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Prologue - Awakening

The world was quiet and still when rain came; it was a different type of still and quiet when it snowed. The rain nourished the earth just as food nourished the people living on it. The only faint sound was the drops hitting the glass on the other side of the lattice windows. Any voices outside couldn't be heard over the thunder rumbling miles away. The old walls of the castle groaned as they creaked in sync with the thunder as if they were a chorus.

The only sound within a spare room at the edge of the castle was the sound of someone breathing as they slept. It was the sound of a man who'd been stricken by a blade; the sound of breaths becoming more and more shallow until death would take him from this world.

The man lying in the bed of the spare room cracked open his eyes as he jolted awake and waited for his vision to focus. The room was more silent than anything he'd ever heard. He'd been staring at darkness for much longer than he thought he would. A part of him was expecting to never see anything ever again after what he'd done.

At first, he tried to sit up, finding the bed he'd been lying in uncomfortable compared to what he was used to. He couldn't force his body to move. Pain that felt as if he'd swallowed fire flared in his chest the second he tried. It was the second time he'd ever felt such intense pain in his life. Surely he'd died and gone to hell.

He stared at the wooden ceiling's support beams that ran across its length, then sideways at the teal stone walls. And that's when he realized where he was. The Castle of Glass, the city of Arün, in the country of Elven Guard. Somewhere that someone like him shouldn't have been.

The rest of the room was frankly quite plain. It was a room left untouched by the only living member of the royal family and reserved for any sort of guest. There was a desk carved from a single piece of wood and a painted wardrobe across the room. Right above the desk, there were two windows, on different walls. The light coming in was dull, bleak and gray. The man assumed it was raining despite being unable to hear the pitter-patter of droplets from his sickbed. All he heard was the faint sound of a clock ticking. The incessant noise filled his eardrums as if it were a tune sung by the grim reaper, counting the seconds until he would die. 

Not too far from one of the windows, on the same wall, was the door. On the opposite side hung a painting of someone he couldn't even begin to make guesses of who they were. There were too many people of importance to royalty; too many to keep track of.

He laid back down, wondering how long it'd be until someone came by. He couldn't have guessed hours. In the meantime, he peered down into his shirt of the gray robes he'd gotten accustomed to wearing in the past few decades. Somewhat bloody bandages wrapped around his chest and left shoulder for support. Upon seeing the state of his decay, he sighed. It was the last thing he'd remembered. A man with chestnut eyes and matching hair dragged his blade across his chest in a singular motion. Then the perpetrator did it again, giving him an open wound the shape of an x. 

He remembered the blood. And the pain that came with the blood. And then he remembered why he had jumped in front of the blade.