Once a Prince, Now a Wretch
Once, his name was sung in golden halls and carved in the stones of proud citadels. Aerendel, Prince of the Morning Vale, wielded the Dawnfire blade and wore a crown woven from the blessings of the old gods.
But pride, that sweet poison, led him astray. Hungry for eternal glory, Aerendel unleashed wars that drowned his kingdom in blood and ash. Cities crumbled, rivers turned red, and his people fell into silence.
At the fall of his last tower, a dying seer cursed him with her final breath:
"Until the earth forgets your shame, and the stones sing no more of your folly, you shall not find death."
His flesh decayed. His heart withered but refused to cease. Aerendel became a creature of bone, bound to the endless twilight of the world.
The Endless March
Through crumbling empires and dying forests, Aerendel wandered. Mountains he once knew wore crowns of ice; oceans swallowed the lands of men. He walked among ghosts, a relic of a forgotten age.
His golden armor dulled into a husk of memory. His cloak became a tattered shadow.
In the abandoned ruins, Aerendel would sometimes whisper to the wind:
"What is a name to dust? What is glory to stone? Only regret endures, cold and endless as the night."
Blades, beasts, fire—none could grant him release. The curse stitched him tighter to existence than any mortal flesh could bear.
A Glimpse of Redemption
Under the crimson light of a blood-red moon, Aerendel stumbled upon a clearing where mist wept from the ground like sorrow itself.
There, kneeling in prayer, was a girl. She did not flee at the clatter of his broken armor nor tremble at the rattle of his hollow breath.
"You are the Wretched One,"
she said, her voice a tremor in the mist.
Aerendel stood silent, a monument to ruin.
"There is a path, if you still seek it,"
she whispered, holding out a shard of radiant light.
"Return to where your sins began. Face the ruin you have sown. Only then shall the gates of death open to you."
When Aerendel touched the shard, it melted into his hand, branding him with a searing purpose. Thus began the final pilgrimage of the cursed prince.
Facing the Past
Across broken fields and hollowed cities he marched, stirring the ashes of centuries. Monsters rose against him—phantoms of his sins, wearing the faces of the innocent he had doomed.
A child burned by fire.
A mother swept away by a flood.
An old king betrayed by his own hand.
They clawed at him, gnawed at his soul, their cries a symphony of sorrow. Each battle shattered him further, and yet he rose, driven by the fragment of light burning in his bones.
At last, he reached the ruins of Morning Vale.
Where once spires of ivory kissed the heavens, only broken stones and blackened earth remained. In the center of the great hall, a reflection awaited him—an image of himself, proud and terrible.
The Reflection drew a sword of darkness and sneered:
"You seek death? You seek forgiveness? There is none."
Aerendel lifted Dawnfire, its blade cracked but unwavering.
The battle was not fought with steel alone but with memory, regret, and the fierce defiance of a soul that refused to drown.
With a final cry that tore the heavens, Aerendel struck down his past. The Reflection crumbled into ash.
Above him, the shattered sky opened—and light, pure and blinding, fell upon him.
Breaking the Curse
Aerendel fell to his knees, not in defeat but in surrender. Lifting his skeletal face to the heavens, he spoke words he had not dared utter for an age:
"Forgive me."
And the world, at long last, answered.
Beneath the open sky, Aerendel rose one final time.
His armor, cracked and broken, burned with a fire not of this world. His blade, once again, caught the light of dawn.
He lifted Dawnfire high above his head.
Light poured through him—through the hollow spaces of his ribs, the shattered joints of his fingers, the empty sockets of his eyes.
At last, the curse unraveled.
Aerendel, once Prince of the Morning Vale, faded into the light. Not as a monster, not as a memory, but as a man who had chosen redemption.
And the earth, the sky, and the stones whispered once more his name.
