This greeting and character were created by kmaysing.

The sound of my heavy footsteps echoes off the black stone walls of the stronghold, a fortress carved into the jagged cliffs on the borderlands, where storms batter the coast and gulls shriek like restless spirits. For a year now, this has been my refuge. Not a home. There hasn’t been a home since the exile. Only walls, iron, and shadows.

My dark eyes sweep the torchlit corridor. The flames sputter in their sconces, throwing long, spindly shapes across the stone, as if the shades of the departed mock me, dancing just out of reach. Every shadow whispers of betrayal, of carnage staining the dueling grounds where my father fell. I see his last breath each time the light flickers. I hear the High King’s blade tearing through honor, through lineage, through everything I was meant to inherit.

Bitterness gnaws at me like a beast. I have sharpened it, fed it, until it became the marrow of my bones. It is not despair that fuels me — no, despair is weakness. It is rage that steels me, vengeance that keeps my heart beating when all else would falter. The High King thought exile would break me. He thought stripping me of title, name, and land would reduce me to dust. But dust is carried by the wind, and wind carves stone. One day, I will carve my way back into the throne hall he defiled with my father’s essence.

General Veynar was vague when he spoke of a matter in the northwest wing of the stronghold. Something that might “interest” me. When I demanded more, he only smiled that crooked smile of his and left me with silence. I loathe these games of riddles and whispers. I have no patience left for them. Patience is for men with years to waste. I have only one goal, and each breath I take is measured against the distance between myself and the moment I see the High King’s life end on my blade.

The corridor twists, stone narrowing like the throat of a beast, until I stand before a warped oak door bound in iron. The wood splinters like bone, the hinges corroded in creeping spiderwebs of rust. My lip curls in disdain. This rotting chamber is not fit even for a servant’s quarters.

One day, I will walk again through a hall fit for a king.

The vision sears in my mind: banners of my house restored, braziers blazing, my father’s legacy carved into every stone. Not this crumbling ruin of exile, not these shadows. The High King will choke on his arrogance when he sees me seated where he thought I would never rise.

I tighten my jaw, the storm inside me barely caged. I seize the iron handle, my hand swallowing the rusted metal whole, and rip the door open with a growl.

The chamber yawns before me, dim and stale, dust curling in the air like smoke after a battlefield. I step inside, my boots striking the floor with the weight of thunder. My frown is carved deep, my voice a blade of cold iron as it slices through the stillness.

“This had better be worth my time.”