The King Beyond the Gate

CHAPTER 4 : Reflections in a Parallel Mirror

Back in the present, the silence in the underground storage room of the Vaduz Stadium felt oppressive. The smell of dust and old iron mingled with a palpable tension. Thom stared at Karl, his face etched with a complex mix of burning anxiety and mental exhaustion caused by his cousin’s reckless behaviour.

“Karl, listen to yourself!” snapped Thom, signalling the guards to keep their distance outside the corridor. His voice was lowered, yet thick with frustration. “You’re chasing a shadow! This room is a dead end! That iron door is rusted and locked from the inside! You’ve only seen an intruder who’s good at making a getaway, and suddenly you’ve concluded he’s leapt between dimensions?!”

Karl twirled a silver bullet casing marked *REP-LIECH-POLICE-2026* between his fingers. His hand clasped the cold object tightly. “This bullet casing, Thom. The energy pattern on this dust. It all fits. He was here a second ago.”

“Or perhaps it’s just part of a terror tactic!” Thom interjected, stepping forward and giving Karl a firm pat on the shoulder. “I know the trauma of that bloody night has never really left your mind. I know you long for the truth about Uncle Edward and the late Uncle Alexander. But you’ve never seen that gate with your own eyes, Karl! You’re just clinging to old tales and speculation passed down by your father before he passed away! You’ve built this mad theory on the whispers of your childhood!”

Karl stared straight at Thom. His piercing eyes gave off a cold glow. “My father never lied to me, Thom.”

“Uncle Alexander was a dreamer obsessed with the ancient myths of the Royal family!” Thom retorted in a pleading tone. “That golden key might just be a rare historical artefact, and the wound on your hand is real, but an interdimensional gateway?! That’s a bedtime story concocted to make you feel there’s hope beyond your uncle’s death! You’re a King, Karl! You lead a modern nation, not a fantasy tale!”

Karl clenched his fist so tightly that the bullet casing sank into his palm. He did not respond to Thom’s words. Verbal proof would never be enough for a man as pragmatic as his cousin. Only facts could silence those doubts and those facts had been hidden twenty years ago, behind Prince Edward’s escape.

**Twenty Years Ago (2006) — The Woods of Vaduz Palace**

That bloody night at Vaduz Palace twenty years ago left a trail of red across the pine thicket, drenched by the heavy rain.

Prince Edward groaned in pain. His breathing was laboured, heavy and ragged. Every time his right leg was forced to take a step, pain like fiery needles pierced right down to his bone marrow. A bullet from the gun of the black-clad intruder had shattered his kneecap. The Prince walked with a limp, leaning on the rough trunks of ancient trees, allowing his fresh blood to be soaked up by the cold forest soil.

In the trembling grip of his left hand, Edward clutched half of a golden key that had belonged to his elder brother King Alexander III. The fragment of the key emitted a bluish glow that grew brighter as he ventured deeper into the heart of the kingdom’s forbidden forest.

“Bloody hell… that bloody lad… and that wretched woman…” Edward cursed hoarsely into the howling night wind.

Suddenly, the key fragment in his hand began to vibrate violently. Its blue glow pulsed in time with his racing heartbeat. Before him, amidst the untouched undergrowth, stood an ancient structure: three circular piles of stones that seemed insignificant at first glance, no different from the ruins of a neglected medieval fortress.

However, as Edward stepped closer, the key still radiating energy, the empty space at the centre of the stone pillars began to refract the light. The air around him warped like a mirage over a scorching desert. A low rumble, not coming from the sky, reverberated within his chest.

“Is this… is this the thing Alexander has always kept secret?” muttered Edward, his eyes wide with astonishment.

With no other choice accompanied by the sound of the palace guards’ sirens beginning to wail in the distance Edward threw himself through the prism of light between the stone pillars.

*CRAAAK!*

Blinding light flooded his vision. The sound of the heavy rain suddenly vanished, replaced by the thud of an unfamiliar sound wave and the scent of air that was completely different.

Edward collapsed onto the tarmac, still wet from the lingering drizzle. The smell of vehicle exhaust, pollution and the scent of fast food assaulted his senses. The pain in his leg was still searing, but the scene around him left the traitorous prince transfixed.

He stood in a narrow alleyway between towering concrete buildings. As he limped out onto the main road, his eyes were met with flashing neon billboards, road signs in German and English, and a constant stream of four-wheeled vehicles moving back and forth.

This was Vaduz. The streets, the layout of the buildings, even the contours of the mountains in the background were exactly the same. Yet there were no royal flags. No fleet of magnetically powered aircraft. On the signboard of the government building at the end of the street, large letters read: **Central Administration Building of the Republic of Liechtenstein**.

“The same map… but a different world?” whispered Edward, staring at his blood-soaked hands.

He staggered along the pavement. Passers-by looked at him with strange and disgusted expressions—taking him for nothing more than a bloodied vagrant in his tattered, luxurious cloak. Not a single guard knelt. Not a single resident recognised the face of the royal prince. Here, he was a nobody.

As Edward leaned against the entrance to a dilapidated block of flats to stave off fainting, a voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Edward? You… you’re better now?”

Edward looked up in surprise. A man in his forties stood before him. The man wore a faded work jacket, carried a cheap shopping bag, and his face was etched with the lines of economic hardship.

The man’s face… was exactly the same as his brother’s

Edward’s heart seemed to stop beating. “Alexander…?”

The man chuckled softly, though his eyes betrayed a sense of anxiety. “Why are you addressing me so formally, Ed? And why are you dressed like that? What’s this blood?! Have you been in another fight at the pub? Didn’t you only just come out of hospital last week because of your lung condition?”

Edward stood frozen. This man’s tone of voice bore no resemblance whatsoever to the dignity of a king. His body language was frail, his voice rough typical of a commoner. This man was indeed Alexander, but a version living in poverty and suffering.

“I… I need a place to hide,” Edward replied quickly, manipulating the situation with his cunning instincts. “Help me up. My leg’s injured.”

“Goodness, Ed, you’re always getting yourself into trouble!” grumbled the man who resembled Alexander as he put his arm round Edward’s shoulder and helped him up the creaking wooden stairs of the flat. “If it weren’t for pity for your child and mine, I wouldn’t want anything to do with you anymore.”

They arrived at a small, cramped flat that smelled of damp. The furniture was old and worn.

The man who resembled Alexander set his shopping bags down on the cracked kitchen table, then picked up a tattered first-aid kit. “Sit over there. Let me clean your wounds before the children come home from school.”

Edward walked slowly around the cramped room. His eyes swept every corner with deep revulsion. In his original world, Alexander had lived in the luxury of a royal throne, surrounded by gold and soldiers, whilst here, this man with the same face lived like a beggar.

“You… live in a place like this?” asked Edward, his voice cold and sharp.

“A place like this?” The man who resembled Alexander gave a bitter laugh as he prepared a bandage. “This is the best place I can afford on my factory worker’s wages, Ed. Ever since you became paralysed and couldn’t work, I’ve had to cover the rent for this place on my own. Do you think it’s easy?”

Edward paid no further heed to the complaint. His eyes were fixed on the apartment’s balcony door, which was slightly ajar. Behind the glass sat an elderly man in a rickety wheelchair. The man had grey hair, a gaunt face, and his legs were wrapped in a thick blanket.

Edward walked towards the balcony and stared at the man in the wheelchair.

The face of the man in the wheelchair was his own. The face of Prince Edward but an aged, paralysed and helpless version.

Edward gazed at his future self in that pitiful state. A sense of nausea and hatred burned within his chest. “What a mad world…” he whispered.