(After the war 25 years ago)
The smoke of war had finally lifted.
After twenty years of bloodshed and five years of uneasy peace, the Four Kingdoms gathered beneath one sky to decide the fate of their lands. The War that had begun with greed and ended in silence was now called The War of Twenty Years and the Peace of Five.
The kings, weary and scarred, met in the heart of the Main Kingdom the one now known as the Soul Kingdom, where the last great battle had ended. There, in the House of the Soul, a vast stone hall built from the ashes of war, they swore their oaths of peace.
No sword was drawn.
No blood was spilled.
Only the echo of promises filled the air.
The rulers of the Four Kingdoms Soul, Thor, Englishland, and Swordline stood before the sacred flame of the Rose of Peace, a single crimson flower that had survived the destruction of the battlefield. Each king knelt, touching the ground before the Rose, and swore to live as one under a single flag.
"From this day forth," the King of Soul declared,
"we are no longer four, but one.
One will, one oath, one banner of life.
Let the ashes of the fallen feed the roots of the future."
Thus, the Alliance of the Four Kingdoms was born.
The first decree of this new age was the Return of the Lost.
Every man, woman, and child taken during the war slaves, prisoners, servants, and soldiers were to be counted, named, and returned to their homeland. The dead, too, were honored; their bones carried home by riders who whispered prayers as they passed through ruined villages.
It had been twenty-five years since the first sword was drawn. Generations had changed. Children had become men, mothers had become queens, and villages had become kingdoms.
And among the countless names lost to history… was one: Viki.
A boy taken from his mother, Elisha, and his sister, Alex , at the age of six. A child raised by war, forgotten by peace, and now on the dawn of a new era about to return to a world he no longer knew.
The Alliance had been forged. The kingdoms stood united beneath one flag.
But for Viki, peace would not be given it would have to be earned.
Under One Banner
When peace was finally sealed, the world began to change.
The war that had torn apart the four realms left behind more than ruins it left memories, grief, and the will to begin again. The kings gathered once more in the Hall of the Rose, beneath the blazing insignia of the Soul Kingdom, and there they declared a new order.
The kingdoms would no longer stand divided by the scars of war. They would live, breathe, and fight beneath one banner the Banner of Soul.
The names of the kingdoms were changed, marking the dawn of a new age.
Only one name remained untouched Soul, the heart of all realms, the kingdom that had survived the storm.
The other four took on new names, reborn from their ashes:
The Kingdom of Bilin, land of rivers and endless fields.
The Kingdom of Denmark, strong in ships and warriors.
The Kingdom of Normandy, cold and noble, built on honor and silence.
And at the center, The Soul Kingdom, the throne of peace and unity.
Together, they became known as The Alliance of the Rose four realms and one soul.
The people rejoiced, yet among the songs of peace echoed the silence of those who had been lost. Families searched for faces they could no longer remember. Graves were marked for those who would never return. And in that long counting of the living and the dead, one name kept returning to the scrolls of the forgotten.
Viki.
The boy who had been taken from his village.
The child who had vanished into war.
The man who had survived where no mercy lived.
For twenty-five years, his name had been spoken only in prayer whispered by a mother who had become a queen, and by a sister who had become a princess.
And now, under the flag of peace, the kingdoms prepared for a grand event the Competition of Freedom, a trial for warriors and slaves alike. The victor would earn not only freedom, but the right to marry the princess of the Soul Kingdom.
None knew who he was.
None knew what the past had made of him.
But as the banners of the Rose rose high above the kingdom walls, a lone figure walked among the gathered slaves, his eyes hardened by time, his heart still chained to memories of fire and loss.
The name he bore was one the world had forgotten
but soon, all would remember.
Viki had returned.