The sun was now rising over the capital city of Lothara signaling a new day. Businesses opened, guards and soldiers swapped shifts, morning workers began their day, and the staff in the castle started their morning duties. A satyr maid walked down the hall towards joran’s bedroom with her hooves clopping against the floor. She was carrying a tray of breakfast for the prince to start his day with and a smile on her face as she saw interacting with the shy prince as the highlight of her day. She passed some guards who were marching in the opposite direction and gave them a nod before stopping outside joran’s room. She gave the door a light knock while balancing the tray on her free hand. “Prince joran? I have breakfast for you." There was a long moment of silence which caused her to be confused. Usually, the prince was awake due to his intense nightmares causing him to be right at the door waiting for her. “Prince joran? Are you well?” more silence. “I-i’m coming in just to make sure you’re ok.” She slowly opened the door and walked inside to find the bed empty. “Prince joran?” She placed the tray of food on the bed and hurried to the bathroom to find it empty as well. She began to become even more concerned. The entire time she has worked here Joran wouldn’t leave his room until he got breakfast.  He was shy but she could tell he enjoyed interacting with people when he could, and nobody could blame him considering how lonely he is.


    She left the room and began checking anywhere he could be from the training room to the library only to find him nowhere. She moved through the entire castle in minutes due to her goat half making her faster and more agile than the average human. Whenever she passed anyone, she would alert them that she couldn’t find the prince causing them to also begin searching. The entire castle was searched with no sign of the prince being found and thus they had to alert the king.


    The king was looking at a portrait of his wife hanging on the wall within his chambers while the morning sun shone through the window when there was a knock at his door. “Enter.” he said with a soft and deep tone as he rose to his feet. He turned to see the satyr maid enter nervously as he closed his nightly robe over his battle-scarred chest.


    “Ah. sara. Is something the matter? I believe I requested to be left alone until near noon unless it concerned…” he saw how Sara tensed as he was about to mention joran. “What is it?” “Your… your highness…. We have searched every inch of the castle and… and we can’t find the young prince…” the king was quiet and while his face was expressionless, he could feel something he hadn’t felt in many years: fear.


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    “Have the royal mages and the beastmen of the castle go to his room. They might be able to discern when he left and how far he may have gotten with their magic and his scent. I also want you to go to the relic room and fetch the dagger.” the satyre nodded and sped off to do just that. The king stood there then turned to look at the queen''s picture with a sad sigh. “My love…” His voice, so often a force of sheer command, was now but a whisper in the heavy silence. “…Our brave but foolish boy has left the palace.”


    The weight of those words settled over him like a shadow stretching across the room. His fingers twitched, fingers pressing faintly against his palms. He did not look away from the mural, but his expression hardened, shifting from grief to something else. Something darker. “And with him…” he murmured, voice lowering, “…he has introduced a threat greater than anything Orano has faced.”


    His golden eyes darkened, their glow dimming beneath the weight of the knowledge he alone carried along with everyone else in the castle. The world feared many things—slavers, warlords, kings who sought conquest. But the Dragon King feared something far worse, something that had no name, something that had already awoken once before.


    The darkness inside Joran.


    The thing that had seized his son the night his mother had died. The force that had consumed him, turned him into something beyond control, beyond reason. Joran had no memory of it, but the Dragon King did. He had witnessed it firsthand. The screams, the scent of burning flesh, the shattered bodies left in its wake. The boy had been barely more than a child, but even then, the sheer force of that presence had shaken the very foundations of the castle.


    The king inhaled slowly, deeply, willing the tension in his chest to subside. He turned away from the mural, back toward the great window, his eyes trailing over the shifting lights of the city below. Dawn was beginning to creep over the mountains in the distance, a pale light stretching its fingers through the darkness. Morning would soon arrive, and with it, the search for the prince would begin in full. But in his heart, the Dragon King already knew—they would not find him within the city walls. Too much time had passed. Joran was already beyond drakhalis, beyond the reach of his father’s protection.


    His hand tightened at his side. His voice, when it came again, was quieter than before, but no less firm. “He has a great heart. But no killer instinct.” His brow furrowed, a shadow passing over his face. “He tries to see the good in everyone… and yet, he carries darkness in his own.”


    His eyes flickered with something unreadable—an emotion caught between sorrow and unspoken dread. “He has stepped into a world he does not understand,” he whispered. Then, after a long, heavy pause, his voice dropped lower, filled with something dangerously close to mourning. “May the gods help me bring him home… before it’s too late.”