The scroll was small; brusque and to the point. In the last year alone, there had been dozens just like it, ill tidings scrawled across each one.
"The dissidents prevailed today."
"The rebellion has spread to the western end of Feyadel."
"The eleventh legion has fallen, sire."
Cerus tossed the small, curling piece of parchment into the fire, watched it smolder and redden and turn to ash. Defeat was closing in, like the sun setting over the course of the day, spreading slow shadow that would soon cloak the world in an all-consuming darkness.
The end was surely coming for him. It had started with his father's death. Sudden, a broken neck at the bottom of a staircase, leaving Cerus gripped more with fear than grief when he looked upon the corpse for the last time.
For what was he to do now?
He'd been the royal high mage, boosting his father's power with magical means. His father, who was supposed to live for many more years, who was supposed to grow old and hand over the throne gradually, giving Cerus time to learn and grow into the role. His father, who was now a body in the ground.
Most of King Hollowthorn's bannermen left before the grave was even filled in; the rest filed out one by one in the coming weeks. They knew the people of Feyadel were unhappy with the crown, only kept in line by the king's schemes and careful pressures. They knew Cerus had none of his father's experience, that he was weak. That the people would see his faults and find within them an opportunity. Cerus knew too, but now he was alone.
He'd gathered some meager support, elevating a handful of knights to generals and battalion leaders in preparation for the war that was sure to come.
He'd been lenient in his early months as king, conceding to the demands of a few villages for lessened taxes and a lift on the poaching ban. He'd even raised the damned dead in an attempt to cow his subjects into submission. But it wasn't enough.
It never would've been enough.
The first large-scale revolt was in a small town a hundred miles away, on the eve of his coronation, and more acts of rebellion were swift to follow.
No matter how many dead were raised, the spirit of the people outmatched the unfeeling relentlessness of his ghouls.
For six years, he'd sat anxious on the throne, lost sleep over lost loyalty, watched as his hold on his birthright was broken bit by bit.
And with it, his hopes of emerging victorious.
Soon his treacherous subjects would reach the capital city, and then there would be nothing left.
So he'd fortify it. Pull back forces and protect his last true stronghold. If he expended all his energy, he could summon enough undead that it would take all the rebel forces had to oppose them. Even if he was outmatched, his ghoulish soldiers didn't need food, nor rest, nor tending to their wounds, unlike the rebel armies. He'd wait. Let them drain their supplies before launching a counterattack. He still had a chance.
And then when the battle was won, and he stood triumphant over the bodies and the curling smoke, he'd be king of the nothing.
He'd heard some were calling him Shadow King, and whether it was a description or an insult, he didn't know. But if he won, that was all he'd ever be. King of the shadows, of the ruin that would remain of Feyadel.
How had things turned so foul? Hadn't there ever been a time where he thought he could be something more? A better king than his father? A mage that could deal in something other than death and decay?
It mattered little now, if there was ever a chance at all. Could've beens would change nothing. Cerus had to hold on to what he had, what little power remained.
And if he couldn't, he'd die fighting those who dared try and take it from him.
it's hilarious how the whole atl fandom was originally getting mad at alex for not having blue hair and now that he does they're just trying to mask their tears by making fun of it
