Prologue

“If you walk out that gate, do not return.”

The Duke’s voice rang through the marble hall, low and sharp like a blade unsheathed.

Orpheus didn’t flinch. His hand tightened around the fingers of the woman beside him — a commoner in simple wool, her eyes filled with quiet strength.

“I never asked for much,” Orpheus said softly. “Only for your blessing.”

The Duke’s silence answered louder than words.

So Orpheus turned his back to the palace, to the royal crest etched above the doors, and to the man who once called him son. Snow fell lightly over the capital as the pair disappeared into the crowd — no guard, no farewell, only the steady clink of a sword at his hip and a silver pendant worn over his chest.

The pendant bore the crest of the royal family… and within it, the blood to prove it.

Sixteen winters passed.

The king, once a lion of a man, now sat sunken in his throne — bones wrapped in velvet and breath shallow with every cough.

Doctors came and went. Elixirs poured like water. Still, his daughters bore no sons.

And no heir.

Desperate, the king summoned his brother.

“You had a son,” he said through cracked lips.

“I did,” the Duke answered bitterly. “But he vanished. Sixteen years ago.”

“Then find him.”

The king’s voice broke. “Find Orpheus. Before I die, I want to know the crown will not rot on an empty head.”

A royal decree spread through the land like wildfire. Bounties were posted across the Adventurers’ Guild:

WANTED: Orpheus Fenrir

Son of Duke Durak. Bearer of royal blood. Missing 16 years.

Reward: 500 gold.

Hundreds searched. None returned with more than dead ends and guesswork.

Years passed again.

Then… a whisper.

A drunk mercenary in a tavern swore he’d heard stories — of remote villages hidden deep within the Wolfstein Mountains. Snow-covered and half-forgotten, where no guild chart dared tread.

“Perfect place to hide,” he slurred. “Close to the capital… but far enough to disappear.”

The tale passed from mouth to mouth, growing sharper with each retelling.

And eventually, it reached the right ears.

Two years after the decree, a small adventuring team — just four in number — began their ascent into the mountains.

They carried no certainty. Only a rumor. A glimmer. A desperate thread.

But what they found deep in the mountains …

Was not the man they were sent to retrieve.

Instead, they found a boy.

A boy with giant’s blood.

A pendant worn close to his heart.

A blind sister, scarred and silent.

And a dire wolf sitting by the fire.

They didn’t yet know it…

But they had found the heir.

Not the one they were paid to seek —

But the one fate had hidden away for sixteen long years.

A new legacy was about to begin.

And the knock at the door was only the first sound…

…in the storm to come.