When Alden left the capital, he expected to return within the year. The Ravencliff front was dangerous but winnable. His army was strong, his strategy sound, and the nobles had promised regular support in reinforcements and supplies expected to arrive quarterly. Limon was to remain in Gretencer, Leonhelm's capital, managing affairs in Alden's absence and ensuring Aurenya's safety.
After a long, two-month march, Alden finally reached the outpost on the southern front. The fights started just as he expected. Alden felt it first in the rhythm of the battles—the Dark Elves fought in loose, desperate bands, their shadow magic difficult to trace. Yet, with a well-planned strategy and a clearly superior imperial force of fifty thousand troops, and another thirty thousand on the way, the war could not be lost. He had to finish this as soon as possible and return to her.
This time, he would gather his courage and propose. It might be difficult to gain Vireliya's permission, but it was her fault for not opening a gate back for Aurenya, so why shouldn't Alden keep her for himself? They would get married as soon as possible, and as the future empress of the Leonhelm Empire, she would get all the best things in the world. He would make sure of that.
Alden wondered sometimes, when night came after long days of skirmishes, how beautiful a bride she would be. Wouldn't the whole world be mesmerized by her? But as a crown prince and future emperor, he couldn't hold the wedding in secret. He would, however, ensure nothing like insects approached her.
It had been four months of war, and victory was almost in sight. His men were in high spirits. It didn't look like they would have to suffer through the next year; some planned to get married after returning, others would see their newborn children for the first time. Many had sick parents at home and were worried, so they wanted to return fast. Some simply wanted glory, and like Alden, many had girls they liked to whom they would propose first thing after returning.
With their highness, the crown prince, among them, they had nothing to worry about. After all, they had been winning so far.
Alden also sent letters to Limon and other people he trusted. Even though it took months for a letter to reach and return from the capital, he still wanted to stay updated on state news from time to time if possible. Messengers from Arabella Castle wrote that Aurenya was well. She spent her days reading by the fountain, drinking tea in the gardens, and walking under the protection of the guards. The reports reassured him. He had no reason to believe otherwise.
But something made him uneasy. Letters did arrive from the capital—from his own household guards stationed to protect Aurenya, men he trusted and assigned different duties—but not from Limon or his trusted old butler, Bennett. Several reports were missing. In a wartime situation, a letter getting intercepted was normal, so they never discussed important state affairs, only letters in code.
Alden hadn't taught Aurenya the codes, but still hoped maybe she would send a letter; none arrived. Even though this worried Alden, it was not something he had to dwell on, nor did he have the luxury.
For a moment, Alden even wondered if Antithesis had somehow invaded the empire and taken Aurenya back, but he quickly dismissed the thought; such a catastrophic breach would have halted all other conflicts and summoned him back at once.
By the eighth month of the war, reinforcements from major nobles seemed to dwindle all of a sudden. Supplies were still being sent regularly but in drastically reduced quantities. He had strange premonitions he couldn't describe, as if his instincts were trying to tell him something important. But he pushed the feeling away, thinking it was paranoia, focusing instead on the probable betrayals and missing support.
He sent another letter to Limon, this time asking for more reinforcements, for news of the capital, and for an update on Aurenya, just to double-check. Something felt wrong. Suspicion gnawed at him. The letters he sent to the High Council and the high-ranking nobles had gone unanswered. It was obviously a silent, suffocating betrayal. The complete and utter lack of support, the silence from his father's court, the strangeness—it didn't add up. His anxiety, a cold, sharp blade in his gut, worsened with each passing day. It was a feeling of dread for something he couldn't name.
After the nine-month mark, a reply finally arrived. The seal bore the mark of the House Haylos's office, yet the handwriting was unfamiliar. The letter claimed to be from Limon's assistant. The assistant's letter was short, frantic, and cryptic: Limon was "unavailable." The empire, they said, was preparing for another major war, but no location or details were given.
The letter made no mention of Aurenya.
Alden's heart sank. It would be foolish for the empire to start another war while one was ongoing, and it also meant they might have been abandoned. Alden read the letter three times in the dim tent light. "Another war? Against whom? The dwarves of west? The northern city-states? One of the coastal kingdoms?"
The empire now had many enemies due to a few recent hasty decisions by the emperor. Alden, preoccupied with his personal life and war preparations, had barely attended court before leaving for the front, so many decisions were made on the emperor's random whims. "Thinking back...it could be any of them. Father is doing it again. Another war? Now?"
Exasperated, Alden tried to send another letter to Limon's assistant, but the courier never returned.
Three more months passed. He was cut off, isolated on this godforsaken battlefield. He had to keep fighting, not just for the empire, but for his men. They were a family forged in the fires of war, and he would not abandon them. In the end, the only convincing answer he got was from Aran, who kept replying somewhat consistently. He claimed Limon had been called away on an urgent, secret mission for the Emperor and that the imperial army was preparing for an inevitable war with the Dwarven Kingdom, Erebor, located near the western border of the empire. More details could not be disclosed. He also mentioned that for now, he would ensure Aurenya's safety, and no harm would come her way. But Aran gave no promise of support or reinforcement.
[Damn father, why attack Erebor now?]
He cursed inside his mind... Already the Supreme Commander of the fifty-thousand-strong army, he barely had time to rest. And there his father...
If they were about to fight the dwarves, the nobles would keep their troops close, which explained the lack of reinforcements. But why now, when a war was already underway? Alden couldn't figure out the motive, and he didn't like the answer his mind was giving him. Still, Alden kept other lines of information open—spies so well-hidden even the Emperor didn't know of them. But these "special" agents could send only the barest fragments of news due to the danger of discovery. The scraps he did receive confirmed Aran's report on war preparations. In the meantime, the Ravencliff campaign ground on.
It is now three months past the first year. Reinforcements stopped completely, and all supplies from major houses ceased, including those from the south. Only nobles from other regions, of count status and below, still kept sending supplies. He sent letters to Aran, thinking perhaps his half-brother could pry answers from the Emperor. At first, Aran replied quickly—short, but reassuring missives. But as months passed, even Aran's replies grew strange. It was as if he no longer cared to inform Alden regularly or ask about the state of the war anymore.
The war situation got worse and worse. Shockingly, letters from his trusted contacts stopped. The few unimpressive missives he did receive insisted everything was fine.
But Alden was no fool, even in the quiet moments between battles. Early on, he had tested his couriers—sending harmless but false rumors to see how they returned to him. If the Dark Elves were intercepting his messages, they would have acted on the false information—springing ambushes where he claimed to be, shifting their lines to block phantom troop movements. But nothing changed. Their attacks remained the same as before. The false reports had clearly never reached them.
That left only one answer. The silence from the major houses in the capital, combined with the total cutoff of supplies, could only mean the blockade was coming from within the empire itself. Three riders he'd sent on hidden routes never returned. Whatever was happening lay deep—at the heart of the Empire, known only to the inner circle. It was not the Dark Elves cutting his lines—it was his own empire. Every missing letter, every silent messenger felt less like misfortune and more like the slow, deliberate tightening of a noose around his throat.
Alden always saw Aran as a loyal brother. But now, with Aran's strange silence and vague letters, Alden began to suspect he was part of a deeper, darker plot in the palace.
He had a strange suspicion that they wished him and his men dead. But why? For the throne? He was the only legitimate heir; if he died, no prince would get the throne unless someone performed a feat equivalent to conquering a kingdom. The throne would go to Duke Helbart, his uncle. "Is my uncle causing something in the empire?" he wondered. His secret agents had once mentioned a military movement from north to the capital in war preparation. What was it? A civil war? What am I missing?
Alden wished nothing more than to rush back and figure things out, but as a Supreme Commander, unless ordered, returning would only mean desertion. Punishment for desertion—immediate execution without trial regardless of royal status. This law was established by Caelus I, Founding Emperor himself and there had never been an exception to its enforcement.
It had been more than one year since the war started.
The war of attrition wore on, and Alden's hope dwindled to a flicker. At the start, the Dark Elves were dangerous but predictable—shadow-born fighters who preferred ambushes and skirmishes. But the same Dark Elves grew strangely stronger almost overnight. Their strikes hit harder, their coordination became perfect, and their magic carried an unfamiliar edge, almost as if something fed them. They stopped observing the rules of war. Day and night, fights began at random, in an unpredictable pattern.
They had suddenly become far more dangerous mid-war, but Alden tried to investigate the source of their new strength but the empire seems to show absolutely no care for the war state. As Supreme Commander, Alden kept sending messages for the empire to handle investigation. But he received the silent treatment instead.
From that point forward, the tide turned against Alden.
Knights, carrying their deceased comrades, screamed every day. They were allowed almost no rest, and commanders under him began to ask the questions he did not want to answer:
"Why are we alone in this?" and
"Why does the court abandon its southern army?"
Alden assured them that an urgent situation had arisen in the capital, but he could not disclose the details. As Supreme Commander, he couldn't let unrest emerge among his people, and as the crown prince, he couldn't let their trust in the empire waver. He kept telling them to focus on fighting. Soon, reinforcements would arrive, and victory was close—but he himself was unsure, and anxiety gnawed at him.
Would he be able to return alive? If not, what would happen to Aurenya? For now, his men must be protecting her, but if he died in war, would they do the same? He had already instructed Limon on what to do in case such a situation arose, but something about his absence seemed suspicious.
While waiting for any word from the empire, many times Alden nearly lost his life in battle but always survived. Once, a shadow-forged arrow hit his side in the mountain passes, almost killing him. He spent weeks recovering but returned to lead before he was fully healed. His men were shaken—their leader was wounded but still fighting. As supplies dwindled and morale dropped, Alden pushed himself to hold the line. The war at Ravencliff was supposed to be quick, but it turned into a long, brutal fight. If the Dark Elves broke through, everything would be lost.
Even so, never once did his spirit waver. He was the crown prince and the Supreme Commander; his men looked up to him. And one day he would be the emperor and rule the empire—with her. So the empire must be protected at all costs. For his people. For her, who is now in the capital.
Meanwhile, his secret agents brought another troubling report: no army had moved toward the west in the past year, despite all the war preparations. Suspicious, Alden reached out to his mother's family, the Brownhill County. They still managed to send him modest supplies, despite the empire's tightening grip. Their knowledge was limited, but their loyalty remained a fragile thread of hope. Their account matched the agents'—preparations continued, but no actual movement. If anything was underway, they had heard nothing. Even the conscripts they had sent to Gretencer had yet to return.
News slowly became more and more sparse. The war dragged into its second year. No reinforcements came, and even aid stopped arriving. The empire seemed content to let the southern army bleed out in the mountains. Ceaseless fighting had bled Alden's forces dry, dwindling them to a mere skeleton of what they once were. Now only thirty thousands of his troop remain. Without Alden's strategy at every turn, the war would have ended in catastrophic defeat, allowing the Dark Elves to advance into the empire's southern border and massacre the innocents.
Cut off from the empire, Alden turned the enemy's lands into his own storehouse. Every skirmish was a raid; his scouts stalked supply trains through forests and caverns, seizing caravans laden with dried meats, roots, arrows, and weapons. Abandoned outposts were stripped bare. He kept his army alive by stealing from the enemy's lifeline. His men fought on despite hunger and wounds, trusting their prince who bled with them and never wasted a single life needlessly.
The Dark Elves, their strength grotesquely enhanced, had become something else entirely—no longer just archers, but as if they were a different race altogether. Their shadows twisted into claws and teeth, their screams carrying a madness that chilled his army's blood. They fought not only with bows but like berserkers, as if trying to tear the world apart.
Realizing the worsening threat, Alden knew he needed reinforcements at all costs. He could no longer wait for the empire's support. Swallowing his pride as the empire's crown prince, he reached out to Aethelgard, an allied nation. Though reclusive, the High Elves shared the empire's hatred of the Dark Elves. With the enemy's unnatural transformation, Alden hoped they would be alarmed enough to send help without delay.
But the war didn't pause for help that might never come, and Alden didn't have high hope.
Aethelgard, a secretive and powerful nation of elves, had long held themselves apart from the affairs of men. The seven High Elves were the joint rulers of Aethelgard. Under the command of the World Tree, they ruled over the elf kingdom, and it was common knowledge that "The World Tree does not move in haste."
Although they do maintain a basic level of diplomacy and trade as the allies of the empire, against Dark Elves, Alden expected them to take more time to arrive, if they did send help at all.
However, just as he set his mind to hold the front, an alarming report arrived that ignited his worst suspicion.
His secret agents sent a report with the revelation that Aurenya had been relocated on the emperor's command half a year ago to an undisclosed location, and none of the guards Alden trusted could follow her; even those who tried never reported back. Limon had long vanished without a trace. Bennett and many other trusted men's whereabouts were unknown.
As he read the report, Alden's blood turned cold. His vision seemed to blur for a moment, the page trembling slightly in his grasp. Aurenya... taken. Moved somewhere unknown. Guards he trusted—gone. Limon, gone. Bennett, missing. The names repeated in his mind like the tolling of a funeral bell.
For months he had pushed aside the unease, told himself the silence from the capital was a quirk of war, a trick of distance and danger. But now... A hollow weight pressed against his chest, each breath heavier than the last. He clenched the paper in his fist, crumpling it. The cold inside him deepened, but under it burned a sharp, dangerous heat—fear for her, and rage at those who thought they could take her from him.
If the emperor ordered it, no one in the empire would dare reveal her location to him without sanction. And that meant she was now hidden behind walls he could not breach without defying the throne itself.
His hand went, almost on instinct, to the pendant at his neck. He clasped and unclasped the pendant several times in a row, the blind rage and fear growing in his heart making his mind numb.
They wouldn't know, right? They wouldn't... Should I just run back? Who cares what happens to the borderline villages? Who cares what happens to the innocents or me... Aurenya... needs me...
But he stopped himself from mid-thought.
[Calm down, Alden...] , he thought to himself.
What if it was all a trap to lure him back? What if nothing had happened, and the emperor simply took Aurenya to inquire about her background since she might be the future empress or something similar?
If he did something rash and the emperor discovered that he had planted spies within his closest circle, the outrage could seal Aurenya's fate who is currently under emperor's hand. No matter that he was crown prince—he was not the emperor, and such an act could be seen as direct defiance, even treason.
And it was something he wouldn't mind doing, but before that, he needs information. Information on where she is kept and why.
Determined to get answers, he sent an urgent order to his agents: No need to hide your identity anymore. Effective immediately, find out what is happening in the capital. And top priority track the location of Aurenya. Spread out as far as possible, and contact the emperor's closest aides—code names 05 and 07. They must report back information as soon as possible.
Although it would take several months for the report coming back to him after verifying the order's authenticity—a safeguard Alden himself had set—he refused to use the last, most dangerous option:
his pendant.
The pendant at his neck, a secret seal that could bypass all formal verification, felt like a brand against his skin. It was the ultimate proof of his identity, recognized only by his most trusted agents, including those hidden among the emperor's own aides. But he would not use it. Not yet. it leaves a trace—someone in the capital's intelligence office would know exactly who triggered it if he is under scrutiny. Using it now when he is blocked by strict wartime secrecy laws, would expose his network and mark him as a traitor in the emperor's eyes. Especially since he himself was not present in the capital, no one would be able to cover for them. If that fury turned toward Aurenya, still trapped in the capital under "imperial protection," the cost would be devastating.
So he continued to play the loyal Supreme Commander, all the while knowing the war was not the only battle he was fighting. He kept telling himself he could endure a few more months on the front before resorting to the pendant—deliberately suppressing the mad whisper gnawing at the back of his mind.
Three more months passed. The war teetered on the brink of collapse. Alden kept fighting like a madman burning with fury.
No news. Nothing yet... How much longer?
The commanders began to grow alarmed. The change in their Supreme Commander was unnatural. Since the beginning, the one who should have been barking commands from behind the tent had been actively fighting nonstop. Over the past three months, he seemed to be fighting in a desperate rush, as if the calm, collected prince had been replaced by a man burning with bloodlust. Again, he slashed down another grotesque Dark Elf. At this point, it was hard to tell who was more berserk—the enemy or their Supreme Commander.
But in this cloudy fog of despair, like a ray of sunlight the High Elves of Aethelgard appeared with massive reinforcements, as if the entirety of Aethelgard army had been brought here to participate in this war. Even Alden—who had called for their aid—was taken aback.
Confused and weary, Alden met with the High Elves in a commanders' council. Their army size currently far surpassed his own forces numerically. He expected arrogance, perhaps greed for spoils. Instead, their response was far different from his expectations.
All seven High Elves rose to their feet upon seeing him, their faces etched with desperation.
"Our mother has died," said Siegfried, one of the High Elves.
Alden was stunned and nearly speechless. The only being the High Elves would call "mother" was the World Tree.
The High Elves continued, voices heavy with sorrow: "Before being incinerated by Chaos, Mother left her final words for you.
'Prince Alden—please help the world. Only you can reverse the destruction and ruin already consuming it. You must restrain the source of misery immediately before it's too late, or there will be no return.'"
Alden, confused, asked what was the source of misery that he must restrain. Rael, one of the seven High Elves shook his head. "We do not understand Mother's words entirely. Only that she sacrificed herself to stop something sinister from invading. But as we see it now, couldn't it be these Dark Elves? Their appearance already screams wrongness..."
Sirenna, another High Elf added, cutting Rael's conjecture, "Mother asked us to help you, so you must decide, Supreme Commander of empire's army—no, the last emperor of Earth."
Alden's eyes grew wide in confusion. Last emperor? Not crown prince... not just emperor of the empire... but of Earth? why last? Did they mistake it?
But there was no time to dwell on it. No news of Aurenya yet.
He completely dismissed the grand title with a harsh edge in his voice. "So, you're here to help. Whatever your reasons—be it the Earth's destruction or something else, which I don't fully understand—if I'm right, you're here to help exterminate these vermin?"
Siegfried answered firmly, "Yes. We must stop these Dark Elves. Please take command; we will follow."
Alden paused for a moment, then said, "Good. Then start the meeting."
But it was a mistake. Alden should have returned that instant, ignoring the Dark Elves and even the High Elves. The message of the World Tree wasn't relayed properly. The source of misery wasn't hidden within the Dark Elves; it was at the very core of the empire.
Alden's eyes flickered with something unsteady—hope mingled with a restless, creeping doubt. Was this the right decision? The weight of the world pressed on him heavier than ever, and a faint, whispered voice inside kept screaming at him that something's still wrong—though whether it was courage or something darker, he couldn't tell.