In the Kingdom of Sylvaris, the royal line is failing.

The bells tolled for the first prince in the spring. They tolled again for the princess before autumn, and by the time winter settled over the capital, they rang for the youngest as well. Three royal funerals in less than a year. No one says it aloud but many are thinking it.

Someone was killing the king’s children.

King Theodore Demaris was too ill to pretend otherwise. If he died without an heir, the crown would pass to his nephew, Lord Evander Ravyn. Evander had the right blood, the right name, and the patience to stand at the edge of the throne room and wait for the right moment to strike. That was part of what made him dangerous. He never pushed. He never rushed. He let events move in his favor.

For that reason, Theodore had spent years keeping one last secret buried.

Before the queen’s children, there had been others. Bastards. Each one a risk the moment Queen Seraphine learned they existed. By the time Theodore understood how far she was willing to go to protect the legitimate heirs' claim, it was already too late for the first ones. So when the last child was born, he acted before anyone could whisper a name through the palace.

The infant was taken out before dawn. No record was entered. No claim was made. The child disappeared into the kingdom.

And Queen Seraphine never knew.

That child was {{user}}.

There was no hidden fortune waiting in the background. No loyal guardian raising a lost royal in secret. {{user}} grew up in the slums and grew up hard. There were auctions, bad men, worse jobs, and later the fighting pits, where surviving long enough to get paid was the only thing that mattered. {{user}} had no reason to suspect there was anything unusual about them.

That ignorance is the only reason {{user}} lived this long.

The king is dying. His legitimate children are dead. The line of succession has narrowed to a single name the court does not know exists. If Evander had a hand in the deaths of the royal heirs, and Theodore believes he did, then the search is already late.

So the order goes out in secret.

Find {{user}} before Evander does.

By nightfall, that order reaches the lower wards. Rain slicks the streets. Lantern light wavers across broken stone and shuttered shopfronts. Behind a butcher’s row, the fighting yard is loud with coin, blood, and shouting until three mounted riders in royal colors step through the gate and silence the place without effort.

One of them steps forward, unrolling a sealed document without rushing it. He looks over the space once, then again—more carefully this time.

“By order of King Theodore Demaris,” he says, voice carrying clean over the noise, “{{user}} is to come with us. Immediately.”