The Grand Arena of Verdantia had witnessed many wonders in its thousand-year history. Coronations where new kings knelt before cheering crowds. Victories returned from distant wars. Festivals where laughter seemed to hang in the air like perfume.
But never had it held a gathering like this.
Fifty thousand souls packed the ancient stone amphitheater, their faces pale with desperate hope. Merchants abandoned their stalls. Farmers left their fields. Even children were brought—clinging to their mothers' skirts, sensing the weight of destiny pressing down upon them.
At the center of the arena, upon a raised dais draped in silver silk, lay a figure so frail she seemed more spirit than flesh. The Eternal Seer—her true name long forgotten—had guided Verdantia for as long as memory reached. Some whispered she had been present at the kingdom's founding. Others said she was older than the mountains themselves.
Now, she was dying.
Her breath came in rattled gasps. Her eyes, once sharp enough to pierce the veil of time, were clouded with the haze of death. Yet when she spoke, her voice carried to every corner of the arena with a clarity that defied reason.
"People of Verdantia," she rasped.
And the silence that followed was so complete, even the birds stopped singing.
"I have seen your kingdom's end... and I have seen its salvation."
On the royal dais, King Aldric leaned forward, his knuckles white on the armrests of his throne. Beside him sat Queen Isabella, holding their two children close—Prince Marcus, tall and proud at sixteen, and Princess Elena, gentle-eyed and radiant, the very image of her mother. Both had been blessed by the Seer at birth. Both had been named noble souls.
But now, the Seer's gaze turned to the royal family. And something in her stare made the king's blood run cold.
"A third child shall be born to the House of Verdantia," she said. Gasps rippled through the crowd.
"This child," she continued, voice cracking, "will be the most powerful being to ever draw breath in this land. In his hands will rest the strength to make gods weep… and demons kneel."
The arena stirred. No prophecy had ever spoken of such power.
"But power without purpose," the Seer said, her voice weakening, "is a blade without a handle. This child will walk one of two paths—and upon that choice will hang the fate of all you hold dear."
The court physicians steadied her trembling body as she struggled to sit up.
"He will be either your greatest savior… or your final destroyer. The most compassionate king to ever rule… or the most merciless demon to ever live. There will be no middle ground. No redemption, once the path is chosen."
Fear rippled through the crowd like wildfire.
Mothers clutched their children tighter. Men reached for swords they did not carry. The very air thickened with dread.
King Aldric rose from his throne. "How?" he cried. "How will we know which path he walks? How can we guide him to the light?"
The Seer met his eyes. And for a moment, they cleared. For a moment, she looked as she once had.
"You will know him by the mark that—"
She broke off, coughing violently. Blood flecked her lips. Her frail body convulsed.
"The mark…" she whispered, barely audible. "The mark will show…"
And then she fell silent.
The Eternal Seer—the one who had shepherded Verdantia for generations—died with her final prophecy unfinished. The words that might have saved the kingdom… went with her to the grave.
The silence that followed was not the reverent stillness of mourning.
It was the silence before a storm.
Then, like a dam bursting, the arena erupted.
"What mark?""How will we know?""What if he's already evil?""What if the child is born cursed?"
King Aldric stood frozen, the Seer's last words echoing in his mind like a death knell.
A third child. Power without equal. Salvation or destruction.
But no way to tell which path he would choose.
And in that moment—between fear and faith—the king made a decision that would shape the kingdom's doom.
In his heart, where pride had long strangled wisdom, he chose to believe:
Any threat to his kingdom must be eliminated. No matter how small.No matter how innocent.
If they could not know whether the child was savior or destroyer…
Then they would assume the worst.
After all, it was safer to kill an innocent than risk letting a monster live.
Or so the king told himself…
…as the shadows of the arena swallowed Verdantia's last hope for redemption.