he gates of Elarion, the capital of the Kingdom of Virell, did not open for exiles.
And yet, there he stood.
Alden Valerion, cloak torn and stained from weeks of travel, watched as the gates yawned open before him. The guards didn't recognize him not truly. They saw only a beggar in noble rags, a wanderer with eyes too calm for a commoner and a back too straight for a man beaten by the road.
But Alden had been here before.
As a child, he'd passed these same gates in golden procession, beside his elder brother, the crown prince, beneath banners bearing the sun lion crest of House Valerion. That had been before the whispers, before the trial, before his name was removed from the royal registry and spoken only in hushed tones, like a curse.
Now, only dust remembered him.
He stepped through the threshold with no fanfare. The city pulsed with life market stalls overflowing, nobles parading in silks, children weaving between guards and none of them noticed the boy who once had a title.
"They walk above me now," he thought, "but their thrones are built on my silence."
Inside the court, power moved like shadowplay.
From behind the stained-glass windows of the Palace of Concordance, the high families schemed. Every word was weighted. Every glance a dagger. They played the Game not with swords, but with names, stories, and existence itself.
In this world, to be forgotten was to die.
Alden's fingers brushed the edge of a worn leather notebook hidden in his coat. It hummed faintly against his chest not with magic, but with memory. It contained pieces of his existence salvaged from the years of exile. Scribbled notes. Sketched maps. Old names. Proof.
And now, he had a plan.
"They buried me beneath lies," he whispered to no one, "but roots grow in darkness."
That night, under a broken statue of a forgotten king, Alden opened a fracture.
He focused, breathing slowly, calling on a part of himself most men never reach his ontological tether.
His body shimmered, flickering and dropped.
Not in space, but in layer.
Suddenly, he existed in Layer -1: the Forgotten. The air was colder, quieter. Sounds felt distant, like echoes. His body thinned, blurred, as if memory itself were slipping off his bones. But in this layer, he could move unseen not invisible, but unnoticed. Unremembered.
And in that layer, he walked straight into the lower vaults of the royal archives.
A lone scribe gasped as Alden emerged from nothingness.
"You… you're not!"
"I am," Alden said simply. He stepped forward, and the light from the flickering lantern cast the crest burned into his notebook the sigil of House Valerion, half-erased, but still present.
"Tell the court historians," Alden said, voice steady as iron, "The forgotten heir has returned."