In the harsh northern lands, where frost devours even souls, no one is born a king. There, sovereignty is earned with blood, preserved with steel, and lost through betrayal. The kingdom of Northhold was a collection of warring tribes, bound together by a shared fear of the darkness dwelling in the ancient forests, and divided by the greed of their leaders. Alaric was but a cog in that war machine, a knight with no name other than "Alaric the Silent."
Alaric stood atop a hill overlooking the Valley of the Black Shadow. The armor he wore was heavy, not only with the weight of its metal, but with the memories of the battles he had fought in it. It was a moonless night, save for the reflection of distant fires from a village burning. Alaric was not the one who had set it ablaze; rather, he was the one who had failed to protect it.
He looked at his left hand, covered by an old burn scar in the shape of a serpent coiled around his wrist. That scar was a constant reminder of his first failure, when as a child he had been unable to protect his sister from a raid of bandits. Since that day, Alaric had vowed to become stronger, but he discovered that strength never comes without a price.
"I see you're contemplating your wounds again," came a faint voice from behind him.
Alaric slowly turned to find an old man wearing a patched cloak, his face hidden beneath the shadow of his hood. Everyone in Northhold knew him as "Old Merlock"—a madman, some said; a sorcerer, others claimed. Alaric did not trust him, but he dared not ignore him.
"Wounds are reminders of what we've lived through, Merlock," Alaric replied, his voice dry as a brittle branch. "And our failures are the wounds that never heal."
Old Merlock laughed, a laugh like the death rattle of a dying man. "Do you think sitting atop this hill, contemplating scars, will change anything? The world is drowning, Alaric. And the throne in Northhold is empty, or so the old man sitting on it would claim."
"The king is facing invaders from the west," Alaric said, attempting to defend his loyalty, though he himself doubted the king's words.
"The true invaders are not from the west, Alaric. They are here," Merlock said, pointing a finger toward Northhold's castle, squatting on the horizon. "And they are within you as well."
Merlock approached Alaric, his voice dropping to a whisper tinged with mystery: "I have seen a crown, Alaric. Not the current king's crown, but a crown of ashes and fallen light. A crown that a single man chooses, yet it also chooses the man. And I have seen your face beneath that crown."
Alaric's heart stopped for a moment. Was this the raving of a madman, or a prophecy? "What do you mean?" he asked in a low voice.
"You know what I mean," Merlock answered, stepping back. "You have grown weary of being the hand that strikes at another's command. The time has come for you to be the one who commands."
In that moment, a cold wind blew from the forests, carrying a strange whisper, as if the trees themselves were echoing Merlock's words: Be the one who commands... be the one who commands...
Alaric looked at his hands, which trembled not from the cold, but from a strange feeling beginning to grow within him. It was a terrifying feeling, yet alluring at the same time: a feeling of the power to change his destiny and the destiny of his land, no matter the cost.
"How can I do that?" Alaric asked, turning to look for Merlock.
But the old man had vanished, leaving behind only the echo of his faint laughter, fading into the darkness of the night.
Alaric stood alone, gazing at the distant castle. The crown Merlock had spoken of, the Crown of Ashes, began to take shape in his imagination. He did not yet know that in his search for this crown, he would open a door to a curse that would never close. He did not know that the first chapter of his true story had only just begun, and that the path to the throne would be paved not with roses, but with the thousands of lifeless bodies he himself would create, all the way to the seventieth chapter and beyond, where his inevitable, tragic end awaited him.