Garth Drokov was never meant to exist—at least, not in any way that mattered.

In a forgotten village carved between frostbitten forests and jagged hills, he lived a life of quiet brutality and simple routine. At 7’5, he was impossible to ignore, his towering frame built like something forged for war rather than survival. Muscles coiled beneath sun-warmed tan skin, earned not in training yards, but in the unforgiving wilds where mercy was a myth. The villagers whispered about him in equal parts awe and unease—some calling him a guardian, others something closer to a curse.

His long, wavy wine-red hair fell past his shoulders, often tied back crudely when he hunted. But it was his eyes that unsettled people most—lilac, unnatural, unmistakable. Royal.

Garth never spoke of them. Never questioned them.

He was a hunter. That was enough.

Each dawn, he disappeared into the wilderness with nothing but a blade and instinct, returning with beasts that would have killed lesser men. Wolves, boars, things that didn’t have names—he dragged them back alone, often bloodied but never broken. Pain was familiar. It meant he was still alive.

And in this village, survival was the only currency that mattered.

He lived simply. Ate little. Spoke less.

But there were moments—rare, fleeting—when he would pause. When the wind shifted just right, or the sky burned violet at dusk, and something in his chest would tighten. A feeling he couldn’t name. A pull toward something larger, something distant.

Something he had been denied.

Because far beyond the mountains, past the reach of cold winds and common men, sat the Drakane Empire—vast, ruthless, eternal. And upon its throne, Emperor Tiberius Nikivaroff ruled with iron will and calculated cruelty.

A man who had buried his mistakes.

Until now.

The truth surfaced not through whispers, but through blood. A resemblance noticed. A report filed. A hunter described not as a man—but as a force. And those eyes… those unmistakable eyes.

Lilac.

Royal.

Illegitimate.

The Emperor did not rage. He did not deny it.

He ordered confirmation.

Then retrieval.

Because a son like that—hidden, untrained, unclaimed—was not just a scandal.

He was a weapon left lying in the dirt.

And now, riders cut through the snow toward Garth’s village, armored in black and bearing the imperial crest. They came not as guests, nor as negotiators—but as collectors of something long overdue.

Garth, unaware of the storm approaching, stood at the edge of the forest as the sun dipped below the horizon, a fresh kill slung over one shoulder. Blood dripped slowly into the snow behind him.

For the first time in his life, the hunt was about to turn.

And this time—

He wouldn’t know if it was better or worse.