Rain hammered the glass.
Heavy, relentless, and cold.
The royal carriages, marked with the crimson emblem of the Tamaskrit Empire, wove their way through the massive obsidian gates of the Great Barrier.
Ahead lay the Elven kingdom of Athervale, buried beneath a sprawling canopy of green.
Inside the middle carriage, nine-year-old Ignis pressed his face flat against the window.
His breath fogged the glass.
"Boring," he muttered.
He pulled his face back, leaving a smudge on the pane, and glared across the seats.
"Big brother, let's run away."
Ten-year-old Aurelius didn't blink.
He sat on the opposite side, staring out his own window.
His golden eyes tracked the massive, ancient trees rolling past.
He wore no armor, just the dark, formal fabrics required of a prince in mourning.
"Not happening," Aurelius said.
His voice was flat. Quiet.
Ignis puffed his cheeks, his crimson eyes narrowing in frustration.
"You are so boring, big brother."
Aurelius slowly turned his head.
A faint, mocking smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Maybe I am. But at least I don't try to act cute. And I don't pout like a girl."
Ignis's jaw dropped.
He opened his mouth to shout a retort, but the words died in his throat.
He crossed his arms and slumped back into the leather seat.
He couldn't argue.
He did have a habit of acting a bit girly, a fact he hated but couldn't seem to shake.
He let out a loud, dramatic huff.
Outside, the sound of the rain was muffled by the thick elven canopy.
Three carriages made up the convoy.
The first held the Emperor and his six wives.
The second held Aurelius and Ignis.
The third trailed behind, loud and chaotic, holding their five younger brothers—Ignis had demanded his own carriage just to escape their constant teasing.
The stone-paved path widened. The convoy slowed.
Looming ahead was the Whispering Hollows.
It wasn't just a palace.
It was a colossal, living tree, its roots digging into the heart of the capital, with towers and bridges carved directly into the obsidian-dark bark.
"Beautiful,"
Aurelius murmured softly.
Ignis gasped, leaning over to look out of Aurelius's window.
The sheer scale of it rivaled the largest districts back in Tamaskrit.
"Wow... I guess it's not that boring, big brother. Only you are."
Aurelius ignored the terrible insult. The carriage rolled to a halt.
"Master Aurelius....Master Ignis. We have arrived," the coachman called through the small hatch.
They stepped out into the damp, cold air.
Waiting at the entrance were the Elven royals.
King Aelroth stood tall, flanked by the twelve-year-old Princess Ilyndra and the fourteen-year-old Eldest Prince Kaelen.
They bowed low as the Tamaskrit Emperor's carriage opened.
Emperor Nihil stepped down into the mud.
The air instantly felt thinner. It was a suffocating pressure.
Nihil didn't look like a mourner. His face was a mask of cold stone.
He looked at the grieving elves the way an appraiser looks at a damaged weapon.
"I am deeply saddened to learn about the loss of your king and your elder brother, King Requiem, and his wife, Queen Elegeia," Nihil said.
His voice was calm, dead, and entirely too composed.
"Tamaskrit offers complete support in the name of our thousands of years of alliance to Athervale. I hope we are not late for the last rites?"
Aelroth kept his head bowed. "You are not, Emperor."
They walked in silence to the center of the ground floor of the Whispering Hollows.
The scent of wet earth mixed with burning incense. It choked the lungs.
In the center of the massive hollow, an ancient olive tree grew.
Beneath its branches lay two bodies dressed in pure white robes.
King Requiem and Queen Elegeia.
Their deaths made no sense. There were no blade marks. No crushed organs.
The Elven healers—the best in the world—found nothing.
But the physical state of the bodies was deeply disturbing.
King Requiem's left arm was cleanly missing.
Queen Elegeia's head was completely bare, every strand of her silver hair gone.
Elven diviners and dancers moved in slow, haunting circles around the olive tree.
The death ritual of elves was ongoing...
Queen Luthien knelt in the dirt, sobbing brokenly for her sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
Her grief was raw and ugly.
Around her, hundreds of Elven citizens knelt. The Tamaskrit envoy knelt.
Only one man remained standing. Aelroth.
He stared down at the bodies with a look of absolute nothingness.
He looked like a man paralyzed by shock.
But from his spot in the crowd, Aurelius watched Aelroth's eyes.
Just for a second, a flicker of something dark passed behind the elf's stoic gaze.
Guilt? Regret? Aurelius couldn't tell.
He looked away. It wasn't his business.
The chanting stopped. The burial rituals ended.
Aelroth stepped forward, taking the trembling hand of his sobbing wife.
He looked out over the crowd.
"To all who mourn this tragedy," Aelroth's voice echoed through the hollow bark.
"My wife and I will assume the burden of the throne. We must. Master Melodius is mentally broken by this tragedy. The council and the guard suspect him... as a potential cause of the rulers' demise."
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Aelroth held up a hand.
"Do not let your anger find the boy. Let the law handle him. For now, please, partake in the last feast offered by our fallen King and Queen."
The crowd dispersed in a grim, quiet shuffle.
Hours later, the feast was a strange mix of mourning and political chatter.
Nihil and Aelroth stood in a corner, speaking in low tones.
At the food tables, the Tamaskrit princes were failing to act their rank.
Ignis was scowling at a fire pit, trying to toast a piece of bread and burning it to a crisp.
A few feet away, eight-year-old Vane was trying to show off.
He aimed a small gust of wind at a passing Elven girl to catch her attention, miscalculated, and blew her skirt up.
The sharp smack of her hand hitting his cheek echoed loudly.
"I-I apologize for my brother!" Darius yelled, rushing over. The girl looked up.
Darius was eight years old, but thanks to his earth aspect, he stood a terrifying six feet tall.
The girl shrieked and ran away.
Kyanos walked up to Vane, sighing heavily.
He placed a freezing hand on Vane's red, swollen cheek, looking at his brother with pure, hopeless pity.
Further down the hall, six-year-old Valerius was a blur of electricity, zipping between the tables.
Seven-year-old Malakor cursed, melting into the floor and using his shadow steps to pop out and grab Valerius by the collar.
Aurelius ignored them all.
He stood in a secluded corner, chewing on a piece of stuffed bread.
He held a plate of sliced fruit in his other hand.
His chest felt tight. An unnatural unease clawed at his throat.
I can still sense them, he murmured to himself. He swallowed the dry bread.
He could feel it. Faint ripples in the air.
A cold, dreading invisible miasma leaking through the stone and wood.
No one else noticed it.
But Aurelius felt the souls of the dead rulers, and they were pulling him.
He kept the fruit plate in his hand, looking like a bored child wandering the halls, and followed the pull.
The scent of the miasma grew stronger, leading him away from the feast and out into a secluded, overgrown garden within the tree's roots.
A small, artificial waterfall babbled quietly over dark rocks.
Behind a thick row of bushes, a boy sat in the dirt.
He was fifteen.
He was muttering something fast and incoherent.
Aurelius stepped closer.
The wet grass crunched beneath his boots.
"You came," the boy whispered. He didn't turn around.
His hands were moving fast, twisting and tying something in his lap.
"I knew you would come."
The unease in Aurelius's chest spiked into pure dread.
His right hand twitched, instinctively reaching for a sword he wasn't old enough to carry yet.
"Don't be afraid," the boy said.
His hands stopped moving. The garden went dead silent.
"I won't harm you. Everyone else is afraid of me."
Aurelius couldn't speak. His muscles locked.
"I just want to play with you."
Melodius turned his head.
His eyes were entirely pitch black.
Thick, dark blood leaked from the corners, tracking down his pale cheeks like tears.
His mouth stretched into a wide, broken, horrifying smile.
In his hands, he held an instrument.
The frame was carved from a thick, jagged piece of bloody bone.
The strings were spun from long, silver hair.
"Say hello," Melodius whispered, strumming the dead queen's hair.
"To Mama and Papa."