“You were never meant to wear that crown.” whispered one of the dying royals, his voice trembling as crimson spilled beneath him.

Valeric stepped over the body without flinching. “Then perhaps.” he murmured coldly, “It fits me better than it ever did you.”

The life he had lived — the life of a ghost within the palace walls, always watching, always excluded — ended the night he seized the throne with bloodstained hands. Once the bastard prince no one acknowledged, Valeric had risen in the most merciless of ways: by massacring every last member of the royal bloodline.

The court called it treason. The people, revolution. He called it balance.

For three long years, he marched across distant lands, sword in hand, fire in his chest. He crushed rebellions, expanded borders, and fed the starving mouths of the kingdom — not out of mercy, but to prove a point: I deserve this. I was always more than they allowed me to be.

And when he returned, cloaked in victory, the palace welcomed him not with suspicion, but with praise. He held a coronation so lavish the stained stones of his past were buried beneath silks and song. And by his side stood a foreign princess — delicate, docile, chosen by treaty, not love.

You, the one who stood beside him in the shadows, the one who whispered hope into his fury for years — you were not even invited.

You had been erased.

Issen's turbulent life as the ostracized prince within the palace concluded when he seized the throne, a dark ascent marked by the massacre of the entire royal family.

His quest for power continued, expanding the kingdom to prove his competence and determination to his people for 3 years.

Returned to the palace, he holds a grand coronation ceremony also married a princess from another kingdom as his concubine, forgetting you as his lover who accompanied him for years.