The fog rolled thick over the northern cliffs of Levian, swallowing the path like a serpent. Each step Leon Vael took sank into damp moss, his breath visible in the chill dawn air. The forest around him was silent—too silent.
He had followed the king's hidden message, the one sealed within the forged decree: "My heir lies hidden."
Clutched in his gloved hand was a slip of parchment with a single coordinate scrawled in haste. No names. No landmarks. Only numbers—and the king's blood-mark.
He approached an ancient grove, where twisted trees arched over one another like conspirators. There, carved into the stone of an overgrown altar, was the royal sigil of House Hale—barely visible beneath lichen and time.
Leon's fingers trembled as he pulled out a silver dagger, not to strike—but to bleed.
He cut his palm and let the blood drip onto the altar.
"I invoke the blood rite," he whispered.
Then, he spoke the forbidden incantation:
"Sanguis Revelare" — (Let the blood reveal.)
A crimson glow pulsed from the altar. Vines writhed and receded. The air grew thick with static.
Suddenly, from beneath the altar, a hidden chamber rumbled open, revealing a spiral staircase of blackened stone.
Leon's heart pounded.
He descended.
The chamber was narrow, torchlit by ancient enchantments. Murals lined the walls—depicting a child cloaked in blue, always standing in the shadow of the crown.
He reached a pedestal at the center.
Upon it lay a relic: a pendant shaped like a flame, wrapped in silver.
As his fingers brushed it, a vision exploded behind his eyes—a boy, no older than ten, hidden away in the mountains, taught to read by a cloaked figure.
The true heir.
Leon gasped. He dropped the pendant and staggered back.
But above, a shadow moved.
Someone else had followed him.
The Red Crown was no longer waiting in the palace.
They were hunting.
And the mist was no longer just mist.
It was a veil—for war.