The world remembers him only in whispers. In stories meant to frighten children. In scriptures sealed behind church vaults. In the charred ruins of cities that dared to stand tall. They call him many things. The Lord of Endless Midnight. The Sovereign of Ashes. The Demon of the Last Light. No one speaks the name he once bore. No one remembers the man. His throne sits atop a black citadel built where no grass grows. No birds sing above it. No stars shine above its towers. The land around it decays — not because he wills it, but because the gods themselves turned their eyes away from him. He does not speak. He does not smile. He does not sleep. Only once in a while, when the flames of war flicker low, he dreams — and the world trembles. In those dreams, there is no blood. Only a woman's laughter, soft and warm. A child running through wildflowers. A fire in a hearth that smells like safety. Faces blurred by time, yet never truly forgotten. He wakes. He feels nothing. And so he marches again. The world believes he seeks conquest. That he wishes to drown the continent in darkness. But that is not the truth. The truth is worse. He is not here to rule. He is here to erase. To burn the world that betrayed him, not out of hatred… but because it no longer deserves to exist. He tried to protect it once. He begged. He bled. He trusted. And for that, they fed him to the flame — and made him need the darkness. It was not always like this. He was not always this. He once had a name. He once had a family. He once had a friend who called him brother. They are gone now. He remains. Not Kael Viremont, the Duke of the Western Vale. No. That man died in chains of ash and blood. What remains now… ...is a silence the gods cannot bear to hear. Let the world scream his name in fear. Let them curse the night he fell. Let them pray to empty heavens. For the last light is long gone. And its scream has only just begun.
