The Elysian Prince

Chapter I: The Prince With No Hope

It is said that the Elysian royal family wields power akin to that of gods, and like gods they may be as a tempest in both temperament and destruction.

Evidence of the latter could certainly be espied in the Crown Prince's chambers this day, so it was probably a good thing that His Imperial Highness had forbidden all entry (though when the maids finally were allowed access they would curse him to the high heavens — quietly, of course — for the frightful state it was in).

Tables and chairs had been overturned, mirrors cracked, pieces of wooden box smashed and splintered; in fact, so much violent chaos had been wrought that one might have been forgiven for thinking bandits or thieves had broken in, or perhaps some kind of enormous, vicious animal had been let loose inside his rooms.

But alas, the Prince had not had a single soul in his room for years now, including would-be burglars; and such incidents were sadly not infrequent. For it was common knowledge— among the Palace staff, at least— that the Prince had in recent years developed a terrible temper, and was prone to savage outbursts.

Nobody knew what it was that had brought about such a change; indeed, some of the older staff could not fathom it, remembering the Prince as a sweet and gentle little boy who had been nothing but quiet, studious and polite. 

The newer staff, on the other hand, called him all sorts of nasty things behind his back, which usually contained something along the lines of 'nutter', 'loony', or 'psychopath'.

As of this moment, the Prince appeared to be living up to this less-flattering reputation; having spent the last who-knows-how-long sitting slumped on the floor, surrounded by empty bottles that lay strewn amongst puddles of liquid of varying hues and viscosities, some shattered and spilling out powders, others pouring pills, all of it totally, functionally useless, like so much worthless garbage.

So it was for the final shipment.

Every last miracle potion, enhancer, remedy, stimulant and supplement, from every last supplier across the entire span of the Empire— they who had turned out to be little more than quack pill-peddlers, for all the good that their apothecaric artifices had done him— so ineffective were they all that even the small hope of being poisoned had been extinguished, though the lingering fumes ought to have been toxic enough to have done the job— nevertheless they had not, had not done absolutely anything in fact, and now—!

A distant rumble of thunder roused him from his malaise. He rose and padded over to the window, his feet squelching over the mess of spillage and broken glass, quite heedless of whether or not the sharp edges of these pierced through his skin. He drew back the curtain to reveal the gentle morning stillness. It was that time when all the leaves were brushed with splashes of silver; when everything seemed a little calmer, a little softer. Swathes of aether residue drifted languidly through the grounds, clinging to the bone-white branches of the umbra salix trees like glittering cobwebs. Here and there wild pixies could be seen bobbing aimlessly about, their luminous glow grown dim after a long night of frolicking.

Beyond the confines of the palace walls, beyond the protective runemarks that ringed the perimeter of isla d'aeras, the floating island upon which the Palace was built, there lay the great yawning chasm of the Rift— the deep telluric scar that ran almost the entire length of the Peninsula, from the northernmost tip of the Southern Isles all the way to the Sun King's Corridor. To either side of the Rift the Cerulean Forest stretched out like a slow-moving river of teal that had long burst its banks, wherein there teemed all manner of aetherion de'la bestias, magical creatures so named for the fact that they lived and thrived on the vast natural stores of aether buried within the soil. Beyond even that would be the Seven Districts, the Peninsula's great cities of white and gold, thriving metropolises that boasted dazzling feats of engineering, architecture, art and culture; the very apex of all the wealth and power of the greatest civilisation the Realms had ever seen.

He would one day be lord of it all.

It was a thought that made him sick to his stomach.

There came the thunder again, this time with such force the sound seemed to echo through the earth itself, and all at once the morning peace was torn asunder by a succession of brilliant flashes of lightning that cracked across the horizon. And yet there was no sign of a storm, no rain, no dark clouds— the sky remained its soothing rosy pink.

His grip tightened on the curtain till his fingers began to go numb.

Lightning in a cloudless sky. That could only mean one thing.