emotionally restrained but he also developed some arrogance as the years past. By the time Henry was old enough to leave home, Lucius could no longer tolerate his presence. Whether out of grief, guilt, or outright hatred, he decided to send Henry away to Alba, far from the estate and far from himself. Officially, it was framed as an opportunity, a chance for Henry to build a future independently, but the truth was far simpler and far crueler: Lucius wanted him gone and henry knew it all too well. And so Henry left with little more than Duncan’s support and the understanding that the only person who had ever truly wanted him there had died in that fire years ago.
