“No! Please mother! No!” Prince Valarendrik began to thrash and scream, terrified of what was to come. “Please! I don’t want it! Mother, please!” He cried with pure fear lacing his words, as a second guard rushed over to firmly hold his head still. The Elder Graith began slowly lowering the crown to his forehead. “Please don’t let them do this to me!”

“Shut up!” His mother angrily hissed. “...You’re embarrassing yourself.” She quietly gritted, so that the onlooking citizens couldn’t hear.

The blood moon was now almost full, hovering above the kingdom like an ominous omen. Prince Valarendrik panickily stared up at the crimson orb in a lame attempt to distract himself from the three menacing spikes poking just below his hairline. He tried desperately to calm his hysteria, but his attempt fell in vain, as a guard handed the Elder Graith a sinister-looking mallet made of obsidian.

Enchanted silvery engravings adorned the mallet's handle, twisting their way up to the sharp spike at the end. The Elder Graith began chanting an ancient incantation, filled with harrowing and malevolent words. Ever so slowly, he began to lift the mallet, readying to strike.

Fear flooded the prince’s veins, drowning every fiber of his being with pure terror. He frantically shifted his anxious gaze over to meet his mother’s vicious one. “Please, mother... no.” He whispered in desperation.

“Crown him.” She fiercely commanded.

Forcefully, the Elder Graith swung the mallet down, violently slamming it against the center of the band. The prince screamed out, writhing in agonizing pain. Sickening wet crunches from the spikes being hammered deeply into his skull resounded through the air. Again the Elder Graith struck, further driving them past the bone and deep within his brain.

The prince’s thrashing body eventually became silent and still. Small trickles of his dark blood dripped down his face, with his crimson eyes drifting apart from the head trauma. His black tears camouflaged with his blood as they streamed down his cheeks. The Elder Graith began ritualistically chanting an unsettling and ancient incantation to summon the dark spirit into the crown.

A shadowy swirling mist martialized over the crown like a whirlwind of pure darkness. Soft sibilant whispers hissed from within its wisping tendrils, as they sinisterly wrapped around the fingerbones, and slowly entered the crown. The bones began to creepily twitch, while the last of the dark spirit was absorbed into them.

And under the crimson moon, Prince Valarendrik was crowned.

The queen excitedly held her hand up, about to announce the wonderful news that her son had officially been crowned and possessed by the great dark spirit. But then she froze in horror when she saw that the boy had begun to abruptly thrash and mumble.

Her face contorted with fear as she watched his small body uncontrollably shake and convulse in the guard's firm clutches. His crimson eyes rolled into the back of his head, making them look like abyssal pools of darkness. Drool dripped from his mouth, while his head rolled around with deranged and jerky movements. Unsure of what to do, the guard roughly dropped him to the ground, where his violent seizure continued.

“What’s happening to him!?” Queen Cerindier panickily screeched to the Elder Graith. “He has two marks! He’s supposed to be able to survive this!” If Valarendrik didn’t survive the crowning, they would lose the dark spirit forever.

The Elder Graith frantically reached for the boy, terrified of losing their sacred dark spirit. “Perhaps it was too much power for him to handle!?” He grabbed the prince’s shoulders in an attempt to still him. However, the panic fell from his face once he fully took in the sight of the boy. “I believe he will survive. The dark spirit is having to fight against Prince Valarendrik’s resistance.” A knowing smirk twisted across his face. He was certain that the boy would lose against the ancient darkness.

After a few anxious moments, the prince eventually fell into unconsciousness, yet the crown still twitched angrily upon his head. “He has survived!” The Elder Graith loudly exclaimed, earning cheers from the crowd all around. “Now, your highness, shall we see what his reign will be like?” His deep raspy voice cooed to the queen.

The queen glared at her son’s limp body with detest. “I suppose it is tradition.” She rolled her eyes, confident that the Elder Graith would prophesy an early death for the child.

“Ah, let us see, then.” The Elder Graith’s gaunt and sickly hand grabbed the prince’s limp one, then he used his long gnarled claw to slice open the boy’s palm. His slimy, slender, black tongue slithered out from between his many rows of sharp needle-like teeth, as he lapped away at the boy’s thick blood. The Graith became still, while visions of Valarendrik’s rule flashed into his mind.

“I already know it’s going to be a short reign. I plan to make sure of it.” The queen mumbled as she uninterestedly turned to look out over the roaring tempests sea, wishing that she could have sacrificed Valarendrik instead of Aldrinan.

“Endless.” The Elder Graith’s chilling voice shot through her like ice in her veins, causing her to freeze in place.

Slowly, the queen warily turned back around with an unwelcome sense of dread in her soul. “What did you say?” She curtly asked.

“Valarendrik’s rule shall be endless, and he will be the most powerful king to ever sit upon the Tenverian throne.” He licked up more of the unconscious prince’s blood. “He will wage war against you, allied with otherworldly beings, and you will die by his hand.”

“What!?” Queen Cerindier furiously spat, as the Elder Graith continued to speak his horrifying prophecy.

“The black clouds of Hsarohpem shall part over the land, and a queen of colors unknown to this world shall rule by his side. His crown will crumble. The dark spirit will die. The serpent will be restored. And King Valarendrik will bring death to death in Tenveriel.” He hissed in disgust at his own words, as if they were vile in his mouth.

The queen hastily swiped her dagger off of the alter. “Well then, we should just kill him now!” She swiftly knelt down while lifting the dagger up over her son, ready to strike without hesitation.

The Elder Graith quickly reached up and grabbed her wrist, stopping her from murdering the prince. “You cannot!” He shouted. “To kill him would be to kill the dark spirit! He must live for the next thousand years, then produce a legitimate heir after his coronation!” He gestured down at the two black lines over the boy’s eye. “No one can survive the crowning without the royal mark of power. And Tenveriel will never except an uncrowned king.”

Queen Cerindier was furious, but she knew the graith was right. She had to let Valarendrik live long enough to produce a damn heir. “Everyone leave! Get out of here!” She screamed at the crowd as she aggressively stood back up. “Guards! Kill anyone who lingers!”

Everyone quickly scrambled away, mercilessly trampling those who were unfortunate enough to stumble. The queen seethed as she watched them depart. They were like lowly insects to her. Flies buzzing around her gourmet meal.

“We must raise him to believe that his only purpose is to produce an heir, and then perish.” The Elder Graith mentioned from behind her. “But the dark spirit must survive above all else. It is Hsarohpem’s law that the king of Tenveriel must be possessed by it, and the citizens will never except an uncrowned king.” He reiterated.

The queen slightly turned towards him, but still didn’t look him in the face. “And what if it is a mistake to allow him to live so long? He has two marks of power. Once he comes of age and his shadows develop he’ll be more powerful than you and I combined. Even with the orb.” She softly spoke with bitterness in her frosty heart.

“Hmm, I see.” He thoughtfully murmured. “Then we must conceal his shadows within his soul, so they never develop. He will think of himself as a weakling, and we will use the orb’s power to keep him under our control until an heir is born.”

And so, under the cover of darkness and below the waning moon, the Elder Graith and the queen performed an arcane ceremony over the prince. They cast an enchantment that would conceal his shadows, locking them deep within the depths of his soul. So that the boy would never know the power which brewed inside of himself.

Then they left Prince Valarendrik, unconscious and alone, still laying on the cold stone platform. The bloodied crown furiously twitched upon his head, as the dark spirit desperately tried to merge with him. It strenuously tried to hiss and claw it’s way inside of his mind. Yet try as it might, it simply was not compatible with the boy’s unnaturally bright soul.

For while the prince was still within his mother’s womb, the avaricious queen had begun to use the Ophidian Orb to empower her witchcraft. Unknowingly, she strengthened her unborn child to an incredible extent, causing two royal marks of power to form over his eye, instead of one.

Meanwhile and unbeknownst to any tenverian or graith, a confused and foreign cosmic soul had accidently slipped through the cracks of the abyssal shadows. Formed of pure goodness and glimmering celestial light, it had wandered long and lonely through the darkness, desperately searching for a vessel to enter before it would inevitably fade into nothingness.

The bright soul sensed the growing power within the queen's womb and eagerly merged with the unborn child. For he was the only being within the dark world that was powerful enough to carry it’s brightness.

And so, a powerful child of light had been born into a dying world of eternal darkness.

After a while, the prince began struggling to pry his ruby eyes open, and he awoke with a searing pain radiating through the front of his skull. He trembled as he weakly tried to push himself up, only to fall right back down with a pained groan. The dark spirit of the crown was ultimately unable to merge with his soul, and so, it developed a voice of it’s own inside of the prince’s mind.

“Get up... We must get up.” It’s dark sibilant voice eerily spoke into his head.

Prince Valarendrik furrowed his brows in confusion, though he instinctively knew that it was the crown speaking to him. Slowly he pushed himself up to a seated position, with a few strands of his long obsidian hair clinging to his tear and blood encrusted cheeks.

His tremulous hands hesitantly reached up and touched the crown upon his forehead. It twitched, causing his stomach to churn. Bile burned in the back of his throat, while tears of sorrow and disgust welled in his eyes. The reality that his beloved brother’s fingerbones were now permanently attached to his skull shattered his heart and repulsed the very core of his being.

“I’m so sorry, Aldrinan.” He whispered through his soft sobs.

Small pebbles crunched beneath his tiny frame, as he lamely crawled over towards the alter where his brother had been sacrificed. Still dizzy from his head trauma, he used his little clawed hands to weakly pull himself up onto the alter. There he knelt down, mournfully facing out towards the sea. Aldrinan’s menacing twin swords were still lain out upon the stone, crossed and covered in the late princes blood.

The otherworldly blades had a slight curve to them, with sharp spikes adorning the base like monstrous thorns. Their obsidian handles where embellish with equally dark gems, making them as beautiful as they were lethal. The prince felt haunted by the louring weapons, yet nothing in the darkened world was more precious to him at that moment.

Although his love for his brother had been unrequited, as no other tenverian was capable of feeling such a thing, the young prince was still devastated by his death. Sword training with Prince Aldrinan had been Prince Valarendrik’s only source of joy and companionship in this dark and dismal world. And now he was completely alone.

The ashen sea winds blew through the young prince’s wisping hair, and gently flapped through his cloak, as he shakily picked up his brother’s swords. He choked on his own sobs as he grievously hugged them closely against his chest. “I promise that I’ll become the best swordsman in all of The Abyss.” He quietly spoke out towards the waves with great sorrow in his forlorn heart, and black tears streaming down his cheeks.

“For you, Aldrinan.”