Starlight glimmered in his wide green eyes as he stared up at all the commotion. Then another scream echoed across the lush gardens, breaking what ever trance he was under. He rushed into the main part of the castle, with his rapid footsteps echoing throughout the opulent halls. The icy claws of fear sank deeper into his heart as he passed by several bloody and mutilated guards lying dead upon the ground. This was the first time enemy soldiers had ever gotten past the castle's protective enchantments. He didn't know what to make of it.

Crimson puddles bloomed like blossoms of tragedy across the stone floors, filling the prince's gut with a sour and sickening sensation. The closer he neared the throne room, the more death he discovered strewn about the halls. He accidentally slipped on a splattering of blood whilst in his haste, catching his fall by quickly grabbing ahold of an ornate cherrywood table. The table rocked causing an expensive and rare vase to fall and loudly shatter on the floor. The shards dispersed, many landing next to the slaughtered body of a middle-aged servant woman.

"Ms. Lena..." Sephtis whispered her name under his breath, recognizing his beloved caregiver from childhood. 

Pain lurched in his heart as he peered into her cold lifeless brown eyes, eyes that had once been filled with nothing but warmth and love. Scarlet stained her greying golden hair, while her pale hand stretched over her head as though reaching for something. The prince searched for what she was reaching for, finding that she must have been trying to get to the hidden servant's passage. He knelt down before her, soaking his pants with the blood while the sounds of soldiers approaching resounded from further up the halls. 

"Thank you for all that you have ever done for me." He softly spoke while gently closing her eyes and then mournfully kissed her brow. "Farewell, Ms. Lena."

Tears threatened to spill from his eyes, yet he hadn't a moment to spare for sorrow. Ms. Lena had helped him even beyond the grave by guiding him to safety. The prince moved swiftly across the hall and slunk behind the hidden wooden door to the servant's passage, successfully avoiding the enemy. The air was musty and the walls were dusty, as he fumbled through the darkness with only his memories of sneaking around with Aubrielle to guide him. Cobwebs clung to his cloak and the mold burned at his eyes, yet he continued on toward the throne room, desperate to find his family.

His hands trembled as he fumbled with the door, silently opening it while panic and grief seized his racing heart. The sounds of armor clanking, bones crunching, and men heavily grunting overpowered the few soft feminine whimpers which reached his ears. Sephtis cautiously peered out from around the door, his eyes filling with disbelief and anguish as he took in the gruesome sight within the throne room.

His mother was roughly pinned down by a soldier, half-naked and bloody with her royal blue gown ripped and rumpled all around her. Several of the foreign soldiers were taking their turns pleasuring themselves with her broken and beaten body. Her golden hair was messily sprawled out around her head, with tears of defeat and anguish sliding down her bruised cheeks. His younger sister was in nearly the same position, only the depraved and disgusting men were too busy enjoying her virgin body to notice that her soul had already departed... But Sephtis saw the lack of luster within her vacant blue eyes. Eyes that had only seen sixteen years of life.

The sight of them tormented his soul like nothing ever had before. He felt frozen in place, unsure if he wanted to scream and attack the heinous men or vomit. His adam's apple bobbed as his tear-rimmed eyes shifted up toward the large medieval throne, finding his father laying in an ever-growing puddle of blood before it. His face was turned away, yet the prince could recognize his father's regal attire and wavey black hair anywhere. His ruby and gold embroidered robes had been sliced open to reveal his front, with his chest cut wide open and his ribs grotesquely mangled and pulled out like morbid wings. 

A handsome man with waist-length dark auburn hair was crouched down, gazing with intense concentration into the king's open and bloody chest. Regal robes of the darkest shadow adorned his tall willowy frame, with blood staining his pale bony hands and long white claws. A symmetrical crown of six tall sapphire spikes adorned his head, with glittering orbs of white quartz embellishing the band which held them upon his temples. His jaw eerily dropped open, revealing a mouth full of long pointed white teeth. Then to the prince's bewilderment and horror, a thin white mist swirled up from his father's heart and was sucked into the man's gaping mouth.

"Seph...Sss..." His mother's soft voice called to him from across the room.

Heartbreak filled his gaze as he quickly looked to her, finding her emerald green eyes staring back at him with a plea of desperation. "Mother..." He silently spoke as tears flowed down his cheeks.

"Run..." She shakily whispered while the soldiers switched whose turn with her it was. "You-you have to run." Her broken words mangled his heart beyond repair, as he gazed upon his mother's beautiful face for the final time. Her dying eyes spoke silently of the unwavering love she had for her son, while he stared back at her in complete anguish.

A firm hand suddenly clamped down over the prince's mouth, pulling him away from the scene just as the enemy man shifted his pure white gaze to the prince. "Come, Your Majesty. We must leave at once." The voice of the king's most trusted advisor, Siegfried, whispered into his ear. Siegfried was irrefutably loyal to his king and was willing to do anything to help save the stunned prince. 

The prince fought as he was pulled down the dark and dusty passage, never to see his family again. "No, please! My mother is still alive! We have to go back! We must help her!"

"We cannot!" Siegfried forcefully dragged the prince along with him as he strenuously spoke. "That was the warlock Morpeth, the most powerful in all the ten kingdoms of Zizania! He is the great devourer of souls and sworn to serve the king of Dianthus! He was surely sent to kill you!"

"The king of Dianthus?" A cruel realization cut into Sephtis's heart deeper than any blade ever could, making his limbs feel numb and his chest ache... This was all his fault. He had humiliated the Dianthiens by publically refusing the hand of their princess and now they wanted revenge. Siegfried was right, he had no choice but to leave his mother to die.

"Aubrielle!" He frantically grabbed Siegfried's wrist as the pepper-haired middle-aged man led him toward a secret trap door of escape. "We must go to the western tower and retrieve her! She waits for me there! I will not leave her to die as well!"

Siegfried's hazel eyes shifted between the prince and their safe route of escape, his face contorting with worry. He had heard many rumors about the prince's ignominious trysts with the captivating servant girl. And Siegfried was no fool. He knew the look in a man's eyes when he was in love. There would be no use arguing, they had to go retrieve her. 

"Alright, but we must make haste!" He forcefully whispered to the prince.

Sephtis and Siegfried hurried through the walls of the castle, slinking through the shadows and hidden hallways, until they made their way outside and into the gardens. Shadows of the wavering trees fluttered in the moonlight like spirits dancing to the ominous tunes of the darkness. Sephtis forcefully pushed open the familiar rusted gate, peering over his shoulder to make sure it was only Siegfried lingering behind him.

"We weren't followed, were we?" He warily asked, feeling a strange pang of dread pooling within his gut. Something gnawed at his spirit, warning him of the unseen eyes coldly peering through the shadows.

Siegfried turned around and swept his gaze over the gardens, seeing only fountains and flowers. "Not that I'm aware of, Your Majesty."

They hastily stalked across the dark and decrepit courtyard, being cautious as to not be seen by the enemy. The owl who was still perched upon one of the twisted boughs, hooted a mournful song as though trying to warn them of what was to come. Sephtis creaked open the tower's main door, leading his companion up the spiral stairs to where he had last left his lover. 

"Aubrielle." His deep voice called while he pushed open the door to the top room, stilling in shock and horror as he took in the sight of the place.

Thick crimson splatterings of blood glistened in the lazuline moonlight, painting the dreary chamber walls and dripping from the withered vines. Macabre puddles pooled on the filthy floor, with some of the dusty clutter thrown about as though there had been a struggle. "Aubrielle!?" Sephtis fearfully called again while beginning to frantically search around the dusty, vine-choked clutter. "Aubrielle!?... No! No! No! Where is she!?"

The gurgled gasp of a dying man suddenly echoed through the room. Sephtis whipped around, seeing Siegfried collapsing to his knees while grasping at his cleanly slit throat. Blood squirted through his trembling fingers as he collapsed face-first at the warlock Morpeth's feet. Morpeth stared at the dying man with a stony expression. A glimmering white quartz dagger dripped with scarlet tears within his hand, matching the glistening stains on his sharp white claws. His eerie fog-white gaze then shifted to the prince with a look of apathy.

"No!" Sephtis took a fearful step back, standing with his back to the far window which overlooked the swamps. "Please, don't do this." He begged, feeling like a cornered animal with no way out. His feet crunched over the brittle and bloody vines, knowing that he had no real route of escape. That he was going to die.

"Your bloodline will end for the ignominy you've caused the kingdom of Dianthus." Morpeth's cold voice wrapped around the prince's mind like a swirling breath of winter wind.

The warlock's sapphire crown gleamed as he stepped over Siegfried's body and passed through the glimmering shafts of moonlight. He slowly stalked over to the sobbing, cornered price, moving with dreadful elegance like a sinister shadow. Sephtis screamed as he tried to leap to the side in one last desperate attempt to get away, but Morpeth swiftly plunged the quartz dagger into his heart before his feet ever left the ground. Horror filled the prince's eyes as he gasped for breath, shocked by the scathing pain of his fatal injury. 

With a solemn and cruel expression, Morpeth twisted the dagger deeper into his chest, then he ruthlessly pushed the prince back and out of the window. Vines snapped around him and blood dripped from his mouth as he limply fell into the swamp below. The warlock coldly watched as the algae-covered water parted with a splash around the prince's body, confident that he would not survive. And he was correct. 

Sephtis weakly splashed and gasped, fumbling with his hands to cling on to slimy serpentine tangles of willow roots. Each tree was weighed down by thick draperies of dark-green moss, causing the branches to grow deformed and sickly. Bones of long-departed witches lay woven within the roots, covered in slimy scum, mosses, and little cap mushrooms. Where there were small patches of water-logged land, the black bells of odessa calla blooms stood forlornly against the gnarled tree trunks. Little luminescent dragonflies fluttered from flower to flower, giving the area an ever-shifting green glow. 

The dying prince struggled to hold his soaked head above the dark putrid water. Using the last of his strength, he half-crawled, half-swam between the gaunt and twisted trunks of the sickly swamp, creeping further away from his home and deeper into the nightly swamp. His tears mingled with the grotesquely viridescent bog, while a fatal amount of his crimson blood swirled out around him. He grieved for his family and the woman he loved, dreading that this would be his place of death. Hating himself for having caused such misfortune.

The ghostly whispers of past witches began echoing eerily in the distance, mournfully calling to the prince from beyond the grave. They beckoned him to release his mortal form and join them in the spirit realm. Swirling pale green mist began to slither within the bone-entangled roots, taking on ghastly and wraith-like forms before returning to simple swirls.

"Sephtis..." The voices hauntingly called, yet the prince was too weak to react. "We know your soul... We heard you speak of liberating us..." The mist wispily wrapped around the white quartz dagger within his bleeding chest, making it glow a sickly poison green color. Pulsating green veins began slowly webbing over his pale skin, replacing his lost blood with the deathly energies of the swamp. 

His shaky hands became too weak to hold his body above the water any longer, failing to keep their grasp on the slippery roots. He limply slid beneath the murky green surface, sinking deeper into the skeleton-filled swamp with his long black hair floating gently around his face. But Sephtis's spirit was not ready to slumber within the grave. His whole body trembled with pain and rage as he thought about what had been done to him. He had a powerful and valid reason to live on, and that reason was revenge.

His veins felt as though they were filling with ice as the last of his blood peacefully flowed away. The translucent green ghosts swirled around his slowly sinking form, swimming through the swirls of his hair and drifting material of his cloak. They cackled and chattered to one another with faint whispers of hope.

The green glow of fireflies swirled above the water's silent surface while the prince gently landed upon an algea-cloaked bed of bones. It was the last thing his mortal eyes would ever see as they stared blankly upward. But as his vision faded and the final threads of life were severed, a rare and unnatural phenomenon began. Glowing green death filled his veins like a sinister poison, allowing a harrowing form of metamorphosis to begin. Sephtis's last thoughts were filled with seething hatred and an all-consuming desire for vengeance.

And as Prince Sephtis died, The Lich King was born.