The king of Silence

The king of silence

Five centuries ago, a noble king entered the Deepwoods with a hundred knights at his side. His kingdom was failing, its rivers drying, its harvests withering, its people haunted by an illness no healer could name. In desperation, he sought the lost ruins of Lumen, the ancient city said to hold the last remnants of radiant magic: a light powerful enough to restore life to a dying land.

But the Deepwoods do not tolerate seekers lightly.

The paths shifted. The fog deepened. One by one, the knights vanished into the hush between the trees. Only the king returned.

He emerged alone, staggering from the tree line at dawn on the thirtieth day, one of only three souls recorded in the Chronicle of the Outer Watch ever to find their way back from that depth of the forest. But the man who stepped out was not the same one who entered.

His voice was gone. His gaze was hollow, distant, as though fixed on something still moving within the wood. Once a mighty ruler of the Eastern Kingdoms, he lived the rest of his years in utter silence, a sovereign remade by the Deepwood’s unseen hand.

The Lepus Custos watched his return with grim recognition. They knew of Lumen, knew it was not a place meant for mortal kings or desperate men. In their oldest teachings, the ruins were described not as a source of healing light, but as a wound of ancient radiance, sealed for good reason.

And though the king came back, his kingdom did not survive. Without the light he sought, the illness spread, the crops failed, and the Eastern Kingdoms fractured into scattered provinces. To this day, the people speak of their last sovereign not by his birth-name, but by the title history carved for him:

The King of Silence, the man who returned, yet could not save what he loved. Some say he left a piece of himself in Lumen. Others believe something followed him out.

© Fracti Cerebrum (Peter Caulkett-McClelland)