Chapter 8: THE PRINCE OF SOLIS
665 Words
While the screams of the Aethel-Guards still echoed in the Iron Mountains, another kind of silence fell over the borderlands of Solis.
Prince Gildas rode at the head of a small, elite scouting party. He was a man of Imperial Family status, but his heart was heavy with the weight of the lie he had told his father, the King. He had reported that Helios was dead, yet he spent every waking hour searching for the woman he had seen in the Willow Grove.
"Highness, the tracks end at the Silver Falls," Marek reported, his breath frosting in the cold mountain air. "No one could survive that descent."
"She survived," Gildas muttered, his eyes scanning the treeline. He knew the Brave spirit of the people who lived in the shadows of the Valerian Empire.
The Encounter at the Falls
They found her huddled beneath a rocky overhang, her clothes torn by briars and her hands stained with the dark earth of the mountains. Yuna was barely conscious, her body shivering with a fever that threatened to take her. Even in her delirium, her hand remained clamped shut around the golden signet ring Helios had given her.
Gildas dismounted, his heavy cloak snapping in the wind. He knelt beside her, his Stoic expression softening into something like grief.
"Is... is he..." Yuna’s voice was a ghost of a sound.
"He was captured, Yuna," Gildas said, his voice dropping so the other guards couldn't hear. "The Valerians... they took him. He is alive, but he is a prisoner of the Emperor."
Yuna let out a broken sob, her strength finally failing. She collapsed against Gildas’s armored chest. In that moment, the Prince of Solis made a choice that would define the next two decades. He saw the way she protected her stomach, the Mystery of the life growing within her.
"Marek!" Gildas barked, standing up with Yuna in his arms. "Prepare a closed carriage. We return to the palace immediately."
"Highness? A tribal girl in the palace?" Marek looked confused. "The King will ask questions."
"She is not a tribal girl," Gildas lied, his voice regaining its Powerful authority. "She is the daughter of a fallen nobleman from the northern territories. She has been under my protection. See that the servants know nothing else."
The Vow of Solis
Back within the high, gilded walls of the Solis Palace, Yuna was hidden away in the eastern wing—a place of Wealthy Family luxury that felt like a prison.
Months passed in a blur of silk and secrets. Gildas visited her often, his Loyal nature torn between his duty to his kingdom and his promise to a man the world thought was dead. He watched as Yuna’s spirit slowly returned, though she remained a Mystery to the rest of the court.
One night, as a violent thunderstorm rattled the palace windows, the cry of a newborn broke the silence of the eastern wing.
Gildas stood outside the doors, his hand on his sword hilt. When the mid-wife finally emerged, she was pale. "A boy, Highness. But... his eyes. They are the color of the dawn sun."
Gildas entered the room. Yuna lay exhausted, holding a tiny bundle wrapped in the finest Solis linen. She looked up at the Prince, her eyes filled with a Filial Piety for the man who was not the father, but was now the protector.
"His name is Zoran," she whispered.
Gildas looked down at the infant. He saw the Genius and the potential for Powerful change in those golden eyes. He knew that from this day forward, he would be raising a Prince who was an Orphan of a dead empire, a boy who the world would see as a Loser or a ward, but who carried the blood of the Sun-Bird.
"He will be my son in the eyes of the court," Gildas vowed, his voice a Serious oath. "And one day, he will be the King that Helios could not be."
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