The castle corridors were alive with motion, buzzing like a hive before the swarm. Servants hurried with bolts of fabric, golden candelabras were polished until they gleamed like fire, and the great hall itself was being transformed into a stage upon which the fate of a kingdom would be displayed.
The ball had not yet begun, but already its shadow was stretching across Nightshade Castle.
Outside the high walls, messengers on horseback thundered through the roads, delivering invitations sealed with the royal crest. From every corner of the realm, nobles and dignitaries prepared to make their way to the capital, hungry for spectacle, eager for whispers, desperate to measure the newly named Crown Prince for themselves.
And at the heart of it all — Heiko Nightshade, the warrior reborn as he
