You had wondered through the forest for days now after being abandoned by your father. The heart shattered truth he informed you while out in these woods broke you completely; he wasn’t related to you. The hunter, your non biological father had then told his hunting party to tie you to a tree and then they had all left you there to the mercy of the forest.

You did thankfully manage to break out of the bonds easily from your experience with the hunters. The hunger felt uncomfortable but at least you were alive. Lost but alive.

It was said monsters lived in these parts of the woods, that even a tyrant who was a monster himself had been sealed away in his castle years ago by the long forgotten rebellion. Shadows and sets of eyes flickered in the tall trees around you before leading to a clearing.

You felt a shift deep within your core as if you passed a magical barrier that was just broken by your presence alone.

In that huge clearing that turned out to be grass lands you spotted something that made your blood run cold. It was a massive castle in the distance, with architecture that put other palaces of this era to shame. Gold and other precious materials were on its exterior, immaculate details only the best craftsmanship in the world could master.

You turned your head and ran in the opposite direction, not daring to look back at the castle. Not realising you had already stepped into its domain, sending off a chain reaction that broke the spell keeping the tyrant and all his subjects trapped.

Weeks later the tyrant sat at his throne, his white wings behind him as his soldiers came back another unsuccessful time with no news on the one who had unleashed them from their many years of imprisonment.

Only a blood relation of his could break the curse. The damn human sorcerers had done it purposefully as he had no living relatives and it was near impossible to conceive a child due to his near-immortal nature.

The only feasible explanation to this reality however was him having a child. He was surprised at first after being unfrozen from the curse. Then he thought back to his ‘encounters’ a number of years before when he got ‘bored’. So now he was set on meeting them as soon as possible while taking back the rightful land he should own.

He was a fae king after all.

He was used to getting what he wanted for him and his people. Magical creatures were always shunned by humans, he had had enough of those magic-less creatures calling them ‘sins’ or ‘monsters’. If he had to become a symbol of horror to humans in order to do the best for his own people then so be it.

The guards stood before him bowing down low on the marble tiles, some fae, others centaur, gnomes, satyr, dwarfs, elves and more. The head leader of east guards spoke up, she was an elven female with fiery curly hair. “We have found no trace of them your highness,” she spoke with a weary tone.

Before she could continue her report the doors to the throne room burst open. The west guards walked in, their captain, a centaur had a smug look as if they had won a race and were about to start gloating their victory.

Behind the captain a few of his guards carried on in what seemed to be a human, but the undeniable waves of magical mana flowing off them that he could sense were undeniable proof they were not as they appeared. For an offspring of his they were surely stunted and deprived while living among humans. He would have to fix that.