The Infernal King | 1 ✓

CHAPTER I | GLACIAL VENGEANCE

       MAARIT PHERAIOS RESIDED in the imperial village of Fribois, the capital of Bonvalet. The young woman was a witch and possessed the ability to execute spells with the mere utterance of simple words and phrases.

Such was uncommon—but not quite rare—amongst the inhabitants of the village (even though sorcery was typically regarded with disdain rather than with veneration). Amidst the innumerable markets stocked with necessities for the regular citizens, there were lower-lying shops for the few witches and warlocks of Fribois. These included apothecaries for potion ingredients and libraries whose ebony shelves were stocked with magical literature as old as time itself.

The village itself was both charming and eerie all at once; the scenic view of the cobblestoned roads and bustling shops was somewhat besmirched by the ambience of something dark, something nefarious, swirling apprehensively in the air. Scattered throughout Fribois in an unsystematic manner were quaint little houses. Nevertheless, it was the mountain—and what rested at the top of it disdainfully—that was the cynosure of all eyes.

Atop a mountain that seemed to gaze out unto the smaller, much more insignificant houses with unrestrained superiority, towered a magnificent castle. It was so grand that at a certain time of day, an immense shadow fell over Fribois due to the castle's obstruction of the sunbeams. For approximately an hour each day, the fortress was illuminated by the rays of sunlight, casting a gloom over everything else.

After all, the sun often only reached the very richest.

It was from this grandiose castle—with its sublime architecture, fortifying ramparts of stone, glorious marble pillars and portcullis made out of pure gold—that King Tevenot II ruled over the entire kingdom of Bonvalet.

The king was regarded by most with absolute loving admiration. Never had there been a king with the same overwhelming amount of popularity. It seemed that there was not a single person that had anything even remotely unpleasant to say about him.

       Tevenot was a beloved king because he had kept war out of Bonvalet, signed peace treaties with other countries and negotiated his way into maintaining good relationships with as many as possible. Some would say that he had repaired what past rulers had broken; but that was not their only reason for adoring him. When he spoke in public, he possessed an unparalleled charisma that gave every inhabitant a desire to believe in him.

Within the fortified confines of the castle, he lived alone with his son, Prince Theodoracius, along with their many servants.

The prince, whom King Tevenot never failed to refer to as troubled and problematic, was very rarely seen. His father's words, along with the rumours that disseminated like wildfire, had tainted his reputation. Though he was next in line for the throne, the people of Bonvalet were put at ease with constant reassurance from the king that he would never leave the realm in his son's hands.

King Tevenot's wife, Queen Etheldreda, had died during the birth of the royal couple's second child. The queen had been known for her obstinacy—a trait that was applauded when possessed by a man, but criticized when pridefully borne by a woman.

Her son and eldest child had been her pride and joy, the light of her life; and her unconditional love for her unborn second child had been apparent. It was unbeknownst whether the infant that had perished along with its mother was a boy or a girl. Though the monarch had never disclosed this information, he apparently had not even known, for Etheldreda had died before being able to fully give birth to the child.

Over a decade after his queen's death, the king still had not remarried—he claimed that he refused to burden any woman with such a troublesome son, and that statement alone gained him plenty of empathy. However, he did indeed have many mistresses (which no one but Maarit seemed to find outrageous).

Prince Theodoracius himself had been eight years old when the tenacious grip of death had taken his mother. He had been a mere child at the time; if he had not since committed such heinous acts that included pulling a sword on one of his father's mistresses, Maarit would have felt terribly sorry for him. Speculations regarding the reasons behind the prince's rebelliousness were rampant, and many suspected the cause to be the loss of his beloved mother at such a young age.

Regardless of the reason behind his unruly attitude, Prince Theodoracius harboured within his tarnished soul a glacial vengeance towards the rest of the kingdom.