"Crowns topple easily. Thrones crumble like dust. Hearts cease to beat. Thorns draw blood."
In a country torn into two, there should have been no room for mistakes. Especially not at the very core of the royal family. That was what she was. Yes, a...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
In the inner rooms of a palace was a sleeping prince.
He had been sleeping for quite some time, living out his seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks with his eyes closed, and his spirit in the land of dreams and fantasy. Barely lingering on the surface of what was perceived as reality. His skin was pale and his eyes were shut, hiding the perfect onyx orbs that captivated almost everyone he had met.
Although he may not truly count as a prince by birth, his standing as the Shadow Summoner general would definitely make up for it. Even so, his standing did not help him wake. It was as if the poison continued to thrive in him despite the antidote applied to his wound.
It was as if something else had been pestering. A parasite of some sort that had taken from him everything from the moment he created the Fold. Something that continued to eat him up from the inside, bit by bit, like an illness.
He may not admit it but his guilt for the events and effects of the Fold continued to weigh heavily on him. The Lantsov princess helped, for sure, but even she could not completely destroy the amount of self-hatred he felt. Only he had the power to do that.
Merzost was a dangerous thing to tamper with indeed. It is a powerful weapon if harnessed even for a second. It was what Ilya Morozova used to create his amplifiers and it was what Aleksander Morozova used to create the Fold. Ilya lost his life and Aleksander lost a semblance of it.
The Shadow Summoner was more than content to keep sleeping when a voice called out to him from the void. The voice of the person he loved most dearly. His salvation. His life. The protector of his heart. The redeemer of his soul.
"Aleksander," The voice whispered, barely a wisp of breath. It was her, he knew it was her. "Aleks, my darling."
He tried to open his eyes, tried to speak but nothing emerged. It was as if he was frozen in his state. At first, panic seemed to erupt into his whole being then nothing. He was pulled into the abyss once again.
The next time he came to, it was to a different voice. The voice of a young boy. It was familiar yet he could not put a finger on who it was.
"General Kirigan. The title is yours if you wake up. The Grisha army will be yours. Come back to my sister." The voice said, almost as if it was a command.
Days continued to drift after that. It was as if he were half-awake. Half-present in the land of the living while being in the land of the dead. He could hear people enter the room he was in, hear their grievances, their pleads, their stories.
The princess's guard, his mother, little Igor, and her. Of course. It was always her voice that roused him from the darkness. Nothing else seemed to do. She was the only thing that pulled him from the malicious shadows.
These shadows were not ones he was familiar with. They were the silence, the void. It was not his power that had its own voice. It was pure emptiness and only she could save him from it.
