“Aldrich, I’m going out. Don’t bother me until I return.” Blake stated before exiting his study room, lumped with intrusive paper sheets, all eagerly waiting for his signature, its master’s acceptance.

As he strolled through the long palace corridors, servants avoided his gaze, hoping to remain inconspicuous from his sight. Everyone knew the rumors surrounding him, about his ruthless character, his unforgiven personality. And no one wished to find out their veracity.

“So tired...” Blake mumbled after entering his chambers and shutting the door behind him.

After returning from the war just 2 months ago, he worked non-stop. The kingdom’s treasury was a disaster, having lost its previous prestige with the queen’s irresponsible spending and, to make matters worse, every morning he had to deal with the complaints from nobles, aristocrats and commoners who begged for mercy, for a little extra help in achieving their ambitions or to survive another day.

This was all his father’s fault. He used to be a righteous monarch, caring and resolute, but 7 years ago, he became different. King Julius II began neglecting his people, feeding the greed of his favorite woman, Vivian, with unthinkable compliments and luxurious gifts.

That was why he sent his first son to the war at the tender age of 14, all because of the request of a single woman, of the child’s own mother. Giving in to her whispers like a witch, putting the man’s rationality into a deep slumber, spreading deceitful words of a victory that would never come, she dazed him into thinking this would be the solution.

Blake was sent to raise the troop’s falling morale in the suppression of Lacenie’s Kingdom expansion; however, nothing could have prepared such a young boy for what he was bound to see.

With barely any funds and supplies reaching the outskirt cities, especially the frontlines of the war, men went through inhuman measures to survive. In the harshest Frosting they’d ever seen, no wildlife within the cold desert, no warmth and no means to survive, morals were lost to starvation – forcing most to feed on what they could, when they could.

The equipment sent by the crown gradually became worse: from heavily used swords without any sharpness left in them, to holed armors from the training grounds, scratched and weak. Someone was dooming the prince to fail, to allow him to naturally perish within the frozen northern territories.

Yet, the crown prince had always been a fighter, always knowing this moment was bound to come – especially after the birth of the queen’s second son. Ruthlessly, Blake guided the troops through the ice and snowy dunes, cunningly trapping their opponents with stunning war tactics and trickery, slowly killing off battalion after battalion. But such truth didn’t end there as murder truly took shape into a man’s body, carving it with a darkness one couldn’t begin to plunder.

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As Ashen regained their territory and began crossing into enemy’s lands, the prince was already far too gone, far too mechanically inclined to do what he’d been forced to. Every village or passerby from Lacenie was met with a merciful yet gruesome fate, being killed on the spot regardless of age, gender or trade. The soldiers, already carrying wounded souls followed their prince into battle, worshipping him as one would to a God, their own minds deteriorating into a spiral of madness.

All men start good and kind, but not after a war. Blinded by greed and lust Blake found his own people taking the virtues of the ones they were in charge of executing, thus something in him clicked. The blade of The Blood Prince slashed the heads from his men, before piercing the heart of the innocent maiden, leaving her regrets behind.

At that moment he returned with the remaining of his troops, who had by now turned against their named God – slandering him with cursive words and complete paranoia, courtesy of the heads of their fallen comrades.

But when does exactly a kid turn into a man? When does a man turn into a monster?

Back at the palace, everything was not as simple as he once thought. His father had contracted an eminent illness, forcing him to be in an unprecedented coma. Doctors from across the continent travelled to Ashen but none seemed to know the cure and thus, Vivian, the rightful queen, took charge of all the affairs as everyone presumed the crown prince to be dead.

Being from a noble family herself, the queen’s interests valued nobles above all others causing the large discrepancies in power to run deeper than they had: new nobles, who had gained a title with their vast wealth, faced targeted difficulties while older noble families were cherished by the crown. All they had to do, like hypocrites, was to support Vivian and their prestige was bound to raise again.

With such division of power among the high-nobility, commoners who had no money or status suffered the greatest losses. The inflation of the prices meant that exportations and importations became scarcer, shutting down business and causing most of the population in the capital to escape to their hometowns in an attempt to find a better live up in the north, within the country he fought against, during so many years. Piece by piece, the kingdom was shattering, by the hands of the people who were responsible for guiding it to greatness.

Without a peace treaty between Lacenie and Ashen, the problem among the two kingdoms was yet to be resolved, however, with Blake’s return, Vivian’s tyranny and greed was bound to reach its end. Being the elected crown prince by the king before his illness, all state affairs now passed through him, but the realm was in a far worst state than he’d heard about on the frontlines. There was no time to relax, to breathe as the heavy weight of the crown he carried pressured him to crack.