The palace of Valeryn was a fortress dressed as a crown. Its towers rose from the grey-black mountain stone itself, carved centuries ago by kings who believed walls should be as immovable as the peaks around them. The air carried the faint scent of snow from the northern cliffs, mixing with the warm breath of braziers lining the great hallways. Sunlight slanted through tall, narrow windows cut like arrow slits, throwing long blades of gold across the polished stone floors.
Servants moved like whispers through the corridors—boots soft on carpets woven with the crimson-and-gold sigil of Valeryn: a rising sun behind crossed swords. Most kept their eyes lowered, their faces pale with a mixture of respect and fear. Everyone in the palace felt it—the weight in the air, as if the mountain itself was holding its breath.
Kaelen walked the familiar path toward his father's chambers. His boots struck the flagstones with a steady rhythm, the sound swallowed quickly by the high, vaulted ceilings. He had walked these halls since boyhood—racing with his cousins, sneaking sweet rolls from the kitchens—but today, the air felt colder. Every torch seemed to burn lower.
The guards at the door to the royal quarters stood straighter as he approached. Both wore steel breastplates inlaid with protective runes, their faces shadowed beneath their helms. One was an older man with silver threading his beard; the other was a young recruit, his gaze darting nervously from Kaelen to the closed doors.
"Your Majesty," the older guard rumbled, bowing his head. "The King is awake… but not for long."
Kaelen gave a curt nod and pushed the heavy oak doors inward.
The chamber was vast but dimly lit, the heavy curtains drawn against the winter glare outside. A great canopy bed dominated the center, its carved posts wrapped in crimson silk. The scent of burning sage and bitter herbs clung to the air, mixing with the sharper tang of medicine. The walls were lined with shelves of books, relics, and the trophies of Aldric's campaigns—an axe taken from a giant's corpse, a cracked demon's helm from the last border war. All these symbols of victory felt like they belonged to another age.
On the bed lay King Aldric, once called the Unyielding. Now he looked as fragile as the frost on the windows. His broad shoulders had withered, his hands—once able to wield a sword in each—were thin and veined. His eyes, a sharp storm-grey like Kaelen's, still held their fire, though it flickered like the last coals in a dying hearth.
Kaelen stepped to the bedside, feeling the ache in his chest grow heavier with each step.
"Father," he said quietly.
Aldric's lips curled faintly. "You look… too much like your mother when you worry," he rasped. Even his voice seemed worn thin. "Did the council waste your morning again?"
"They waste more than that," Kaelen replied, forcing a wry smile. "But I can endure them."
Aldric's gaze sharpened. "Endure… yes. But never bend." He coughed—harsh and deep. The sound rattled his frame, and Kaelen instinctively reached forward, steadying him until it passed.
From the corner of the room, the royal healer emerged. Master Therion was a stooped man in a robe of deep blue, his hair as white as parchment. His face bore the lined map of decades spent studying sickness and mending wounds, but today it carried something heavier—reluctance.
"Majesty," Therion said, bowing first to Aldric, then to Kaelen. "The remedies… are no longer holding."
Kaelen straightened. "No longer—? You said the fever had eased last week."
Therion hesitated, glancing at Aldric, then back. "I said that, but for now it appears this illness—if it is illness—moves in ways I do not understand. I have seen wounds fester, hearts fail, and lungs drown in their own fluids but this… this is as if something is unmaking his Majesty from the inside. This illness was not made with blade nor poison, but with a will."
Aldric chuckled weakly. "The healer speaks in riddles."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "Then speak plainly."
Therion's gaze did not waver. "This is beyond mortal medicine. I fear… it is the work of an old curse."
The words seemed to pull all heat from the room. Even the torches hissed faintly, as if reacting to the heaviness in the air.
Kaelen forced himself to breathe evenly. "A curse? From whom?"
"I cannot say," Therion replied, "but it clings to him like chains. There is… one rumor, though it is old and mad." He hesitated again, clearly reluctant.
Aldric waved a hand. "Say it. I am already dying—no truth will change that."
Therion's voice lowered. "There are tales of a cure—if it can be called such. The heart of the Demon Lord, and the sacred water of the Elves. Combined, they are said to break any curse, even one wrought by ancient wars."
Kaelen's mind churned. The Demon Lord—ruler of the abyssal hordes that haunted the eastern borders. The Elves—aloof, their sacred groves barred to mortals. Both were distant, dangerous and almost unreachable.
Aldric gave a small, wry smile. "You see, son? They are just a simple errand."
But Kaelen did not smile.
As the healer left to fetch fresh cloths, another figure stepped from the far corner of the room—a man Kaelen recognized instantly. Garron, one of his father's oldest soldiers, broad as an oak and with one arm ending in a polished steel cap. His hair was iron-grey, his eyes sharp despite his years.
"I've seen the heart," Garron said without preamble. His voice was gravel, roughened by smoke and years on the battlefield.
Kaelen turned. "You've—?"
"Aye. One Years ago, during the Black War, I fought in the siege of Cragspire Fortress—demon territory. And saw the Lord himself from the ramparts. His heart glowed through his armor, beating like a forge. Magic so old and foul the air itself shook."
Kaelen stepped closer. "And the sacred water?"
"Never seen it," Garron admitted. "But my unit once took in a dying elf. He said the waters were guarded by the 'Eldertree'—a spirit older than the moon. No human who seeks it for greed will leave alive."
Aldric coughed again, but his eyes were on Kaelen. "There's your path, boy."
Later, Kaelen left the sickroom, his thoughts heavy as iron chains. The corridor spilled him into the South Gardens, one of the few places in the palace not entirely stone-bound. Here, winter flowers clung to life under frost-dusted leaves, and the air was scented faintly with pine from the surrounding cliffs.
He walked slowly along the path, boots crunching lightly on gravel. Servants bowed as they passed, their faces guarded—no one wanted to be the bearer of bad news to the young king.
It was then he saw it.
Across the garden, half-hidden behind the white trunk of a birch, stood a figure cloaked in black. The hood shadowed the face entirely, but a mask—smooth, featureless save for two narrow eye slits—glinted faintly in the pale light.
They stood utterly still, watching him. They were not moving or speaking.
Kaelen's hand dropped instinctively to the hilt of his sword.
"Who are you?" he called, his voice low but sharp.
The figure tilted its head slightly—almost curious—then stepped back into the mist rising from the garden's fountain. By the time Kaelen crossed the path to follow, there was nothing there. There was no footprints nor any sound in the frost.
Only the faintest whisper, carried on the mountain wind: "The heart you seek is guarded by more than demons."
To be continued…