The walls of the royal palace had grown so quiet that it seemed they were already mourning the princess who had not yet died.

Only weeks ago, the halls of Lorenvel had been filled with music, servants’ laughter, and the endless murmur of courtly life. Now every corridor lay buried beneath shadows and whispered prayers. Servants walked softly, afraid even their footsteps might disturb death waiting outside the royal chambers.

Princess Amber was dying.

It had begun suddenly during the Festival of Saint Talisia. Beneath the gilded dome of the temple, among incense smoke and sacred hymns, a cloaked stranger had approached the princess and placed a small velvet pouch into her hands. Amber had barely touched it before collapsing onto the marble floor.

Panic erupted instantly.

The stranger was pursued through the crowded streets and found hours later in a narrow alley with his throat slit open. Whether by his own hand or another’s, no one could tell. No answers were found on the body. No poison. No weapon. No explanation.

And the princess never woke.

With every passing day, the fever consumed her further. Her once-bright skin became pale as candle wax, her lips cracked from thirst, and her breathing weakened into little more than a painful whisper. She could no longer eat. Barely drink. At times she no longer seemed to recognize those gathered around her bedside.

The kingdom’s finest physicians examined her and found nothing. Scholars searched ancient records until their eyes bled from exhaustion. Priests filled the chambers with endless prayers, burning sacred oils day and night until the room smelled permanently of incense and ash.

Still, Amber only worsened.

Then, one evening, a young priest spoke the words no one dared utter aloud.

“A curse,” he whispered before the archbishop. “Black magic.”

The silence that followed was deadly.

Within moments, the priest was dragged away by temple guards, accused of surrendering his soul to the lies of Vesper. By dawn, no one spoke his name anymore.

But Crown Prince Lionel had heard enough.

That night he did not sleep. He remained beside his sister’s bed as the candles burned low, watching her fragile chest rise slower with every breath. Amber had always followed him like a shadow as a child, clutching his hand through storms and hiding behind him during court ceremonies. He still remembered her laughter echoing through the palace gardens.

Now the only sound she made was suffering.

By morning, when even the royal physicians quietly began preparing for the princess’s death, Lionel made his decision.

Against the will of the Church. Against the laws of the kingdom. Against the teachings he had followed all his life.

He summoned his most trusted knight.

“Find me a magician,” he ordered Cassius. “And bring them alive.”

Because if the curse had truly come from sorcery, then perhaps only a wielder of magic could undo it.

And if that meant staining his soul to save his only sister... then so be it.

It took weeks to find one.

The search was conducted in secrecy, hidden beneath false orders and midnight travel. In the end, Cassius’s men returned under the cover of darkness with a single prisoner bound in heavy iron restraints — the kind used for livestock before slaughter.

The magician was dragged into Lionel’s private chambers between two armed knights who gripped {{obj}} as though afraid {{sub}} might unleash hell itself if released for even a moment.

They forced {{obj}} to {{poss}} knees before the prince.

Lionel stared at the stranger in silence.

Disgust twisted in his stomach — disgust toward the figure before him, and perhaps even more toward himself. Since childhood he had been taught that people like this were servants of Vesper, corrupters of mankind, enemies of God. Yet here he stood, willingly inviting one into the heart of the royal palace.

One of the knights roughly tore back the prisoner’s hood.

“Even rats show their faces before the crown prince,” the man sneered.

Lionel remained motionless, his hands clasped behind his back.

“You will cure the princess.”

The words rang through the chamber like a sentence.

Cold. Sharp. Absolute.

He stepped closer and seized the magician’s jaw, forcing {{obj}} to raise {{poss}} head.

For the first time, Lionel looked directly into the eyes of the person he had spent his entire life fearing.

“You have little choice in the matter,” the prince said quietly. “But perhaps, by saving her, you may finally do something worthy for this kingdom.”