25th of November 1209, the day of the downfall. During the night, Prince Anubis Hawksey was born from an affair between a Tyritte King and a forest elf. It already happened before, but this time, it was a rather atrocious event. The King dropped the Queen, who hadn't been able to give him heirs, and, naturally, locked her away in a castle in the Lost Woods. As a consequence, the Queen cursed the fetus. The king, furious, traveled all around the world to try and find an antidote, but in vain. During the entirety of Anubis' childhood, his parents were trying their best to make him feel normal, but the older Anubis got, the crueler and more aggressive he got. It started with the death of his pets, orchestrated by himself. Then, when the satisfaction from those poor animal's deaths started to fade away, he started attacking his own siblings. It went from verbal fights to the physical ones until he managed to break his little sister's ribs, causing one to poke through her lungs and resulting in her death. Anubis was only twelve. The poor girl was seven. This event made the King realize his son was dangerous. For his siblings, himself, and for the kingdom as a whole. It made him furious, knowing his own son was becoming a monster as a consequence for his cheating.

  After numerous nights of mourning his daughter's death, his anger took hold of the King's mind. The man locked his son in the dungeons, restraining his limbs with chains attached to the wall of the cell. He thought he and his family were now safe, considering Anubis was unable to get out, but, unfortunately, Life had another trick up its sleeve for the King.

  Anubis managed to sneak out of his cell. How so? No one knew. He just did. Some will say he used witchcraft. Other will say someone helped him. But one thing everyone knew was that the King, the Queen and the rest of the royal family exhaled their last breath in that same night, leaving Anubis alone, making him the new King of the Hawksey Kingdom.

  Announcing the beginning of a new, torturous era that will cause lots and lots of tumultuous events.

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  Tonight, the night was restless, cloaked in shadows that moved like whispers through the stone halls of the royal castle. The towering spires, jagged against the starless sky, seemed to pierce the heavens themselves, daring even the gods to intervene. The air was thick with the scent of burning torches, their flickering light casting distorted reflections on the cold, unforgiving walls. Beneath the surface of the castle, the fires of the dungeons burned low, their dull, sullen glow barely visible through the grated stone floors above. Outside, the wind howled-a fitting lament for a kingdom suffocating under the iron rule of its king and queen.

  Axel stood on the balcony of his chambers, his fingers wrapped tightly around the icy railing. The chill bit into his skin, but he didn't flinch. Below him, the sprawling city stretched into the horizon, a sea of uneven rooftops and cobbled streets. The faint glimmers of light from shuttered homes broke the darkness, tiny embers of hope in a kingdom where hope had all but been extinguished. The streets themselves were silent now, but Axel knew the truth lurking in the shadows. Fear did not sleep-it clung to every doorstep, hid in every breath, and seeped into the bones of his people.

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  The kingdom, his kingdom, was rotting. Not from war or famine, but from the relentless cruelty of its rulers. His parents. The weight of that truth bore down on his chest, pressing against his ribs until it felt as if he could no longer draw breath. The title of heir felt like a mockery, a cruel joke tethering him to the very legacy he despised.

  A distant cry shattered the stillness, high and keening, piercing the heavy air like a dagger. It came from deep within the castle, where the dungeons sprawled like a labyrinth of misery beneath the ground. The sound was faint, yet unmistakable-another prisoner begging for mercy that would never come. Axel closed his eyes for a moment, the cry echoing in his mind. He didn't know who it was this time, and he didn't want to know. It didn't matter. Their fate was sealed the moment the king or queen turned their gaze upon them. Mercy was a foreign word in his family's vocabulary.

  His parents' reign thrived on blood and fear, their rule so deeply rooted in violence that the soil of the kingdom seemed to drink it in, blackening the land itself. For as long as Axel could remember, the palace had been a fortress of terror. The walls dripped with opulence-gold-framed tapestries, jewel-encrusted candelabras-but no amount of wealth could mask the stench of despair that clung to the air. It was a place where smiles were rare, and laughter was a relic of forgotten days, where every shadow seemed to carry the weight of a thousand unspoken horrors. And Axel had been its most reluctant prisoner.

  The wind tugged at his hair, a sharp reminder of the world beyond these walls. He turned his gaze back to the city, his thoughts flickering to the faces of those who mattered most. Scarlet, his youngest sister, and the only member of his family who carried no stain of cruelty in her heart. She had been raised not by their parents, but by him, Heath, and Eden-her laughter a fragile, precious thing in a world that sought to crush it. Scarlet was the flicker of light in his darkest days, a reminder of what the kingdom could become if it was freed from the chains of their parents' reign.

  And then there was Eden. Axel's throat tightened at the thought of him, at the memory of stolen glances and fleeting touches that lingered far longer than they should have. Eden, his dearest friend, whose voice had become the melody that played through his heart no matter how harsh the silence around him grew. A single brush of Eden's hand had been enough to set Axel's heart ablaze, yet even that small act of connection carried deadly risk. Love, in all its forms, was a rebellion against the laws of his parents. And Axel was no stranger to rebellion.

  He tightened his grip on the railing as his thoughts darkened. He had spent years watching, waiting, enduring. He had learned to wear the mask of obedience to hold his tongue even as his parents' cruelty seeped further into the kingdom like poison. But now, something within him has changed. Perhaps it was the way Scarlet's laughter had grown quieter as she aged, or the way Eden's eyes seemed to dim with every whispered goodbye. Perhaps it was simply the realization that no one else would fight for what was right.

  He would not be like his father. He would not be like his mother.

  The time for waiting was over.

  Above him, the moon slipped behind a thick veil of clouds, plunging the world into darkness. In that moment, Axel made a vow. To Scarlet, who deserved a future unmarked by fear. To Eden, who deserved a life where love was not a crime. And to the kingdom itself, broken and battered but still worth saving.

  He allowed himself, for the first time, to imagine a future where the people did not cower before the crown, where the streets rang with laughter instead of silence, where the names of his parents were whispered only as cautionary tales of the past. A future where love, not fear, shaped the hearts of its people.

  The wind howled again, fiercer this time, as if in agreement with the fire now burning in Axel's chest. He stepped back from the balcony, retreating into the shadows of his room. The plan was already forming in his mind, intricate and dangerous, as sharp and unforgiving as the blade that would one day take his parents' lives.

  The stakes were unimaginable. But so was the reward.

  Axel would stop at nothing to see it through.