On March 27, 985, another prince was born within the royal family of Arkhan his name was Charles, the youngest son of King Louis Vrans Arkhan XVI and Queen Marie Cindy Antoinette and his birth came during a time when the royal family still lived behind the magnificent walls of the palace, surrounded by gold, music, ceremonies, and the traditions of generations before them.
Charles was the youngest child,unlike his older siblings, he was not initially expected to inherit the throne the crown seemed destined for someone else but fate had a different plan.
Charles's childhood was shaped by the growing tension surrounding the royal family. Beyond the palace walls, the people of Arkhan were becoming increasingly dissatisfied. The kingdom's financial problems deepened, political conflicts intensified, and voices calling for a new form of government grew louder.
Inside the palace, however, Charles remained a child he played in the gardens, he liistened to stories from his tutors, he spent time with his family and like many children, he could not fully understand why the adults around him were always worried.
Then tragedy struck his older brother, Prince Joseph, the Dauphin and heir to the throne, died at only seven years old.
The loss changed the royal family forever, Charles was suddenly no longer simply the youngest prince, he became the Dauphin, the heir to the crown, the future king and the responsibility that had once belonged to his older brother was suddenly placed upon his young shoulders.
Yet Charles was still a child,he had barely begun to understand the meaning of being a prince when the fate of an entire kingdom was placed before him.
The years that followed brought even greater darkness the Arkhan Revolution spread throughout the kingdom.
The old political order began to collapse,the royal family's authority weakened and the palace that had once represented absolute power slowly became a place surrounded by uncertainty.
Charles watched as the world he had known began to disappear the royal banners were taken down the sound of celebration was replaced by the sound of political unrest and eventually, the monarchy itself fell.
Charles was separated from the life he had been born into his father was gone, his family was scattered and the kingdom that he was supposedly destined to rule had become something entirely different.
A republic yet among the royalists—those who still believed in the monarchy Charles remained their rightful king after the death of his father, they proclaimed him King Louis Vrans Arkhan XVII of France.
Officially, according to the royalist cause, the crown belonged to him but there was a cruel contradiction.
Charles possessed the title of king without ever possessing a kingdom from 1793 to 1795, he was recognized by royalists as Louis Vrans Arkhan XVII.
Yet he never sat upon the throne he never commanded the royal army, he never signed laws as king, he never walked into a royal council and declared the future of the kingdom and the crown existed only in name.
For the republic, he was no king at all for the royalists, however, and he remained their monarch.
Two visions of the kingdom now existed side by side, one looked toward the future the other desperately held onto the past and Charles stood at the center of that conflict on quiet nights, Charles would sometimes look toward the sky and wonder about the kingdom that was supposed to be his.
He had been born a prince, he had become a Dauphin and eventually, he had been called king yet he had never truly ruled.
Perhaps that was the cruelest fate of all a crown could be inherited a title could be given but a kingdom had to be defended, governed, and accepted by its people.
Charles had none of those things, he was only a young prince carrying the name of a fallen dynasty still, among those who remained loyal to the old royal family, his name continued to be spoken with reverence.
Louis Vrans Arkhan XVII, the king who never sat upon his throne the king who inherited a crown after the kingdom had already disappeared and the young man whose life would forever be remembered as a symbol of a monarchy that existed only in the memories of those who refused to let it die.