"I am sorry," Antheros whispered, her voice a raw, frayed thread. She was a small, curled shape in the bed, the drapes drawn and locked, the room so dark it felt like a grave. The only sound was the soft, ragged intake of her breath. "I'm so sorry that I… I lost control. I just wanted to ask her. But then the soldiers… my rage took over." She cried, her words choked with sobs. "I couldn't do anything... I'm so sorry."

  Valerian lay behind her, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close against his chest. He didn’t try to speak, but she felt the gentle brush of his hand as he smoothed the hair from her face, his fingertips catching the tear tracks on her cheeks. The steady beat of his heart against her back was her only anchor in the endless dark, a quiet, thrumming vow. He held her even more tightly, as if his embrace could mend her broken heart.

  "What..." she sobbed, "what if they take—"

  "Don't think about it," he finally murmured, his lips close to her ear. "Just sleep and get some rest. We'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow."

  She rolled to face Valerian. Even in the darkness, she could feel the light in his eyes—a loving gaze with no hint of remorse or anger, just a tender care that moved her more deeply than any word. She swallowed a lump in her throat and asked, "What if we are imprisoned? What if we are stationed at the border of the Cursed Lands as guardsmen? What if—"

  Valerian stopped her, putting a finger to her lips. "Don't go into that spiral, dear. I am sure this will not blow out of proportion. I know my brother; we will get a slight reprimand, and that's it. I don't think we will be imprisoned, and even if we are on guard duty, we will be okay."

  "You..." she said, coming closer, "you don't understand. We... I... am weak. I can't... prot-ect..." She sobbed more, tears running like a broken dam.

  "Shhhh... I know," he said, his own eyes matching her tears. "I know what you have done and what you have sacrificed. I am more proud of you than anything, my dear," Valerian said. "And don't worry. Though my brother is the force, I am the force behind the force, so whatever the situation we are in, I am sure I can keep you and our child safe." He caressed her hair, gently patting her shoulder and hugging her close.

  "You know he is not our son, right?" she said, burying her head in his chest.

  Valerian didn’t speak at first, and a long silence stretched between them. Then he said, "On the contrary, I think he is our son. Our first son may have been taken from us by Mayogam, but you," he said, taking her face in his hands and looking her in the eyes, "gave me a second son. And I make a promise that he will grow up in the safest place possible." Then he hugged back. "Go to sleep," he said, gently tapping her.

  The next day in court, the kings of all the kingdoms, including the Kingdom of Antheros (the kingdom of Valerian’s wife), appeared in Raven Thorn City, the capital of the Crimson Empire. The courtroom was large enough to fit giants, and each man holding his seat protruded a heavy presence. The ten kings took their rightful places on the two sides of the hall, accompanied by two of their ministers. The emperor was seated on the high throne, elevated a few meters above all others.

  The court hall was marked by red and black marble, symbolizing the majestic Crimson Empire, and the black walls were embedded with a red mural depicting how two kids from the slums built a dynasty with blood and war. The mural ended with Duri Ironmatch sitting on the throne and a young, radiant figure standing beside him.

  As soon as everyone was settled, the persons in question came inside: Valerian and his wife, Antheros. Valerian looked suspiciously at the group called to witness the verdict, and deep down, he had a feeling that something was about to change. Why did he call for all the kings to attend this judgment? Isn't this blowing things out of proportion? he thought. Then he saw a dangerous glint in the empress's eyes and a point of regret in the emperor's, and a bad feeling crept into his heart. He looked at the mural depicting him in a golden silhouette and his brother in a dark red one. At a glance, you could see the brightness and warmth the gold figure brought, and the dread and power the red figure commanded. Something told him that he would not be the gold figure anymore.

  He didn't speak; he just held his wife's hand and waited for the day to be over.

  The emperor didn't wait long.

  Duri’s knuckles, white from clenching the arms of his throne, began to tremble. His eyes, fixed on some point beyond Valerian, burned with a cold fury. The kings, sensing the shift, leaned forward in their seats. A few glanced nervously at each other, while a few others, the ones with a history of rivalry with Valerian, wore faint, predatory smiles. The air grew thick with anticipation, and every eye in the room was fixed on the Emperor as he took a slow, deliberate breath. His voice, when it came, was a low growl of barely contained rage.

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  "Because of the Hammer family's crime against the empire, I now condemn you both to death."

  A collective gasp ripped through the hall. One king's hand flew to his mouth; another's eyes widened in genuine shock, a flicker of fear crossing his face. A low hum of murmurs started to ripple through the chamber as they processed the severity of the sentence.

  Then, just as suddenly, Duri’s expression changed. The raw fury receded, replaced by a strained, forced composure. His jaw worked, and he exhaled slowly, as if releasing a physical weight. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy and formal, the tone of a monarch, not a brother.

  "However, given all of your contributions to the empire, you have been released from the death penalty. Everyone knows that we both contributed to the development of this magnificent empire of ten kingdoms, but after the incident caused by your family, it is clear that we cannot coexist under one roof. I am not an unjust man. This is our decision. Hammerhead will be relocated to Twin Peak, and the area of Twin Peak and beyond the wall now belongs to King Valerian. The empire will relinquish all rights to the aforementioned areas. My brother, he has the authority to rule as he sees fit."

  Valerian heard the judgment, and his eyes widened. For a minute, he heard nothing but the sound of his heart, which was bleeding at the betrayal of his beloved brother, sworn by blood. His ears were ringing as if they were trying to cancel out the judgment he had just received.

  He remained silent, zoning out, but others did not; they protested the proposal because the territory from Twin Peak was known as the Cursed Lands, where monsters and demons lived. It was the final resting place of the powerful demon Yama. People could no longer dwell there after all ten dungeons were broken, and the region became plagued with high-ranked monsters and demons. A massive wall was built alongside Twin Peak to keep monsters from infiltrating the rest of the land.

  Orion and the sovereign had erected the wall themselves; they were the two individuals who had defeated Demon Yama and imprisoned his body in the cursed realm.

  Everyone abandoned this land, and because it was part of Duri's dominion, no one objected when he claimed it. Duri had acquired the land for three reasons: the monsters coming out of Twin Peak were growing weaker, and his champions were powerful enough to keep them in order. Second, the Cursed Lands stretched over 60,000 kilometers, and claiming them would make his empire appear larger than the other three. Finally, by addressing a problem that had once been handled by all three empires together, he would demonstrate that his empire was as strong as the others.

  The main portion of the Cursed Lands was contained by the Wall of Orion and the Sovereign, but the monsters' corrupted magic had seeped through the barrier, infecting the surrounding forests. These blighted woodlands, a territory more than three times the size of the Cursed Lands themselves, were situated in the heart of the continent and belonged to the other three empires. Now plagued by a new breed of rampant, forest-dwelling demons, these empires were too preoccupied with their own crisis to object to Duri’s claim. They were, in fact, relieved to have the problem of the Cursed Lands taken off their hands. Seeing no merit in holding a territory that was now a constant drain on their resources, they signed a treaty confirming the land mass of the Crimson Empire, which now included the Cursed Lands.

  The crowd was getting haywire, and a light press from his wife's hand brought Valerian back to reality. He heard one of the kings exclaim, "But, Great King, that is the Cursed Lands! How can you possibly expect your brother to..."

  "Shut up! The emperor ordered with authority.”This area was cursed long before our empire was formed or have you all forgotton how it was infected by the daemons of cursed lands and how I alone expelled it. This land is fertile and habitable because of my efforts," the emperor said out loud, but even his own conscience started to question him. The truth was that his brother had played a vital role in subjugating the monster breaks, in establishing a safe haven, and in mending ties with the abandoned kingdoms—or rather, small human settlements. It was his might and his brother's cunning that had formed the foundation of the Crimson Empire and, by extension, the ten kingdoms that were once ruined villages. It was Valerian who had created the arcane formations that drew mana from the earth, and it was his formations that had held back the encroaching corruption. His cunning and his brother's strength had turned abandoned villages into the ten kingdoms of the Crimson Empire. His heart sank as he looked at the mural. I am sorry, brother, but I don’t want to lose this empire that we painstakingly built, he thought.

  Valerian’s gaze shifted to the other kings, and he understood. They didn't object because the Cursed Lands were a problem they no longer cared to solve. A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched the lips of the king from the neighboring empire, the one plagued by the new forest demons. To him, the Cursed Lands were a worthless territory—the monsters were too few and too weak to provide any glory or valuable monster materials. They had abandoned their claims not out of benevolence, but out of a loss of interest.

  And the Empress Armada… Valerian’s eyes met hers. He saw the cold glint in her eyes and knew. She had the backing of Orion. She had secured their silence, making their feigned politeness a simple matter of political survival. The kings chose to save face rather than risk a powerful enemy for a land they no longer valued.

  "Haaaa... haaaaa..." Valerian laughed, a subtle, feeble sound. “Fine, brother… I accept. From this day, I am no longer your golden shadow. I am the King of the Cursed Lands.”he declared. He didn't just speak the words; he forged a new destiny with them. The old, golden-silhouetted Valerian was dead, and in his place stood a king born of curses.