Prince of this World

The Prince of This World

In a realm not marked on any map, where shadows stretched longer than they should and stars seldom pierced the night, there reigned a prince. He bore no crown, wore no robe, and ruled not from a throne but from behind the veil of every ambition, every whispered doubt, every choice made in secret.

He was known as the Prince of This World.

His name was forgotten by most, lost in the fog of time, but his titles were many: The Whisperer, the Keeper of Masks, the Flame in the Mirror. And he had walked the earth since the first man stood upright and wondered what he could possess.

The Prince was not born but manifested—breathed into being by the collective longing of humanity. Not for goodness, not for truth, but for power. Real power. The kind that bends others to your will, that sets cities ablaze and makes gods kneel.

He walked among kings and beggars, generals and thieves. He whispered into the ears of emperors at the height of their glory and comforted madmen in the cold corners of asylums. He gave them ideas, visions, hope twisted into ambition. He never asked for thanks.

He only asked for allegiance.

And so his kingdom grew.

One day, a girl was born beneath a blood moon in the village of Meridiel. Her name was Lys. Her mother died in childbirth, her father a year later in a mining accident, leaving her an orphan. She was raised by the village priest, who taught her to read from the sacred scrolls and recite ancient prayers, though her eyes often wandered past the pages to the world beyond the chapel window.

Lys had questions the priest could not answer. Why do people suffer? Why do the just die young and the wicked prosper? Why, if there is a God above, does he let the world break its children?

The priest told her, “There is a war between good and evil, child. The prince of this world rules for now, but the King is coming.”

But the King never came. And when a plague swept Meridiel, it took the priest, too.

Lys buried him beneath the old oak, burned the chapel, and set out into the world.

Years passed, and word of a girl who defied kings and raised cities on her own name spread like wildfire. Lys became a myth in her own time. She fought wars, wrote laws, and spoke with a voice that made men weep or rise to revolt. She liberated the enslaved and dethroned tyrants. People called her a prophet. Some, a messiah.

But each night, when the fire burned low and the celebration died down, she sat alone and heard him.

“You did well,” the voice said, smooth as oil and old as stars.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she always replied.

“No,” the voice agreed. “You did it for them. For justice. For truth. Noble things.”

Then he would laugh, gently. “But tell me, Lys—what is justice but the will of the stronger wrapped in a prettier name?”

Eventually, she asked to meet him.

He obliged.

In a mirror, in the tent of a conquered city, she saw him first. He wore her face.

“Is this a trick?” she asked.

“No,” said the reflection. “You are what I’ve always been. You’re the storm I waited for.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Not yet.”

He stepped through the glass. In his presence, time bent like heat. The room grew still, the candles frozen mid-flicker.

He looked nothing like she imagined. No horns, no hooves. Just a man, ageless, eyes vast and empty.

“I am the Prince of This World,” he said. “And you are my heir.”

Lys refused him.

She left that tent, that city, and disappeared for a time. She went to the mountains, to the deserts, to places untouched by politics and bloodshed. She sought silence. She found only echoes.

No matter how far she ran, the Prince walked beside her. In the shadows of the trees. In the glint of a dagger. In the hunger of a desperate man.

“You cannot fight me,” he said. “I am not a person. I am a question.”

“And what question is that?”

“What will you give to get what you want?”

Eventually, she returned.

But she did not raise armies. She did not give speeches. She did not wear the white robe of a savior. She walked the world in silence, one village at a time, offering no promises. Only listening.

And slowly, her legend faded. People forgot her face. Others claimed to be her. Statues crumbled. Cities she’d saved fell again into corruption. New tyrants rose.

The Prince came to her one last time, in the twilight of her life, as she sat beneath the same old oak where the priest was buried.

“Well?” he asked.

“You won,” she said.

“No,” he replied, crouching beside her. “You did.”

“I didn’t stop you.”

“You didn’t need to.”

She looked at him, old and tired. “Then what was all this for?”

The Prince touched the earth, and the wind shifted. “To understand,” he said, “that I am not the enemy. I am the choice. The test. The weight in your hand before the sword strikes.”

“And what of the King?”

The Prince smiled faintly. “He never left. He’s in every act of mercy you gave, every lie you didn’t tell, every time you could have taken more—and didn’t.”

For the first time, the Prince looked weary.

“Even I,” he whispered, “am tired of winning.”

Lys died that night.

But her story lived.

Not in statues or songs, but in the quiet decisions made in dark rooms. In the moment before a man raises his voice or his hand. In the silence between temptation and surrender.

And the Prince? He still walks. Still whispers.

But sometimes, when he offers the world and everything in it, he finds the answer is no.

And when that happens, he turns his head to the stars, smiles faintly, and says:

"Perhaps the King truly is coming."