There were five kingdoms beneath the same sky, and for a long while, they believed the sky was enough to keep them united.
The Human Kingdom of Valewynn stood at the center of the world, not by conquest, but by circumstance. Rivers crossed its lands like veins. Roads from every realm passed through its gates. Treaties were signed in its halls, and wars were ended beneath its banners. The humans called themselves the keepers of balance—not because they were the strongest, but because they stood between all others.
To the east stretched the Elderwood Dominion, where the Elfs dwelled among trees older than memory. Their cities were grown, not built, shaped by living bark and glowing leaves. They spoke little and remembered much.
To the west lay the endless seas, beneath which lived the Downys, the water-bound people. Their crystal cities rested in ocean trenches lit by bioluminescent towers. They rarely surfaced, and when they did, it was only for matters that concerned the world itself.
Far to the north rose the storm-carved mountains of the Pandoras—a fierce people hardened by altitude and thunder. Their fortresses clung to cliffs, and their warriors believed lightning was the voice of fate.
Beneath the southern stone ranges, deep where sunlight had never touched, labored the Dwarves, masters of forge and rune. They shaped metal as others shaped clay, and their halls rang eternally with hammer-song.
Five kingdoms. Five races. One fragile peace.
And at the heart of it all stood Valewynn's crown.
---
The Princess of Balance
Princess Elmyra Valewynn was not born beneath prophecy, nor marked by omen. She did not wield magic nor command armies. Yet every envoy who met her agreed on one thing:
She listened.
In councils where kings argued and generals shouted, Elmyra remained silent until the noise exhausted itself. Only then would she speak—softly, precisely—and somehow, the room always obeyed.
The elders whispered that her bloodline was old—older than Valewynn itself. That long ago, when the world had nearly torn itself apart, a single royal house had been entrusted with guarding a truth too dangerous to be remembered.
Elmyra knew none of this.
She knew only duty. And kindness. And the weight of a crown that one day would be hers.
That was why the night she vanished shattered the world more completely than any war ever had.
---
The Night Without Violence
The moon hung full and calm above Valewynn's spires. Guards stood at their posts. Wards glimmered faintly along the castle walls—ancient protections renewed every generation by pact with the Elfs.
Nothing was broken.
Nothing was disturbed.
At dawn, a handmaiden entered the princess's chambers with folded linens—and screamed.
The bed was untouched. The windows sealed. The doors locked from the inside.
The princess was gone.
No blood.
No sign of struggle.
No trace of magic.
Only silence.
And on the throne itself—placed with deliberate care—lay a single parchment.
---
The Letter of the Cycle
King Alaric IV read the letter alone.
The parchment was old, its fibers yellowed as if it had waited centuries for this moment. Burned into its surface was a symbol no scholar could name: a circle fractured by three uneven lines, as though something whole had been violently divided.
The message was brief.
"The world turns again.
The crown has forgotten its purpose.
Seek her not in stone or steel,
But where the first promise failed.
Steel will turn upon steel.
The worthy will endure.
The unworthy will devour themselves.
When the cycle completes,
She shall return—or the world shall not."
There was no signature.
No threat.
Only certainty.
The king's hands trembled.
He had seen this symbol once before—long ago, in a forbidden archive sealed beneath the castle. A page torn from history itself.
He ordered the archive burned that same day.
It did not matter.
The Cycle had remembered.
---
The Call to Fifty
By sunset, messengers rode to every corner of the Human Kingdom.
By dawn, warriors began to arrive.
Knights in polished armor bearing noble crests.
Independent swordsmen with scarred blades and hardened eyes.
Mercenaries sworn to no banner but gold.
Veterans who had survived wars history barely acknowledged.
Fifty in total.
They gathered in the Grand Hall, beneath banners depicting the unity of the Five Kingdoms—a unity that now felt fragile, almost mocking.
King Alaric stood before them, older than he had been the day before.
"My daughter has been taken," he said.
The hall fell silent.
"I do not know by whom. I do not know why. But I know this—she lives."
Murmurs rippled.
"I offer this vow," the king continued. "Whoever finds Princess Elmyra and returns her alive shall receive whatever they wish. Gold. Land. Power. Title. Even the right to stand above kings."
Greed sparked. Hope followed.
And suspicion crept quietly behind both.
---
The Boy Among Legends
At the far edge of the hall stood a boy no one noticed.
Kael, son of Darian Thornwake, the royal swordsmith.
Kael wore no crest. His clothes were plain. His sword—crafted by his father—was functional, not beautiful. He had never been trained by a master, never sworn an oath, never spilled blood in battle.
He should not have been there.
But when the letter had been read aloud, something deep within him had stirred—an echo he could not name.
The phrase "where the first promise failed" had burned into his thoughts like heated steel.
Because his father once told him a story.
A story never written down.
---
Steel Against Steel
The fifty were given three days to prepare.
They never lasted one.
By the first night, arguments erupted.
Knights accused swordsmen of lawlessness.
Swordsmen mocked knights as pampered fools.
Old rivalries resurfaced—families wronged, duels unresolved, blood debts unpaid.
By the second night, blades were drawn.
Not against the enemy.
Against each other.
The kidnapper's letter had spoken true.
Steel turned upon steel.
And somewhere far away, something ancient watched—with patience.
---
Whispers Across the Five Kingdoms
The Elfs felt it first.
Roots trembled. Leaves fell without wind. Elder trees whispered of a path long sealed beginning to open.
Beneath the sea, the Downys sensed pressure shifting in the deep trenches. Old currents—abandoned since the Shattered Age—began to flow once more.
In the mountains, Pandoran storm-priests watched lightning strike the same peak again and again, forming a symbol etched into stone.
In the depths, Dwarven runes glowed—runes that had not been activated since the world was almost undone.
The Cycle had begun again.
And this time, it did not announce itself with war.
It announced itself with choice.
---
The Forgotten Truth
Long before kingdoms had names, the world had nearly destroyed itself chasing perfection.
Three forces—once unified—had been divided to prevent annihilation. Not destroyed. Not defeated.
Sealed.
And every age since had paid the price of forgetting.
Heroes rose. Evils fell. Peace returned.
But the Cycle endured.
Now, someone had learned the truth the world buried.
And they had taken the one person whose existence threatened to end it.
---
The Path Opens
On the third dawn, the gates of Valewynn opened.
The fifty departed—fractured, distrustful, dangerous.
Kael walked among them.
He did not know why he had been allowed to go.
He did not know why the king's eyes lingered on him for half a second longer than the others.
He only knew this:
The sword at his side felt heavier than it ever had before.
Not with weight.
With purpose.
And somewhere, far beyond the reach of crowns and kingdoms, the princess waited—not for rescue alone, but for the one who would decide whether the Cycle would continue…
…or finally break.