The rain in Veridia never truly stopped. It wasn't a gentle weeping, but a persistent, oily drizzle that clung to everything – the moss-draped statues of the Forgotten Kings, the rusted cogs of the Clockwork Heart, even the Princekin’s skin. He wasn’t born, you see, but coalesced. A shimmer in the fractured mirror of the Obsidian Well, a consequence of a bargain struck by a grieving sorceress and a desperate god. The sorceress, Lyra, had sought to reclaim a stolen son, a child named Corvus, devoured by the void. Corvus, however, didn't return as he was. He became the Princekin – an echo of light and shadow, a fractured reflection of what might have been. His existence was predicated on the exclusion, on the deliberate rejection of any claim to rightful inheritance. He was a stain on the tapestry of Veridia, a reminder of a loss that refused to heal.
The Clockwork Heart, a colossal mechanism that regulated the flow of Veridia's magic, pulsed with a sickly green light. It was powered by the sorrow of the excluded, and the Princekin was its primary conduit. He spent his days wandering the Silent Galleries, collecting fragments of memories – not his own, but those of the others who had been similarly cast aside: the exiled mages, the fallen warriors, the poets whose verses were deemed too dangerous, too beautiful. He didn't understand them, not truly. He felt their resonance, a dull ache in his core, a longing for something he couldn’t name.
Old Silas, the Cartographer of Ghosts, was the only one who truly understood the Princekin. He wasn’t a man of words, of course. He communicated through intricate diagrams etched onto polished obsidian – maps of forgotten pathways, constellations of regret, and the shifting currents of Veridia’s magic. Silas believed the Princekin wasn't a creature of malice, but a vessel for the accumulated grief of the city. "The city forgets," he’d rasp, his voice like the grinding of stone. "It buries its pain beneath layers of order and ritual. But the Princekin… he remembers. He is the echo of what Veridia has lost, and in remembering, he prevents it from forgetting entirely. A dangerous paradox, wouldn’t you say?"
Silas taught the Princekin to navigate the Dream Weaves, shimmering corridors of memory that connected all those who had been excluded. These weren't pleasant journeys. They were labyrinths of despair, populated by the tormented spirits of the forgotten. The Princekin learned to shield himself, to filter the overwhelming torrent of sorrow, to use it as a weapon against the encroaching darkness.
The Obsidian Well, the source of the Princekin’s existence, was slowly drying up. Not physically – the water still flowed, black and viscous – but its power, its connection to the Dream Weaves, was fading. Lyra’s bargain hadn’t been fulfilled. She hadn’t retrieved Corvus; she’d simply created a perpetual loop of grief, a self-sustaining engine of sorrow. As the Well weakened, the Princekin grew weaker with it. He began to experience flashes of a past he couldn’t comprehend – images of a verdant kingdom, a laughing boy, a woman’s heartbroken scream.
He realized then that the exclusion wasn't just a consequence of Lyra’s actions, but a fundamental aspect of his being. He was a paradox, a creature of both loss and remembrance. His purpose wasn't to find Corvus, but to contain the sorrow, to ensure that Veridia wouldn’t be consumed by the ghosts of its past.
One night, amidst a storm of oily rain, the Princekin stood before the Obsidian Well. He wasn’t speaking, not in words, but in a resonance, a complex chord of sorrow that vibrated through the very foundations of Veridia. He extended his hand, and a single drop of black liquid fell into the Well. The Well pulsed one last time, a blinding flash of light, and then… nothing. The Princekin was gone. But in his absence, the Clockwork Heart slowed, its sickly green light fading to a gentle amber. The rain in Veridia continued to fall, but it no longer carried the weight of exclusion. The final echo had been heard.