The Hall of Awakening was never silent, but today even a needle drop would chorus.
Every rustle of silk, every click of a noble's heel on obsidian tile, was a thunderclap.
Prince Alexander stood beside his twin, Prince Nikolai, the cool atmosphere doing nothing to quell the fire in his veins.
Today, the Goddess herself would witness their awakening. Today, he would prove his worth.
"For luck, brother. Soon, we'll stand together at the top." Nikolai pressed a gold coin into Alexander's hand, the metal cool against his palm.
Alexander closed his fingers around it, his focus already returning to the Lumina Cradle at the room's center.
It was a basin carved from a single, massive soul-crystal, humming with a light that felt like hope.
Their father, King Theron, watched from his throne with other men of his nobility, his face an unreadable mask of regal patience.
Nikolai shifted, his shoulder brushing Alexander's in a gesture that once felt like solidarity. Now, it felt like a challenge.
"The Lumina Cradle does not lie. It measures the soul's potential, the divine spark granted by the Round of Five. What is within, shall be revealed," the High Priestess announced.
Everyone in the Hall, including the King, bowed to the Goddess.
"Prince Nikolai," the High Priestess intoned, her voice echoing in the sacred space.
Nikolai stepped forward, confident as a sunrise. He placed his hands upon the Cradle. Light erupted.
It wasn't the soft glow from tales. It was a blinding, furious sun that forced gasps from the crowd.
The numbers shimmered into existence above the Cradle, resolving from a chaotic blaze into a solid, astonishing figure.
720.
A murmur, then a roar of acclaim. "The lineage is secure! The Goddess has blessed us! Long live King Theron! Long live Prince Nikolai!"
King Theron actually leaned forward, a crack in his marble composure. His soul potential was 650 when he was their age.
The Goddess's voice, a chime of pure light, echoed in their minds. "A remarkable spark. The blood of King Theron runs true."
A fierce, hopeful heat bloomed in Alexander's chest.
He will look at me like that, he thought, a prayer and a promise.
He met his father's gaze for a fleeting second, imagining the pride he would see there next.
Nikolai turned, his eyes meeting Alexander's. He didn't smile. He smirked.
He locked eyes with him and mouthed: "Our time has come."
Then, it was Alexander's turn. The silence returned, heavier than before. Expectant.
He walked forward, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. This was it. He placed his hands on the crystal.
"This is it. The moment I prove I'm more than just the spare heir. The moment I become someone."
It was warm from his brother's touch. He poured every ounce of his hope, his pride, his desire into it.
A flicker. A pathetic, sputtering wisp of light. It danced weakly before forming a number.
70.
The silence was absolute. It was a physical weight, crushing the air from his lungs.
"Seventy? The score of a farmer's third son, not a prince of the kingdom!"
He heard a choked laugh from the nobility. He saw his father's face. Not disappointment. Dismissal. King Theron looked away as if Alexander were a stain on the floor.
"An anomaly," the High Priestess stammered. "Perhaps the Cradle is fatigued. Try again, Prince Alexander."
He did. Hands trembling, he pressed again. The wisp flickered, died, and stubbornly resolved once more.
70.
The Goddess's voice returned, cold and final. "The spare heir is hollow."
The words were a death sentence.
Alexander could hear his brother let out a barely audible, sharp exhale. It was like a pure, unadulterated relief.
The whispers began, sharp and sibilant, needling into him.
"Hollow?" "He's so weak." "Is this guy seriously a noble?" "Prince Nikolai is way better."
He couldn't breathe. He stumbled back from the Cradle, his formal training forgotten.
He fled.
He didn't see the corridors of the palace. He saw only a blur of gold and stone. He burst through a servants' entrance, down a narrow spiral staircase, and into the cool, damp dark of the Undercroft.
This was his place. The only place a disappointment could belong. The air smelled of wet stone and forgotten things.
He finally collapsed in a small alcove, his body wracked with sobs he refused to let anyone else see.
All his life, he had been prepared to rule. He studied strategy, history, and diplomacy while Nikolai practiced swordplay.
He was the mind. Nikolai was the sword. But in their world, a mind without power was worthless.
"I was supposed to be at least seven hundred," he whispered to the darkness, his voice cracking. "I bragged to him. I was so sure."
The memory was ash in his mouth. The Goddess's words echoed in his mind. Hollow.
He was an heir with no inheritance. A prince with no power. A brother who had become a stranger.
As he pushed himself up, a small, cold object fell from his pocket and clattered on the stone.
It was the lucky coin his brother gave him.
The coin rolled, disappearing into a deeper, darker passage he had always avoided.
The one the older servants whispered about. The Vampire's Lair. He hesitated. But the coin was the last piece of that morning's hope.
A pathetic token, but it was his. He had to get it back.
He ventured into the blackness, the air growing colder. He found the coin resting against a moss-covered wall.
As his fingers closed around it, a voice slithered from the shadows. It wasn't a sound heard with the ears. It was a vibration felt in the soul.
"Alexander."
He froze, his blood turning to ice. He should run. This was madness.
"You reek of despair," the voice continued, ancient and weary. "And betrayal. I know the scent well. They have cast you out."
"Who are you?" Alexander whispered, his voice trembling.
"What remains of a betrayed 'god'," the voice replied. A faint, black sphere of obsidian materialized in the air before him, humming with a low, malevolent energy. "You seek the power they denied you. I can give it."
"How?" Alexander asked, desperation overriding his fear. "The Goddess said my vessel was empty."
A dry, psychic laugh echoed in his skull. "She did not lie. She merely measured what was left."
Alexander flinched. "What was... left?"
"The Awakening does not create power," the voice explained, its tone one of grim pedagogy.
The air in his lungs felt thin, a strange mix of the damp chill and a new, frigid void. All his focus, his entire being, was pulled toward the obsidian sphere.
"It reveals a sliver of the soul within. For your bloodline, that sliver should have been a flood. Yours is a puddle. Tell me, Prince... does that feel right to you?"
It didn't. The hollowness inside him wasn't new; it was just finally quantified. He had always felt a reservoir of potential. Today, it was bone-dry.
"Something is missing," the sphere hummed, putting his deepest fear into words. "I can offer you a different key. Not to a locked door, but to a well they cannot empty."
It was a deal with a devil. He knew the stories of fools who bargained with shadows and were left as hollowed-out husks, their family names scrubbed from history.
A permanent stain on a noble's legacy.
The ghost of the prince he was supposed to be, the heir to the Illyrian Throne, recoiled. That part was built on discipline.
It was forged in the crucible of royal expectation. It screamed that this was damnation. That honor demanded he endure his shame, not sell his soul to bypass it.
But that prince had just been executed before a crowd of his peers.
What remained was not a humiliated boy. It was will. A will that had been trained to lead nations, now focused on a single, burning purpose: I will not be erased.
He would not live as a ghost in his own palace. He would not be his brother's living monument of failure. He would not accept the verdict of a fickle goddess.
This was not a choice born of despair. It was a declaration of war, and the demon's voice was the only weapon offered.
He thought of his father's turned head. A king who valued power above all had just disowned his own son for lacking it.
Very well. He would get power. He would get so much of it that the very foundations of the throne would tremble.
A single, hot tear of pure, undiluted resolve traced a path through the grime on his cheek. He met the sphere's dark, pulsating core, his gaze unwavering.
"What is the price?" Alexander demanded, his voice the steady, cold steel of a drawn blade. "Do not speak in pretty lies of 'partnership.' Name your toll."
A moment of resonant surprise. Then, a whisper of newfound respect. "Sharp. Your will is the fuel. My knowledge is the flame. We will burn their world to the ground and sift the truth from the ashes."
It was a truth. A terrifying, brutal one. It was a price he was willing to pay.
"What is your name?"
"My enemies called me Crimson. You may call me partner. Now, pledge your will."
Alexander reached out. His hand did not tremble. He placed it on the sphere. It was not cold, but void, a hunger that leeched the warmth from his skin. He did not flinch.
"Then burn it with me, Crimson."
The darkness did not swallow him. It answered his call.
A wave of power, alien and immense, flooded his veins. It was like drinking liquid lightning. His senses sharpened, the dark Undercroft becoming as clear as a sunlit day.
For a single, terrifying, exhilarating moment, he felt invincible.
And then his stomach growled, loudly, echoing in the sudden silence.
...Of course, Alexander smirked as the profound absurdity crashed down. I make a pact with an ancient evil, and my body's first response is to complain about missing breakfast!