The Kingdom of Zalentra was gripped by an eerie, silence. Ash and smoke choked the air, drifting over streets slick with blood. Where life had once thrived, the dead now lay—soldiers and civilians alike piled in grim, silent heaps.
The King and his sons had fallen in the battle. Now, the remnants of the royal bloodline stood in chains, held captive alongside the broken survivors of their city. The air was filled with the weeping and sadness of a people who had lost everything.
The architect of this misery stood before them, a dark silhouette against the flickering fires. He sat astride a monstrous black polar bear, a beast with eyes as dark as the night. It let out a low, vibrating growl, tossing its head with predatory pride. Behind him stood his legion, an army of shadowy figures whose eyes burned like red embers.
The people knelt, broken and bleeding. No one dared to look upon the monster responsible. No one dared to speak his name.
In every realm he touched, he left only ruin. Some whispered of him as the King of Death, others called him the Necromancer or simply the Dark One. But to most, he was the Shadow Prince. For a decade, he had conquered realms and rumour had it that his hunger would not be satisfied until he ruled all the nine realms in the universe.
An old woman, bound in heavy chains, forced herself upright. Her hair was a tangled veil of dirty white, masking a face etched with defiance. She fixed her gaze directly on the Prince as he consulted with a commander.
"Prince of Shadows!" she cried out. Her voice was cracked and ancient, yet it sliced through the air. The chains on her wrists clashed and sparked as she stumbled forward.
The shadow-creatures surged to strike her down, but the Prince raised a single hand and they froze instantly.
"I have a message from the gods for you," the woman croaked, her eyes wide with a terrifying clarity. "I have seen your future in the blink of an eye. I have seen your downfall, and I am here to deliver this cursed truth."
The Shadow Prince turned his mount toward her. "What do your paper gods have to say to me?" he bellowed. The sheer power of his voice sent tremors through the earth.
The woman did not flinch.
"Aerin is coming," she whispered, her voice suddenly steady. "She is your doom and your salvation. She is your mirror, hewn from the same cloth. Blood and dust, shadow and bone."