The Prince of Shadows

Long ago, in the golden kingdom of Elessar, there lived a prince named Thalen-brave, compassionate, and beloved by all. With eyes like stormy skies and a heart full of fire, he was destined to inherit a peaceful realm. But peace, as fate often shows, is a fragile thing.

During the winter of his seventeenth year, a sorceress came to the royal court in disguise. Her name was Varithra, a powerful woman whose sister had once been banished from Elessar for practicing dark magic. Hidden beneath velvet cloaks and veils, Varithra approached Prince Thalen with a smile that never reached her eyes.

“I bring you a gift,” she said, presenting a silver pendant etched with ancient runes. “A charm of protection for the kingdom’s future.”

Grateful and unaware of the danger, Thalen accepted the gift. The moment he fastened the pendant around his neck, he vanished.

In his place stood a shadow.

No body. No voice. Only a shape, dark and flickering like candlelight on stone, with no means to speak, no way to touch or be touched. The pendant clattered to the floor, cold as death.

Varithra’s laugh rang through the court like shattered glass. “He shall remain a shade in the light,” she declared, “until someone speaks his true name—not ‘Thalen,’ but the name his soul was born with. And who among you knows it?”

The court erupted in chaos. The king’s magicians tried every spell. The queen wept for days. But no one-not even Thalen’s parents-knew the soul-name whispered by the stars when he was born.

Years passed. Elessar faded into gloom. The shadow of the prince moved through the castle halls, silent, formless, forgotten by many.

But not by all.

In the village of Brinmere, far from the marble towers of Elessar’s capital, lived a young girl named Liora. She was a weaver’s apprentice, raised on stories of the lost prince. Her grandmother, once a court herbalist, had escaped Varithra’s wrath and told Liora tales of Thalen’s kindness.

“His soul-name was whispered only once,” her grandmother said, “just after his birth, by the Oracle of Glenfall. But the scroll was burned in the great fire. All that remains are dreams.”

Liora, curious and clever, began to dream of the shadow.

Each night, she saw the same figure-dark but gentle, hovering near stone walls and moonlit windows. She never heard his voice, but felt his longing, his sadness, and something else: a faint call, like wind pressing against the back of her mind.

One morning, she awoke with a word on her lips: Aurelian.

It was not a name she had ever heard. And yet it glowed in her chest like fire.

Drawn by an invisible thread, Liora set out for Elessar.

The journey was long and wild. She crossed icy rivers and dense forests, facing wolves and storms. All the while, the name Aurelian pulsed through her thoughts. She arrived at the castle gate with muddy boots and a worn satchel, ignored by most until an old knight recognized her grandmother’s crest sewn into her cloak.

He brought her before the royal council, now aged and sorrowful. When she asked to see the shadow, they laughed.

“The prince has not shown himself in years,” one grumbled.

But a whisper curled through the hall like smoke. And then, a shape detached from the wall near the throne-tall, quiet, and familiar to Liora.

The shadow.

She stepped closer. It did not move, but she felt it-hope. Recognition. The flicker of light in utter darkness.

Liora took a deep breath and spoke the name: “Aurelian.”

A wind rushed through the hall.

Light exploded from the shadow. The glass windows trembled. The air hummed with ancient magic as the figure slowly became whole-flesh returning, skin glowing, eyes wide and stunned.

Prince Thalen stood before them, no longer shadow, but man.

Gasps echoed as he blinked in the light, tears brimming. He stepped forward and touched his own hand as if to test reality. Then he looked at Liora.

“You spoke my soul’s name,” he said softly.

She nodded. “I saw you in dreams. I knew.”

The court knelt.

Aurelian-Thalen-turned to them. “No longer Thalen,” he said. “I have walked in silence, seen what others do not. I will rule not as a shadow, but as one who knows what it means to be forgotten.”

Varithra, long vanished into exile, was never seen again.

Liora became a friend to the court, and later, its royal advisor. Some say the prince loved her from the first time she spoke his true name. Others say they ruled together, united not by duty, but by something deeper: understanding, and the unspoken thread that connects one soul to another.

And every hundred years, when the stars aligned as they had the night Thalen was born, the Oracle of Glenfall whispered new names into the winds—for those who listened with their hearts.