Omniscient narrator.
The young prince tries to move, but his body hurts greatly. He can barely breathe without his ribs hurting and releasing a groan. But beyond his broken bones and internal hemorrhages, Keith feels something squeezing his heart.
He is greatly pained by his father's betrayal, and he doesn't know how to express it. He knows that expressing it won't solve anything, as no one will hear him. Unable to hold back the tears, the prince breaks into tears, lamenting his misfortune, when soon a horrible pain crosses his spine. He doesn't have to try to get up to know it's broken. Soon, a thought fills his mind: I am not dead.
He opens his eyes, barely able to see beyond his own nose, and tries to look around. His vision is blurry, barely able to distinguish anything beyond the rocky ceiling of what seems to be a cave, and adding to the darkness, he can't make out anything clearly.
A few meters away from him, the Wandering Sage looks at him with pain. His fate is the darkest that his hundreds of years of experience have seen, but one thing is certain. He will mark a before and after in the history of this world, and according to his visions, not in a good way. Although that decision is still in his hands. He can choose to kill or rebuild.
The sage's mind travels back to a few hours ago, when the young prince fell from the tower and he couldn't do anything to hold him. He knew the king would try to conceal it, even poison him so that his last breath would be a merciful lie, but no, the king threw him without more from the top of the tower. He threw his own son, blood of his blood, to his death.
The sage watches the prince pass out from the pain, and seizing his opportunity, he approaches, placing his hand on his forehead and giving him a last breath of life*. That's the only thing he can do for him right now.
When night falls and the nocturnal animals have come out to hunt, the Wandering Sage disappears into the darkness of the night.
In the early morning, the young prince regains consciousness, this time feeling a more bearable pain, quite different from the torment he had experienced a few hours ago. Even so, he can barely stay conscious due to the overwhelming pain that overwhelms him when he tries to move due to several broken bones. Far from lamenting, as he had done before, he feels a fierce determination burning inside him. With effort, he manages to get up, leaning on the rocky walls of the cave to support his weak body.
Now with clearer vision, he notices that everything around him is rocks and moss. As best as he can, he straightens up and takes a step forward. The infernal pain stops him.
With a voice interrupted by pain, the prince murmurs with determination, "I'm going to kill you, father." His words resonate in the cave, like an oath uttered in the darkness.
With each staggering step, Keith moves away from the cave, determined to find a refuge where he can heal his wounds and prepare for the challenge that now represents survival. He knows that if his body is not found, the king will not hesitate to search for him to finally kill him.
Every time the pain threatens to overwhelm him, he remembers his father's betrayal, and determination ignites within him once again.
For days, the prince travels in silence, avoiding main roads and hiding from any royal patrols he might encounter. Finally, he finds the way out of the kingdom and can see light at the end of that dark tunnel.
With his last strength, he sets out on the road, hoping that merchants will take him to the limits of the continent or to the nearest kingdom for the few jewels he had on him when the king threw him from the tower, but that light at the end of the tunnel soon becomes a cursed trap.
The young prince recognizes the ragged and gray garments of the group of six men right away. They are scavengers*, as they are often called in his kingdom, human traffickers who settle at the exits of the realms waiting for their next prey. Although Keith tries to hide among the tall grass, he is spotted by one of them.
The prince closes his eyes and awaits his fate, having only the hope that no one will ever know who he is, and with a bit of luck, he will be sold to a farmer who needs help for a low price.
"Soun, look what we have here," exclaims the merchant who had spotted him earlier, taking Keith by the hair and lifting his head. The others approach, and upon seeing him, they seem amazed.
"Do you think it's what she's expecting?" one of them asks.
"I think it's more than what she's expecting. Get him on the cart."
Without resisting to avoid his death, Keith lets the group of bandits take him as merchandise, knowing that now it is his best option, for the farther from "home" he is, the more likely it is that the king will never find him.
Without waiting to gather more merchandise, the scavengers set off through the forest and not following a paved road to the next kingdom. Because of this, the road begins to torment Keith's broken bones, and knowing well that he will not survive if he is not treated, he takes the initiative.
"I'm dying."
One of his captors, a man with a scar from his chin to his forehead, passing over his eye and mouth, looks at him with heaviness.
"Hold on for a couple more days."
Days? Keith knew he wouldn't last until nightfall. He could feel it. His body was cooling down and he wouldn't breathe soon.
"Make him survive until the royal capital, you fool. We can't go back for another one of these. Besides, I don't think we'll find one as attractive as this one."
"Besides, Sael, the queen will pay a lot for his face. Use some of your power or we'll be dead men."
Sael, a healer and part of that group of human traffickers, approached the prince, took some water in his hand, closed his eyes, and then his three marks began to glow.
Keith looked amazed at the power of the magic until the healer opened his eyes and threw that water into his mouth. Instantly he felt the cold liquid trickle down his throat, revitalizing him completely.
Keith assessed the situation. While it would be easy to wait to be sold and delivered as merchandise, it would be much less risky to escape now, as they were in the middle of nowhere. And by following the terrain around the kingdom that he had studied so much for when the day came, he would know how to find the way to the neighboring kingdom of Lacrontte: the kingdom of Ellington.
However, when he tried to lift his head to see if he could see any signs for those who got lost in the vast forest, something hurt him.
"Don't move so much. My magic is not so good and my marks are not so powerful to heal your spine, so don't move or it will break more."
The prince stopped trying to lift his head and began to organize a new escape plan in his mind, when by pure chance, as night fell, he heard fragments of conversations between the traffickers, who were discussing their plans to sell him to the queen for a good sum of money.
The queen. That was bad. It didn't matter if she was the queen of the most deplorable and poor kingdom, she was still a queen and she had power within her kingdom.
Despite knowing what his fate was, there was nothing to do until his spine fully healed. So he continued his journey as the cart continued its march towards the capital. The prince endured the pain with courage, increasingly determined to fulfill his oath of vengeance against his father, the king.
However, every time he tried to devise an escape plan, he found himself too weak and injured to carry it out. The cart continued inexorably towards its destination, bringing the prince closer and closer to the royal capital and his uncertain fate.
Finally, after several days of agony, the caravan arrived at the gates of the capital. Keith observed with a mixture of fear and determination the tall walls surrounding the city, knowing that within those walls lay his potential executioner.
As he stepped down from the cart, Keith felt a chill run down his spine. He knew that the moment of truth was approaching and that he would have to face his destiny without hesitation. With his heart full of determination and the sharp pain of his wounds as a reminder of his purpose, the prince prepared himself for whatever the destiny had in store for him in that still unknown kingdom.
Once inside the walls of the royal capital, Keith found himself immersed in a world of hustle and bustle. The streets were crowded with people coming and going, merchants shouting their wares, and royal guards patrolling the streets with stern looks.
The prince moved cautiously, trying to spot a flag of the kingdom, but there was nothing. Despite the crowd, he felt vulnerable, aware that he was in enemy territory and that any mistake could cost him his life.
Guided by what seemed to be the leader of that group, a man in a black cloak and mask, Keith passed through the gates of an old carpentry studio. Everything was old and dusty. Then, just when he thought his life was over, two of them began reciting words written on their arms, opening a portal.
It was impressive. The number of mages and awakened who could open portals was less than a hundred. That in the kingdom of Lacrontte, the largest kingdom of all continents. What chance did any group of scavengers have of doing it?
"Enter," Keith was pushed into the portal, and faced with the quantity and intensity of the power emanating from the portal and the weakness of his body, he fell unconscious before reaching his destination.