The candle flickered, casting long shadows against the wooden walls of the dimly lit inn. Prince Edmund sat at the edge of a modest desk, his shoulders squared, but his head bowed. He was tall, with the lean, refined build of a noble trained for both sword and statecraft. Broad at the shoulders but not yet weathered by war. His blond hair, damp with rain, clung to his brow in loose, tousled strands.
His fingers traced the delicate folds of a letter sealed with the royal crest of Solendawn. The wax had already been broken-he had read its words several times, yet disbelief still clenched his chest. The parchment trembled in his hands.
"Brother, I regret to inform you... Our father, the King, has passed away. Return home at once. You are needed now more than ever."
-Prince Conrad Crieur De Lion.
Edmund exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. His brother's handwriting was as poised as ever-unshaken. Too unshaken. Had Conrad truly written this with grief, or was there something more beneath the ink?
His fingers tightened around the letter.
The King of Solendawn-their father-was dead. A ruler feared, respected, but never loved.
In his mind, he saw him again: a towering figure on a golden throne, face carved in stone, a crown casting a long shadow that always reached his sons before his hands ever did.
"A ruler cannot afford doubt," his father's voice echoed in memory. "Hesitation is the sickness of weak men."
Edmund's lips curled bitterly. And yet, in the end, even the strongest fell.
He turned toward the window. Moonlight filtered weakly through the dense tangle of Jesmeurdam's border trees, where trunks stood like watchmen and leaves rustled like whispers. His escort would set out at dawn for the capital. With the Wane spreading, the alliance between kingdoms had to hold.
There was no time to grieve.
He folded the letter and tucked it into his inner coat. This mission came first. Whatever awaited him back home... would have to wait.
For now.
------
Dawn broke in hues of muted gold and violet, bleeding gently over the treetops. The forest of Jesmeurdam seemed to breathe-alive, but not welcoming. Fog curled low to the ground, wrapping around the convoy's wheels like hungry fingers.
The air was cold, thick with the scent of damp earth, pine, and something older-rot blooming beneath bark, like the trees themselves were starting to turn.
Edmund rode at the head of the envoy, his black cloak trailing behind him, armor gleaming faintly beneath the wool. His jaw was sharp, his expression unreadable. Eyes the color of steel scanned the horizon. There was nobility in his bearing-but also weight. A man raised in the court, yes, but one who had learned silence was sharper than steel.
Beside him, his knights rode in tight formation, muscles coiled, eyes wary. Jesmeurdam was an ally-supposedly-but trust had worn thin in recent years.
No birds sang.
No leaves rustled.
Even the wind seemed to avoid the road ahead.
"It's too quiet."
Edmund's fingers twitched at his side, brushing the hilt of his sword. Something crawled beneath his skin. A feeling he couldn't name-but it gnawed at him.
And then-
A sharp whistle sliced through the air.
The lead horse reared, shrieking.
The world shattered.
Arrows rained from the canopy like a storm of death.
---------
"AMBUSH!"
Chaos erupted.
Knights screamed, metal clashing against earth and flesh. Arrows tore through armor like parchment. A soldier beside Edmund fell, throat pierced clean through. The convoy fractured, horses whinnying in panic, wheels cracking against roots and stone.
Edmund moved before he could think. His sword sang free-a clean, practiced motion.
But fate moved faster.
A whistle-then a burst of pain.
An arrow sank deep into his chest.
Time slowed.
Red bloomed across his tunic. The breath left his lungs like smoke drawn from a dying fire. His sword slipped. His horse bucked, and the world turned upside down.
Then-impact.
His body hit the dirt hard. Vision fracturing. Sound muffled. The voices around him distant, like they belonged to another world.
And for the first time in his life, Prince Edmund felt powerless.
---------
Through the haze of pain, he saw him.
A silhouette at the edge of the forest. Still. Watching.
Not running. Not helping. Just there.
Prince Conrad.
He stood just beyond the carnage, his white cloak untouched, hair golden in the rising sun. His arms were folded. His eyes-so like Edmund's-were calm. Too calm.
He wasn't calling for help.
He was smiling.
"You should not have come."
Edmund's blood turned to ice. His limbs wouldn't move. His voice barely scratched the air.
"Conrad... why?"
No answer.
Only the pale sky above.
--------
Everything faded.
Sound. Light. Pain.
Only a voice remained.
"You wanted revenge, didn't you?"
It wasn't Conrad's voice.
It was deeper. Older. Something curling around his dying breath.
The shadows reached for him. Clawed at his thoughts. Cold and slow, like a grave filling with water.
He was dying.
No.
He was already dead.
The last thing he saw was his own face reflected in a puddle of blood.
A prince undone.
And then-darkness.
---------
A gasp tore through the night.
Not Edmund's. Dantes'.
The man who woke was no longer the same.
He sat up sharply, soil clinging to his gloves. His breathing was ragged, like he'd clawed his way out of the underworld. His hair-darker now, sun-bleached at the edges-fell over his eyes, and his face had sharpened with time. What was once a prince's clean beauty had become the hardened angularity of a soldier. His body bore muscle and scars in equal measure, including the one that still pulsed over his chest like a wound that refused to heal.
There was no blood. No arrow. Only a memory, burning like fire beneath his skin.
He pressed a hand to his chest, his voice hoarse as he whispered:
"But I am not him anymore."
Around him, the forest pulsed with rot. The trees swayed unnaturally. In the mist, something watched. The Wane had followed him-or perhaps it had waited.
Because the past never stays buried.
And neither do the dead.