"Then we must depart as soon as possible. I'm ready to go anytime, Your Majesty," Felix said firmly.
"Good. As expected of you," the king nodded, his eyes gleaming with approval as he looked at the determined boy before him. "I will arrange the finest carriage we have, along with some of our strongest guards."
After a bit more discussion, Felix bowed respectfully before turning to leave the grand hall. The soft echo of his footsteps faded into the distance, leaving the king alone with his officials.
But the moment the doors swung closed, the said officials in the room evaporated like mist, only to be replaced by eight cloaked forms. The king's eyes tightened, though he was accustomed to the unsettling ways of these figures. They were no longer just men in robes. They were shadows of something far darker.
The leader of the cloaked figures stepped forward, his voice cutting the air with cold authority. "Can we trust the guards you've assigned to the boy?"
The king's gaze flickered toward the speaker, a figure wrapped in blackness, his face hidden behind a hood that seemed to absorb the light. "Yes," the king replied, his voice colder than he intended. "They are loyal only to me. You have my word."
"Good," the cloaked figure murmured, his presence like ice in the room. Without another word, he vanished into the shadows, his companions following suit. Just before the last figure vanished, he paused at the edge of the hall. His voice, low and final, cut through the silence like a dagger.
"Don't forget to erase his family and any known relatives. We don't want complications. Keep it quiet… or we'll silence the entire kingdom, if necessary."
And then he was gone.
The hall fell into a heavy silence — oppressive, like the hush before a funeral. The king stood alone.
He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing.
"If only you knew…" he murmured to the empty room. "This entire kingdom sees that boy as family. You wouldn't speak so carelessly."
His voice dropped lower, laced with quiet determination.
"Either way… I'll handle his family first. As for the others…"He turned away from the throne, a shadow falling across his face."I'll just have to divert their attention elsewhere."
Felix walked briskly through the grand marble corridors, the weight of the king's mission pressing heavily on his shoulders. His thoughts churned as he passed servants who bowed low in his path, their faces respectful. His mind was already far from the warm halls of Velmora.
The prince's condition. That withering of life force. It felt unnatural. And those officials today… they were strange. Even Uncle George wasn't there—he's always beside the king. Something's off. But no. Focus. Focus on the prince.
Reaching his chambers, Felix swiftly gathered his medical kit — a sleek black case etched with silver runes. His hands moved with practiced precision, selecting the rarest of herbs and potions he had cultivated himself. There was no time to waste. The prince's condition had worsened.
If I don't act quickly, the prince will die. And if he dies in another kingdom, war will surely break out. And if war breaks out… countless innocent people will suffer and die. Ugh… and I'm standing in the middle of all this chaos.
A soft knock pulled him from his spiraling thoughts. A young knight stood at the doorway, clad in deep crimson armor bearing Velmora's royal crest — a rose encircled by stars.
"Sir Felix," he said with a respectful nod. "The carriage is ready. We ride under the King's personal order. We are at your command."
Felix returned the nod. "Good. Let's not waste time."
Outside, the morning air was crisp and cool, the sun barely cresting over the rooftops of Velmora. The carriage that awaited him was unlike any ordinary transport. It was sleek, reinforced with enchanted steel, and flanked by six mounted guards. Their eyes were sharp. Their movements, almost too synchronized, were quiet, disciplined... deadly.
Felix lingered on them, his eyes narrowing.
These aren't just royal guards. They were the king's most trusted blades. Silent. Invisible.
He smiled softly, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. The king must really care about me.
With that innocent thought, he climbed aboard without another word. As the door shut behind him and the wheels began to turn, Felix looked back one last time, his eyes drifting over the fading spires of Velmora.
After vanishing from the royal hall, the cloaked figures materialized again, this time in a desolate, forgotten expanse — a barren no-man's land that lay between Velmora and the neighboring kingdom of Nemorath. The land was as forsaken as the stories told of it: twisted, dead trees clawed at a dull sky. The earth beneath their feet was cracked and barren, as if the very soul of the land had been drained dry.
The region was a forgotten scar on the empire's map. Twisted trees clawed at the sky, their bare limbs creaking in the wind. The soil beneath their feet was dry and cracked, lifeless and gray, as though the earth itself had long since given up hope. A pale mist drifted through the air, thick with the scent of ash and decay. No birds sang here. No beasts stirred.
The silence was unnatural — oppressive.
In the distance, half-shrouded by fog, loomed the darkened silhouette of a ruined fortress. Time and weather had battered its stone walls, but it still stood, defiant and brooding.
The fortress loomed like a corpse of a bygone age, crumbling yet defiant in the heart of the lifeless land. Its jagged spires pierced the pale sky like broken fangs, and the once-proud walls were now stained with the scars of war and time. Vines — twisted and blackened — slithered across the stone, as if the land itself was trying to pull the ruin back into the earth.
At the gates, rusted chains hung from massive doors of rotted wood and corroded iron, groaning softly with every gust of wind. The entrance gaped like a mouth waiting to swallow any who dared approach.
Its towers leaned at unnatural angles, some barely clinging to their foundations, others cracked open like bones split by something unspeakable. Windows, long shattered, stared blankly out like hollow eyes, and behind them: nothing but darkness.
A perpetual gloom surrounded the structure, defying even the sun's attempt to shine through. The mist thickened near its base, coiling around it like a shroud, hiding whatever secrets festered within.
without hesitation they entered the ruined fortress.
Inside, the air was colder — unnaturally so. The fortress's interior was a decaying labyrinth of stone and shadow. Moss clung to every surface, and the scent of mold mixed with something fouler… something metallic and old, like dried blood.
Their footsteps echoed through the vast, hollow corridors as they moved deeper into the belly of the ruin. The leader of the cloaked figures raised a hand, halting the others before a massive chamber door. It was marked with ancient runes — some glowing faintly, others scorched black.
One of the figures stepped forward and pressed a gloved hand against the center rune. The stone trembled, then cracked open with a low groan, revealing a circular chamber bathed in a sickly green light emanating from a crystal embedded in the ceiling.
But what drew their eyes wasn't the crystal — it was what hung in the heart of the room.
There, suspended midair above a weathered stone dais, was a fracture. A jagged slit in space itself, no wider than a hand, yet impossible to look away from. The air around it shimmered and bent unnaturally, as if reality were struggling to hold itself together.
It pulsed softly, like something breathing on the other side.
The space around the crack seemed to resist sound. Even the cloaked figures' movements felt muffled in its presence, as if the chamber had been severed from the natural world.
The leader of the group stepped closer, his voice low and reverent. "It's growing…"
"Then the seal is weakening faster than we thought," another muttered.
"Not yet," the leader said, his voice a cold whisper against the stale air. "We need more resources. We will imprison the boy with light energy in a normal cell within the prison. He is the final key—the last source of energy capable of maintaining the space door longer than any ordinary sacrifice."
The figures remained silent, their hidden faces unreadable.
"And the prince?" one finally asked.
The leader's lips curled into something resembling a smirk beneath his hood. He turned his gaze toward the pulsating crack in space, its jagged edges distorting the air like a wound in reality.
"Kill him. His life means nothing anymore. Throw him into a suction cell. Let his body be devoured and his soul drift into the void—unseen, unfound, forgotten."
The air shifted. A low hum resonated through the chamber—deep, unnatural. The crystal above flickered, casting long, grotesque shadows across the stone floor.