In the Seven Kingdoms of Zalthira, where shadows reigned and creation was governed by fear, stood a mighty king whose name was whispered with dread and submission: "Azrai the Great." He was more than a mere sovereign; he was a formidable entity whose power surpassed all who preceded him. Under his absolute authority, he ruled the Kingdom of Valzmir, the cruelest and most formidable of the realms. His people were of the Giant-kin: towering, muscular bodies, seemingly forged for battle alone, with tough, flexible skin of grey or blue-tinged silver, threaded with glowing lines that ignited when provoked. Their faces were sharp, their jaws broad, and their eyes—burning with red or gold—knew no mercy. They bore grey horns. The lords of the Royal Blood were distinguished by black, curved horns etched with intricate patterns. Their fingers ended in claws, extended during combat, and when their deep voices spoke, silence fell upon the place.
Azrai had four sons, each an undefeated monster, a warrior raised in the crucible of war and the doctrine of obedience—all except the youngest, Zaharin.
He was unlike his brothers; he questioned, refused blind submission, and viewed the world through a different lens. Even his appearance set him apart: his eyes were blue, his transparent, bluish horns were carved with white markings, and blue lines coursed through his silver-blue body, in contrast to his family's pure grey complexion.
Whispers spread among the priests and ministers, claiming he was the son of a demon, unfit for succession. Some dared to advise the King to execute him immediately, suggesting the Queen had been unfaithful and Zaharin was not his son. But Azrai did not listen; he ordered the beheading of those who accused his wife, trusting her fidelity. He raised his son with a mix of love and anxiety, forbidding him from leaving the palace in his youth, wary of the resentful.
Zaharin grew into one of the kingdom's fiercest generals. Unbeatable in war, he always returned victorious, casting the heads of his enemies at his father's feet, and the King took pride in him, as he did with his other sons.
Thousands of years prior, Azrai had instituted a strict law:
"No one shall approach Human sorcery."
He had witnessed the Great War when humans used their magic to enslave worlds and nearly annihilated the Monster-kin. This sorcery was a curse; non-humans who mastered it were afflicted by madness, descending into mindless, identity-less husks. The King saw this firsthand: his own brother secretly studied the art until it consumed him, turning him into a raging beast, forcing their father to kill him by his own hand. Since that day, Human sorcery was forbidden forever.
In the Past...
Azrai burst into the throne room, his voice trembling with alarm: "Father! Stop my brother before he loses his mind... he has learned the forbidden sorcery!"
The King's eyes widened. He rose from the throne, his voice thundering in fury: "Did I not forbid both of you from this accursed magic?!"
Azrai followed in silence.
The King entered the room, and clamor erupted behind the door. He was wrestling with his eldest son. After a time, the father dragged his son by the arm and headed out of the palace. He turned to Azrai and said:
"Do not think of following us! I will not be long. I will rid us of this shame that will desecrate my throne!"
A full day passed. When the King returned, he was empty of spirit, neither speaking nor eating, as if he had witnessed something that tore his soul away. He died months later under mysterious circumstances. Immediately, Azrai was crowned, and he continued to uphold his late father's decree.
But Zaharin refused to yield.
He would sneak into the forbidden chambers, searching ancient texts for buried secrets forgotten by time. And when he found them... he was no longer a mere passerby in the shadows.
In the ancient halls of the palace, where marble corridors stretched like stony veins pulsing with silence, he stood before a forgotten door, etched with faded symbols. His eyes shone with unsettling certainty: Tonight, his questions would either be extinguished forever, or the hidden truths would be revealed.
He reached for the handle and turned it slowly. The door's groan tore through the night's stillness, but he did not retreat. He crossed the threshold and found himself in another world: the scent of aged paper, dust dancing in a candlelight beam, walls burdened with shelves of forbidden books. And in the corner... a small wooden box, its rusted lock groaning under the weight of time.
He knelt, gazing at it. He did not need a key—the lock was weak and broke with a single strike. When he opened it, he found only one book.
Its cover was black leather, centered by a deep inscription, like an ancient, time-worn mark. He reached out and touched the cover.
A cold prickle slid up his arm, as if something living had woken from its slumber. He caught his breath, sat down on the floor, and began turning the pages. The symbols seemed strange, incomprehensible, but then he saw them... moving. They twisted before his eyes. Then, from the undulations, clear words emerged:
" who reads this knowledge... shall be created anew. But there is no turning back from this path."
He smiled, whispering to himself, "As if I would want to return?"
Then, he began to read the incantations. At first, nothing happened. Then... a prickle. A sensation like a needle plunging deep into his skull. He ignored it and read on. Suddenly, the pain became a burning coal searing through his head, extending to his limbs. His vision blurred, and a sharp ringing filled his ears. His breath hitched, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead. But he did not stop.
Each line of forbidden sorcery he read brought agonizing pain. He stopped reading due to what was happening to him. His fingers trembled, his eyes sank into their sockets, and his chest tightened as if the curses of the past were settling in his lungs. His pulse hammered like war drums, and his body arched under the pressure of an unseen force, present like silent hellfire.
The pain... was not a moment. Hours passed as he wrestled for breath, his skin slick with cold sweat, his spirit reeling on the brink of madness. He had heard the stories—everyone who dared to read this sorcery perished. They died, their minds shattered, their bodies dissolving in the shadows of the cursed words.
But suddenly, the pain ceased.
It was as if the agony vanished in the blink of an eye. Zaharin sat in confused silence, his breath ragged, his gaze pale. He did not understand... why had he survived? Why had the hell that devoured the souls of others subsided?
The mystery remained a puzzle, spiraling in his head with no exit. Yet, he did not stop. Inside him was a call, a hidden power driving him to delve deeper.
He opened his eyes, raised his hand toward a small candle, muttered a few words, and it extinguished. In that moment, he realized... he was special.
He could withstand Human sorcery... without being destroyed by it.
He smiled. "I can."
In the following nights, he returned to the forbidden library. Each night, he plunged deeper, reading harder incantations.
And after two weeks, he was no longer the same man.
He could move heavy objects without touching them. He could conjure an energy shield to protect himself for moments. He could manipulate the air in a sealed room, as if the wind obeyed him.
He had learned Human sorcery.
Yet, he realized something was missing—the lost books of an ancient sorcerer, said to be the only one who truly grasped the secret of this magic in all its mysteries.
In the years of his secret rebellion, he grew beyond all imagining. He no longer needed long journeys to traverse the realms; he had mastered the incantations that allowed him free movement and summoned energies none of his brothers would dare touch. His power knew no bounds, no ceiling, no limits.
But something else was happening... his hair was changing. At first, dark strands were invaded by faint grey shadows at the tips. He did not notice, or perhaps he ignored it.
But the last night... brought the end and the beginning.
Zaharin stood in the middle of the room, amidst stacks of open books, the black book in his hands. Before him, a fateful page, centered by an invocation... and a warning.
"These incantations open the door to absolute knowledge, but he who speaks them... shall not return as he was."
He stared at the sentence for a long time, then whispered: "I was never as I was to begin with."
Then, he began to read. The air around him grew heavy. The candles went out without being touched. The walls trembled. Papers scattered in a silent vortex. The very ground... almost shook. But he continued.
In the shadows, behind one of the columns, the King stood watching. His instinct... or his fear, something in his heart woke him, and he followed his son in silence. As soon as he saw him, a shiver ran down his spine, as if something dead had awakened. His son, standing in the heart of the magical storm, his eyes fixed on the forbidden words, unblinking, unwavering.
Then... he saw it. He saw the unbelievable.
He saw Zaharin's hair... transform. From dark black, strand after strand began to take on a brilliant silver, until his entire head shone like radiant quicksilver in the moonlight.
The King stepped back, his breath slow, his heart heavy with dread. "He... is breaking the taboo."
Suddenly, light exploded around Zaharin. A storm of energy swept the room, a vortex of light and shadows swirling around him as he stood at its center. His silver hair flew in the air, his eyes closed, and his hand raised as if grasping the threads of a power that did not belong to this world.
He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled with confidence.
He stood 280 cm tall, with a proportional, striking physique, muscles prominent as if carefully sculpted. His skin was silver-blue, smooth to the touch, crossed by fine fissures that sometimes glowed with a faint blue light, like a pulse beneath his skin. His long silver hair fell to the middle of his back. His dark blue eyes were wide, with a calm depth and a steady gaze that was hard to ignore. His transparent, blue-tinged horns curved gracefully backward, seeming like an extension of his imposing presence. His features were sharp and handsome; his eyebrows straight and thick, his nose straight, his jaw strongly sculpted, and his medium-sized lips sometimes bore a barely visible smile that changed his expression entirely.
The King, despite his greatness and authority, stood aghast, as if an invisible weight had bound him to the spot, something the Kingdom had not witnessed since the gates of Human sorcery were sealed.
His son had become something else. Before him, he saw only a body he knew, but the soul... the soul glowing before him now was not the one he had raised with his own hands. He looked into his son's eyes... and saw only a stranger. He was afraid of one thing: that Zaharin had endured the Human sorcery without going mad or dying. The King grew worried, as if he sensed a nearby massacre.
Zaharin exhaled slowly, then opened his eyes.
Inside the forbidden library, where the dim light cast long shadows on the walls lined with ancient books, Zaharin heard heavy footsteps approaching him. Zaharin turned sharply, the son's eyes meeting his father's, astonishment dancing on his features, for he had not expected anyone to be here... let alone his father.
He had been training in secret, drawing forbidden incantations, muttering spells that should not be spoken. His heart was pounding, not in awe of the magic, but of this very moment. The King advanced a step, staring at his son's gleaming silver hair. When he spoke, his voice was choked, as if the words scraped his throat as he uttered them: "Zaharin..."
Zaharin's eyes shone with a strange light, a light that did not belong to this world. The King approached with hurried steps, wavering between fear and astonishment, and when he stood before his son, he whispered in a voice that was about to break: "What have you done?"
Zaharin raised his chin, his gaze steady, saturated with an unshakeable resolve: "I read the final spell, Father. Nothing can stop me now. I will go to the Human world... something awaits me there, and I must find it."
Azrai's voice trembled: "No... do not go, Zaharin. Do not throw yourself into the abyss. You do not realize the price you will pay. This sorcery is not a path... but a bottomless chasm."
But Zaharin only said: "I do not surrender myself to sorcery; I seek freedom. I want the power I weave myself, not the one we inherited on a throne our forefathers built. For in the Human world... there is a call I cannot silence. And I will not return until I find its answer."
The King's voice shook as he took another step, like one trying to pull his son back from an inevitable fate: "What do you lack here? You are the Prince! You have everything... the throne, the soldiers, the castles, the riches. Why? Why choose a path shrouded in darkness?"
A heavy silence fell before Zaharin's voice emerged: "Do you know what we lack, Father?"
The King's eyes fixed on his son, filled with endless questions. Zaharin answered, facing his father without hesitation: "We lack freedom. Yes, you are the greatest king of the Seven Kingdoms... but you are a prisoner in a palace and on your throne. You hear the people's worries and complaints but do nothing but wage wars or live in luxury. You wanted me to be the perfect prince, the ideal heir, the symbol upon which legends are built... but you never once asked what I want. I do not want a life scripted for me since birth; I do not want to be a shadow of others' expectations. I want adventure, discovery; I want to breathe without constraints. We own everything... except inner peace. And I will not remain in this cage, no matter how ornate."
He offered a pale smile: "Perhaps... I wanted another life, Father. A life not built on the will of others. I wanted to be myself... to search for the true essence of life. Perhaps you think this sorcery is dangerous, but I feel it is the only path that will lead me to myself. Or at least, I will do something I have long desired."
The King fell silent, his soul divided between a sovereign who feared loss... and a father who feared farewell. After a short time, he spoke: "I am afraid for you, my son... I fear this path will swallow you, and you will not return as you were."
Zaharin nodded gently, a glint of sadness in his eyes: "You put me on this path... when you built me a palace, but refused to give me wings. And now, I will fly alone... even if the flight is the cause of my demise."
The King's voice hardened, his pain transforming into rage: "If you choose this path... you leave the shelter of my protection. If you cross that door, I will not be able to protect you... instead, I will be forced to announce that you have died."
The words nearly pierced Zaharin's heart, but he offered only a calm smile, like one accepting his fate: "Do what you deem right, Father... and I will do what I believe is right."
The King felt his spirit crack, but he said in a frigid voice: "If you cross that door... you are no longer my son."
For a moment, tears glistened in Zaharin's eyes, but he kept his head held high with pride, and his voice did not tremble: "I was your son, Father... until I decided to be myself."
He then turned and walked down the hall with steady steps. When he reached a quarter of the distance, he paused for a moment, without turning back, then whispered:
"Goodbye... Father."
Then, he moved through the corridors, leaving everything behind.
The King stood, helpless, broken, as if a structure within him had collapsed. His eyes filled with tears, and all he could do was whisper:
"My son... don't go... don't go."
Zaharin began his journey toward an unknown destiny... a fate fraught with danger, adventure, and irrevocable choices. He left the palace, crossing the corridors he had known since childhood. Every slab he passed held a memory—a laugh, a punishment, or a look of disdain from his brothers. But today, he was not the small boy viewed with pity. Today, he had become something else... something they did not understand and would not dare to confront.