Lupe: Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 0

Chronos was not a kingdom.

It was a continent too vast for one crown, too old for one bloodline, and far too powerful to remain whole.

Long before the oldest histories were written, the land had fractured into four great dominions: the Western Empire, the Eastern Empire, the Northern Empire, and the Southern Empire. Mountains cut between their borders like scars. Rivers carried merchants, spies, soldiers, and rumors from one imperial court to another. Treaties were signed in gold and broken in blood. Peace existed, sometimes for decades, but never without armies stationed along the borders.

For in Chronos, war was not fought by ordinary men alone.

Power lived in blood.

Some families could trace their abilities back hundreds of years. Others had watched their gifts weaken with every generation until only stories remained. Among commoners, supernatural abilities were uncommon. Among the nobility, they were inheritance, status, weapon, and burden all at once.

There were families whose flames could burn without fuel.

Those who could command water from the earth.

Bloodlines capable of hardening their skin until steel shattered against them.

Some could hear lies in another person's heartbeat. Others possessed extraordinary sight, able to see through darkness or distinguish a man's face from leagues away. There were houses blessed with barriers, houses capable of manipulating sound, and ancient families whose children occasionally awakened gifts so unusual that scholars spent generations trying to understand them.

But not every ability was spectacular.

And not every spectacular ability was useful.

Power depended upon the strength of the bloodline, the individual born into it, and sometimes something no scholar could explain at all.

The imperial House Valcoran of the West possessed one of the most feared abilities in all of Chronos.

Ultimus.

It was not merely strength.

A Valcoran born with a strong manifestation of Ultimus could break stone with his bare hands, wield weapons too heavy for ordinary soldiers, and survive injuries that would cripple lesser warriors. The closer one stood to the direct imperial line, the greater the possibility that Ultimus would manifest at an extraordinary level.

Prince Regan Valcoran, second son of the Western Emperor, had inherited more than most.

Ultimus coursed strongly through him.

And from his mother, he had inherited traces of another bloodline.

Speed.

The combination had made him frightening on the battlefield.

At twenty-eight, Regan Valcoran was already commander of one of the Western Empire's greatest armies.

Strong enough to crush an armored man's ribs.
Fast enough that many opponents did not see his sword before they felt it.
Handsome enough that noblewomen laughed too loudly when he spoke.
And royal enough that very few dared tell him no.

House Serevain possessed a different kind of danger.

Their hereditary ability was called Allure.

Beauty followed the Serevain bloodline almost unnaturally. Their voices were pleasing, their features striking, their presence difficult to ignore. But the true danger lay beneath appearances.