Dark fantasy digital painting of an armored king with a glowing sword, surrounded by ghostly figures and gravestones under a meteor-streaked sky.

Yes, he stood apart from it all, a wordless oddity... The visions in his dreams were thus, that he would hold aloft their prized blade and cleft the meteor in twain. saving the people momentarily, but in truth, damming them all to a doomed world devoid of all light. A land with no sun to warm it, and only a pretender of a king to blame... These nightmares would follow the pretender, the slave, now that he had stolen the sword of the late king. The blade was in truth, the gravestone of the first king of the nation. A king so committed to his people that he would serve them even in death, his ashes mixed into the towering obsidian construct when he was cremated... The pretender had been sealed inside the late monarch's tomb as was tradition for their property, and he had stolen the blade to break down the door which kept him imprisoned so... He was unworthy of the blade, not baring of the king's lineage, and thus the sword had robbed him of his voice. That privilege was only given to the wielders who were the king's direct descendants. How is a king to rule if he cannot command his subjects? Rally them to his cause, gather their courage, or allow them to retreat from battle... 'He' could not, for he was no such king... Every king of the nation was plagued by the same meteor in their every dream, now too the pretender suffered this curse. But, he would not put down the blade. It had won him his freedom, and had become irreplaceable... He needed no words now... words only See more