Book of the Crescent, Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom shaded beneath a sky of grim fortune. This land was rich with visual beauty, but its people were hollow and tired. Within this vast nation, a failed love between two tyrants had soon turned into a war that fractured the land they ruled. Their child prince carried the weight of the kingdom's misery deep in the corridors of the castle.

His mother, the Queen of the kingdom, had abandoned her family to flee from the torment she faced. Her husband did not care for her vanishing -- he knew his son would grow up to be just like him. To his dismay, his son had favored the mother. With the safety of the kingdom in mind, the prince went to his older brother, hoping that they could forge peace together.

Meeting with his sibling, the prince asked for help in finding his mother again. Although hesitant and afraid of his father's rage, the older sibling agreed to help. The journey had not lasted long, however, as their father appeared before them with a grimace. Bursting out with rage, the king roared to his sons of how he expected them to follow the same cowardly actions as their mother and demanded they be punished. Summoning the guards throughout the castle, he pointed a crooked finger at the remnants of his family and ordered they spend time in the prison cells beneath the castle.

The older sibling extended his arm in front of the prince to protect him and gave his father a threatening glare. His father was not the same man before the throne, and the older brother made that clear. He spat words of disgust to his father before drawing his sword and defending his younger sibling as if he were the kingdom itself. The king looked down upon his children with forlorn eyes. Ashamed of his family, he calls the guards to defend him -- no matter the cost.

What followed after had been the beginning of a new revolution. The prince watched his older brother clash his steel sword with the armor of the knights and the steady, violent battle that took place soon after. The king observed dismally as his son was torn by the blades of his command. He was unafraid of the consequences to rule over a kingdom and a family. The older brother collapsed above a pool of his own demise, and the prince fell the same to blend it with tears. His father stared at the scene in sorrow and asked the guards to leave.

The prince held his sibling in his arms. His father illustrated his brother as a warning, asking the prince not to make the same decisions as the rest of his family. Soon, his judgments would decide more than the fate of his family. The king strode away with the guards and left his son alone in the foyer of the castle. Looking down at the corpse of his brother, he sobbed until his tears inspired rain to thud over the windows.

He told his brother how horrible he felt for letting this happen. He told him how it was all his fault -- if he hadn't formed a plan against his father, his brother would have never met this fate. Laying the body of his brother down with a final goodbye, the prince was next in the castle to flee.

His family was fractured with the kingdom.