"HUUUUHHHHH."
A cavernous yawn echoed through one of the palace's lesser foyers, breaking the suffocating silence like a cracked bell. Somewhere between a scurrying rat and a disheveled elf, a man in his thirties shuffled down the corridor in a slouch.
Green, tousled hair. Jaded brown eyes.
Eyelids half-lowered with terminal exhaustion.
Kieran.
A royal knight by title, a survivor by trade—and the newest (and most reluctant) addition to the Third Prince's elite unit: the Scarlet Knights.
When he wasn't sniping insults at Vincent, he could usually be found shamelessly flattering pig-nosed nobles like his life depended on it. And maybe it did. Chivalry was a nice idea and all, but Kieran had always believed in a simpler motto:
"Every man for himself."
After all his years of groveling, greasing palms, and pretending to admire people he wouldn't trust to milk a cow, he'd finally done it—he'd climbed the ranks, earned his title, and secured his golden ticket to a worry-free future.
He was a royal knight. All he had to do was loiter near the prince, avoid any serious duties, and wait for retirement to sweep in like a fairytale ending. With luck, he'd have a cozy cottage, a tomato garden, a pretty wife, and a cat named Beef Stroganoff.
Life was set.
Or so he thought.
Now, he could only whimper internally, fists clenched and teeth grinding in horror.
"A mission? A real one?!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "I thought the emperor depised his son!"
He stared up at the ceiling like it might collapse on him and spare him the nightmare. His voice cracked with a mix of despair and betrayal. "Back to the battlefield? No no no—gods no—I swore I'd never go back after the draft!"
He paced, gesturing wildly at nothing, ranting like a drunk scholar.
"That prince wouldn't hurt a fly without giving a speech about 'the strength of kindness' or 'the unifying power of friendship'—he's like some tragic storybook protagonist!" Kieran whined. "He's going to talk us to death before the rebels get a chance!"
He shuddered. "And it's all that old tiger's fault. If the Emperor hadn't shackled the poor kid to that emotionally constipated control-freak Vincent, maybe—maybe—he'd have turned into a warlord like a normal prince."
Passing servants glanced at him nervously as he muttered maniacally to himself like a plague-ridden philosopher. Kieran hardly noticed. His thoughts were too loud. His future was collapsing.
"Everything alright?" called the voice of a concerned friend.
Kieran jumped. "NO—!"
Then he froze.
He didn't have any friends.
Slowly, mechanically, he turned around—like a cursed marionette—and sure enough, there they were: the red-haired prince, looking mildly confused, and the silver-haired wall of disapproval that shadowed him.
Vincent and Darius. The last people Kieran wanted to see.
"Ah! My prince!" Kieran straightened like a jack-in-the-box, voice suddenly an octave lower and several notches smoother. "What a surprise! Fancy seeing you in, um, the palace!"
Darius blinked. "We… live here."
"Heh… right you are!" Kieran laughed awkwardly, flapping his hands like a magician who'd forgotten his trick.
Vincent's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, me? I was just—just about to offer my sincerest congratulations!" Kieran practically bowed into a backbend. "What an honor it must be to receive your first mission, Your Highness! I—I simply can't wait to see what wonders you'll bring to Valene! Your leadership always inspires me—truly!"
Darius smiled warmly, ever the oblivious sunbeam. "Thank you. That's kind of you to say."
Vincent, meanwhile, looked like something inside him cracked.
The smile on Kieran's face.
That tone.
Vincent's fists clenched at his sides, pale with restraint. How dare that parasite use the prince's kindness as a shield for his scheming?
The two knights locked eyes—grinning, but with murder in their pupils. Darius stood between them, still smiling, unaware he'd just become the meat in a silent war sandwich.
Vincent stepped forward, gently but firmly taking the prince's wrist. "Come, Your Highness. Preparations await."
He began leading Darius down the corridor, glancing over his shoulder at Kieran with all the wariness of a mother dragging her toddler away from a known toxin.
Once they were gone, Kieran's shoulders dropped.
"Tch. What a prick," he muttered under his breath. "If I'd known the princeling came with a personal nanny, I'd have passed on the damn job."
Then, he glanced toward the horizon through a frost-laced window.
There it was.
That cloud.
The gray, shimmering mass—always looming, always moving closer.
No one knew what it was. Only what it did.
The Mist.
Everything it touched withered. Crops rotted. Towns collapsed. People vanished or worse.
Elicia, once the pride of the continent, had become a sinking relic—its lands devoured by plague, its people hollowed by war. Riots in the streets. Cities burning. Nobles abandoning ship like rats. And still, the world watched with greed in their eyes, waiting to pick apart the bones.
Even within Elicia, madness reigned. Villages were slaughtered for loyalty to the crown—others executed for denying it. The empire was bleeding from both sides, while the rich wrapped themselves in silk and denial.
And now?
Now the emperor was sending his cursed son—hated, feared, and forgotten—into the fire.
With only a handful of knights.
It wasn't a mission.
It was a death sentence.
Kieran knew it. Vincent knew it.
"…Well, not on my watch."
He grinned—a sharp, scheming little grin, the kind that came right before an idea he probably shouldn't follow through on.
"I'm too close to freedom to die now. That prince is going to live if I have to carry him on my back across the Mist. He can cry, he can preach, he can befriend wild wolves—I don't care."
He cracked his knuckles and tapped his fingers together like a cartoon villain ready to monologue.
"I'll keep that princeling alive whether he likes it or not."