Chapter Text
There were only a few empires in the world, and one of the most powerful had undoubtedly been Jintaiyang. Spanning across two medium-sized continents and home to thousands of people, it was an empire that had continued to expand. Life within its borders was prosperous, its emperors were kind, and they had never sought to annihilate other empires—only to form alliances. Not a single drop of blood had been spilled needlessly under Jintaiyang, until the day they were massacred and driven out. The kingdoms and lands under their rule vanished, and only a handful of descendants survived, fleeing to distant lands.
Among these descendants were two teenagers of the noble Wen family, from the kingdom of Xinghai. They took it upon themselves to gather the remaining survivors of the empire, and over the years they formed a small group filled with people burning with bloodlust.
Thus, generation after generation, the Wen grew into warriors—men and women who would not hesitate to kill in order to fulfill their purpose. And what was this great purpose? To become an empire once more. For over two centuries, the Wen had carried the same ambition: for Jintaiyang to rise again in new lands. To achieve this, they pillaged villages, slaughtered thousands, and laid upon the shoulders of every Wen heir the heavy burden of continuing the violence until what had been lost by their ancestors was restored.
It was into this blood-soaked legacy that Junhui was born. He knew nothing of the past, nor of what awaited him in the future. He was merely a child born in a dungeon. No sunlight, no proper food—only a knife, with which his parents trained him every day. “You will be an excellent leader if you learn to use it well, Jun,” they told him, though he could not understand why. And so he trained tirelessly with the blade, until he forgot its true purpose was once meant to cut food, not to stab people.
The first time he saw the world beyond stone walls was at the age of thirteen, when his so-called family finally emerged from the dungeon. He walked in the center of the crowd, shielded by order, his younger brother and cousin at either side, clutching his hands as though terrified of losing him. The sunlight stung his eyes, unaccustomed as he was to it, and the burst of colors from the street stalls of Dravaryn—the buildings, the fabrics, the people’s clothes—seemed like something out of another world. In the distance, towering and splendid, stood the great castle of the Dravaryan kings. It was magnificent.
“Do you like the castle, Jun?” Minghao, his cousin, asked, holding his right hand. Junhui nodded, his gaze fixed ahead. “I like it too. It looks like the one from the story my mother used to read to me when we lived below.”
Junhui nodded again in silence, walking on as the adults in black robes led the way, while others followed closely behind.
“Jun,” came the voice of his mother from behind. In moments, she was at his side, lifting his younger brother from his left hand into her arms. Chenle was no longer a baby—he was eight years old—but small for his age, a frail child who wept endlessly. His mother placed a hand on Jun’s shoulder and leaned close to whisper: “I promise you, in a year, that castle will be ours.”
He did not believe her at first, yet her words proved true. A year later, Junhui found himself staring at his sword dripping blood above the body of a young and beautiful woman lying on the floor in a pool of red. She was the crown princess of Dravaryn.
“I’m sorry…” he whispered, dropping the blade beside her. He pressed his hands together, closing his eyes as he recited the prayer for the dead he had once created with Minghao and Chenle. He tried to focus on the words as screams and cries echoed from the royal family being slaughtered in other halls by members of the Wen. Opening his eyes, he crouched beside the princess, reclaimed his sword, and gently closed her eyes with his hand. “I’m sorry… I truly am.” He wiped the blade clean on the hem of her dress before standing, moving on to another hall in search of more victims.
Or as Junhui preferred to call them: the released. He believed those who died swiftly at his clan’s hands were far luckier than those forced to endure life under its cruelty. The scars on his wrists and neck bore witness to the many times he had longed to be one of the “released,” but death had been stolen from him time and time again by his parents, who always dragged him back. Eventually, he surrendered. His personal hell was to continue living—and he had accepted it. It was the least he could do after ending the lives of so many innocents.
That day, he was officially named crown prince of Dravaryn, while his parents declared themselves king and queen, displaying the severed heads of every last member of the true royal family upon the flags of the realm. Junhui would never forget the petrified faces of the townsfolk who witnessed such savagery. Yet to him, such things were normal.
Tragically, that was the truth. In his family, “normal” meant bloodshed, and “strange” meant acts of affection. And though by all rights he should have grown into someone utterly broken, Junhui was, in fact, perfectly sane—or so he chose to believe.
He cared nothing for the empire nor for someday becoming the leader of such a murderous clan. All he wanted was a place truly normal, far away from it all, where it was only him, Minghao, and Chenle. He loved the mountains, and whenever he could, he slipped away to gaze at the distant kingdoms below. He could see little more than rooftops and forests, but he knew that down there were people with ordinary kings, living ordinary lives without fear. Chenle would lie in the grass at nightfall, reaching for the stars with tiny hands as though he could grasp them. Junhui remembered those sweet, fleeting moments with a smile.
Yet as an adult, he no longer spoke to his younger brother. They had grown too distant. He hardly spoke to his parents either; Minghao had become his voice to them in all things. Now he sat in an office of the castle, drawing strategies to kidnap heirs of neighboring kingdoms, forcing rulers to cede land to Dravaryn or bow to the absurd demands of tyrants. Those who refused saw their princes enslaved or executed—the punishment depending solely on Junhui’s mood that day.
He had grown covered in scars, the marks of endless training, punishments from his parents, and failed attempts at ending his own life. They were so many that he no longer remembered how most had been made. His raven hair, the signature of his family, fell in waves across his brow; he never bothered to trim it much, only enough to see clearly. He dressed simply, unlike his parents who draped themselves in extravagance, though the dark palette was a mark of all Wen—“bloodstains are harder to notice this way,” his father always boasted. But Junhui’s most striking feature was not his clothes, nor his scars, nor his disheveled hair. No, it was his eyes. Deep, warm brown eyes that would have been breathtakingly beautiful, if not for the emptiness in them, the lifeless gaze and the heavy shadows carved beneath by insomnia. Even so, despite his disheveled appearance, Junhui was considered the most handsome among the Wen. He thought it ridiculous. He was certainly not the most handsome—not even close.
But lately, he had only carried two great concerns: the crown prince of Florienne, who was always overprotected by that kingdom’s mighty army, and the prince of Eryndel, Seokmin, whose escape from the dungeon where he had been imprisoned remained a mystery to all. Those worries, however, vanished the moment Minghao stepped into his office and handed him a sheet of paper that had arrived earlier from his most trusted informant.
«The second prince of Florienne, Lee Chan, will be traveling through the Aryvyn mountain border. He carries with him a small troop of nine knights. What distinguishes him is the hilt of his sword, adorned with many carved irises. I do not recommend killing him, for he possesses valuable information. —H»
“Today?” Junhui asked after reading it, setting the note upon the dark wooden desk.
“I was told it may be at dawn,” Minghao replied in his usual quiet, expressionless tone. Since childhood, he had been thin, with long, straight black hair. Though always well-kept and dressed neatly, stray strands often clung to his face in disarray.
The corners of Jun’s lips lifted ever so slightly, a spark of excitement tingling in his chest and fingers. At last, he would have a key piece of Florienne in his grasp—the very kingdom his insufferable parents were desperate to conquer.
“Gather some soldiers. I’ll go personally,” he ordered, rising to his feet. Minghao nodded and left the office, while Junhui moved to the wardrobe in the corner, trading his comfortable attire for garments suited to battle.
If his parents ever discovered the kind of questions he asked the princes he captured, they would likely disown him—and may they do so, Jun prayed inwardly. For before interrogating them about secret entrances to their kingdoms, or bargaining lands in exchange for their well-being, Junhui always began with questions like: “What is life like in your kingdom?” “Is there freedom?” “Are there many plants?” “Are you happy?”
Yes, he reduced himself to a melancholy child.
He departed before the other soldiers, riding ahead toward the Aryvyn mountains, savoring the night’s stillness and the pleasant chill in the air. He needed no map to guide him there; he had climbed and roamed those mountains so many times they had become a second home. And so he went straight to the borderlands. Concealing himself among the trees, he listened—footsteps, voices, the glow of lights not far ahead. Kerosene lamps, burning bright.
Junhui waited patiently by his horse until the voices faded and the lamps went dark. When they did, he launched his attack.
He could hardly contain his thrill, he was finally going to meet one of the princes of Florienne, the most troublesome kingdom on the continent.