Chapter 1: The Black Veil

The bells of Virehall tolled seven times, their iron throats howling through the grey morning fog.

Prince Kaelen Vire stood still beneath the high spires of the obsidian cathedral, his breath shallow beneath a veil of mourning black. The scent of incense mingled with the rot of wilted roses, carried through the stained glass archways on a sickly breeze.

Today, the king was to be buried.

And Kaelen would become the thing everyone in the court feared most—a royal heir without power, position, or patronage.

He clenched his hands behind his back, nails biting into his palm. His mother, Queen Sereia, stood beside him—still, cold, beautiful. A carved statue in widow's silk. She hadn't looked at him once all morning.

Around them gathered nobles like vultures in velvet. Dukes, barons, warlords, and their jeweled offspring. Some wept openly. Most didn't bother.

Kaelen felt their eyes like needles in his skin. Watching. Measuring. Waiting.

The coffin was sealed shut. Not because of tradition—but because what remained of King Tharan's body had turned black within hours of his death. They called it the Plagueblight. No physician had dared approach it without gloves. No priest had blessed the corpse.

Kaelen had watched his father die. Slowly, painfully. Screaming.

And no one—not a single court mage, not even the High Arcanist—had been able to stop it.

Because they knew.

It wasn't a disease.

It was a curse.

And everyone suspected the same thing: Kaelen was the reason.

---

The procession ended by noon, the ashes sealed in the royal crypt, and the throne left conspicuously vacant.

Kaelen slipped away before the lords began their smiling wars. He passed through the shadowed halls of Virehall Castle, every footstep echoing against cold marble. The guards barely looked at him now. Not since the inheritance ceremony had been postponed "indefinitely."

Not since whispers had started calling him The Plague Prince.

In the West Wing—where the stone was older, and the air smelled of dust and burnt parchment—Kaelen found the room he sought.

The old library.

His father used to forbid him from entering here alone. But his father was ashes now.

He shut the door behind him and turned up a brass lamp. Books covered every wall—histories, grimoires, treaties. But Kaelen moved past them all, straight to a low shelf in the back, hidden behind a statue of Saint Vire the Lightbringer.

He reached behind the sculpture and pressed a loose brick.

Click.

A panel slid open. Inside, a small iron box lay wrapped in crimson velvet. Kaelen took it with both hands, his fingers trembling.

He placed it on the desk and opened the latch.

Inside: a blackened scroll, its surface cracked with age, bound with wax bearing the royal seal—broken. Someone had opened it before.

Kaelen unfurled it carefully.

Not words. Symbols. Old ones. Twisting glyphs that moved when he wasn't looking directly at them.

His father had always warned: "Some doors cannot be closed once opened."

But Kaelen didn't care.

Because in this kingdom, power wasn't inherited. It was taken.

And he was going to take it back.

---

It began that night.

A dream.

No… a vision.

Kaelen stood in a hall of mirrors, the reflections warped. Dozens of versions of himself stared back—some tall and proud, some hunched and monstrous. One wore a crown of thorns. One had no eyes. One bled from every pore.

"You are not one," a voice hissed.

"You are many."

"You are cursed."

"You are chosen."

Kaelen stepped forward, and all his reflections moved in unison.

Then he saw it—in the center of the mirrored hall stood a throne made of bone. And on it sat a figure, robed in shadow, a mask of obsidian across its face.

"Claim what is yours," it whispered.

"Or be consumed by it."

He woke up screaming.

---

The next morning, Kaelen felt... different.

Not stronger. Not better. But aware.

The court had already changed its rhythm. Duke Renvar, the king's war minister, had called an emergency session of the Royal Council. Kaelen wasn't invited. His half-brother, Prince Aurelian—golden-haired, beloved, legitimate—was already standing in the king's chambers, wearing a ceremonial sword that wasn't his.

Kaelen watched from the balcony above.

Aurelian smiled that same easy smile he always wore in public. The nobles bowed. The guards saluted. Even the High Arcanist inclined his head.

Kaelen's blood ran cold.

They were replacing the king—and pretending Kaelen had never existed.

---

Later that day, someone tried to kill him.

It happened in the west gardens, beneath the hanging lavender trees. A servant girl approached with wine. Her eyes were hollow. Her smile empty.

Kaelen took the cup, paused.

Then he saw it—just for an instant—the faint shimmer of a spell, like oil on water.

He dropped the goblet.

The wine burned through the stone where it fell.

The girl didn't run. Didn't scream. She looked him in the eye and said: "You are a threat to the throne."

Then she reached for a dagger.

Kaelen moved faster than he ever had before.

He didn't even remember crossing the space between them. One moment she was lunging. The next, she was on the ground, her blade snapped in half, her wrist broken.

Her eyes widened. "What are you?"

Kaelen backed away, heart racing.

He hadn't cast a spell. Hadn't spoken a word.

But something had answered on his behalf.

---

That night, Kaelen returned to the scroll.

This time, he read it aloud.

The glyphs burned white-hot, searing into his mind. Blood ran from his nose. His shadow twisted.

Pain lanced through his skull like a blade.

He screamed—and something answered from the dark.

A voice. Old. Familiar. His own, but not.

> "I am the heir to rot. The prince of ruin. The seed of plague sown in royal soil."

Kaelen collapsed, shivering.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn't alone.

A figure stood in the corner of the room—tall, shrouded in darkness, its eyes glowing faintly with violet fire.

It bowed.

"You have awakened it, my prince," it said. "The Black Veil stirs."

Kaelen swallowed. "What are you?"

"I am what your bloodline buried. What your father feared. What the court tried to erase."

Kaelen stood slowly.

"Then teach me."

The figure smiled.

"So it begins."

---

End of Chapter 1