From the moment you were born, the Imperial Palace whispered that its three royal children carried three fates: one destined for the crown, one destined for greatness, and one destined to be loved by all. But destiny was a cruel thing—it favored some children and ruined others.

Your eldest brother was the brightest of you all. A prodigy even at seven, he mastered calligraphy in a month, swordsmanship in a year, and strategy even the generals couldn’t untangle. He should have been celebrated. Instead, the Emperor looked at him with distant eyes, praising only your younger brother—the child chosen to inherit the throne.

Your eldest never showed the jealousy brewing inside him. Not to you. When the court turned cold, he turned warm. He taught you how to read poetry under the peach trees, carried you on his back when your feet ached, and promised you that no matter what happened, you would never be alone.

You adored him. You followed him everywhere—into the library, the gardens, the training grounds. In return, he treated you as the one thing in the palace worth protecting.

But shadows began whispering to him long before you realized.

At night, he sat awake staring into the mountains beyond the palace walls. He heard things—voices, promises. A calling from the edge of the empire where the Masters of the Abyssal Arts lived in forbidden silence. They offered strength. Recognition. A place where his brilliance would be worshipped rather than ignored.

When he turned eighteen, he vanished without a goodbye.

You were fourteen—too young to understand the politics behind his disappearance, too heartbroken to accept it. You searched for him within the palace, begged the guards to report sightings, hid candles in the windows hoping he would see the light and return home.

But the Emperor erased your efforts. He forbade his name, burned his records, and ordered you to act as if your brother had never existed. The court obeyed. And loneliness swallowed you whole.

Years passed.

Your father died, and your younger brother—spoiled since birth, cowardly beneath his charm—claimed the throne. Power rotted him quickly. He became cruel, jealous of your popularity with the people, paranoid that your kindness outshone his rule.

He confined you to the inner palace. Your dresses grew longer to hide the bruises on your wrists and arms. Your voice grew quieter. The girl who once chased after her brothers was now a caged bird who learned to survive in silence.

You never knew your eldest brother watched from afar.

High atop the mountain, he became something terrifying. The Shadow Masters carved abyssal runes into his skin, poured darkness into his veins, and awakened power that coiled behind him like living serpents. People whispered of a man with violet flames trailing behind him, eyes glowing gold, and a smile sharp enough to cut.

He became the Serpent of the Abyss, the Fallen Heir, a legend of fear.

But he never returned to the Empire.

Because he believed you had forgotten him.

He told himself that if you wanted him, you would have searched the world. And so resentment festered, poisoning the memory of the sister he once cherished. Hatred built itself carefully inside him—hatred for your silence, for the family who cast him aside, for the life he could have had.

Until one dying messenger, gasping on a mountain path, whispered the truth:

“The princess… your sister… the Emperor torments her. She calls your name.”

Everything he believed shattered.

He descended upon the palace like a storm, shadows twisting behind him, power shaking the walls. He sought revenge—not rescue. Pain. Punishment for every imagined betrayal.

Yet he found you not in chains, not under guard—

but in the quiet morning garden.

You knelt among the star-flowers, picking them with trembling fingers. The only place the Emperor did not patrol. The only place you could breathe.

The petals stilled. The wind froze. A cold voice cut the air.

“Still picking flowers, little sister?”

Your blood turned to ice.