Prologue

The dimly lit bedroom gleamed as rays of light filtered into the room, shining and reflecting on the multiple mirrors, and marbles that glittered across the room. Portraits of past loved ones and great ancestors brightened underneath the rays as they passed through. Vases filled with the latest exotic plants from throughout the Kingdom slowly grew upright as light seeped into them.

...…. Vanity. All of it. He had done nothing to garner this grand departure. His sins were too great, he knew. He had earned many titles during his time. Liberator, Conqueror, the Beloved. All of them were sickly pale imitations of his ancestors. The true Conquerors and true liberators…. this game of intrigue and politics had been his for forty-eight years, and now it had caught up to him.

And yet, it felt like just yesterday when he had been a wide-eyed youngster, full of passion and energy, who was taken to power so easily. He had been naïve, and he had paid for that naiveté. Threats anew would start to plague everything that he had built.

"Father." Came the soft voice of his son. He was kneeling beside his bed, looking resolutely to the ground, not looking up, and not able to meet his own father's eyes. It was a great tragedy when father and son couldn't even meet one another's eyes when the father was at his deathbed.

"I am still your king." He rasped out. If his son didn't want to give him the last courtesies, then he wouldn't either. It was petty of him, but pettiness was useful, as a king he knew that. His son seemed startled before acquiescing. He swept his hand below his belly and murmured, "Of course, your majesty."

"The child?" He questioned softly. The child had been the linchpin to all of this after all.

"Disposed of." His son answered after a moment's hesitation. "He will not be a problem to our cause, your majesty. He is disappeared from this world of ours."

"It is a great sin we have committed to doing as such my son." He murmured, pausing to cough as he clenched his royal purple blanket as the pain coursed through him. "The Gods will look down upon me for this. I fear I have damned our lineage."

"We did what must have been done, Father." His son answered back as he leaned forward and sat beside his bed, stroking and massaging his tired legs. "Whatever sins we committed today and yesterday will, unfortunately, be inflicted on to us in the next life, but for now, we are safe, and that is the most paramount issue, is it not?"

He looked up, meeting his son's dark obsidian black eyes. His son did not flinch or turn around. He met him eye to eye. Perhaps he had taught his son well. Who knew? He turned around and sighed. "I have little time on this plane of living, my son. And my sins catch up to me. But I have done what I must for the family and the country. The child is dead?"

"Yes Father, he is." His son repeated softly.

"And his father? Your brother?"

"Banished to the Far South. He will not survive the ordeal. Within a few months, Father, I fear I will have to read about the death of my brother as well, as necessary as it was." The Prince answered calmly, with hidden hurt beneath his words.

It hurt of course. People asked how men and women could be so heartless in court politics. The truth was that no one was heartless, everyone felt, regardless of greed, ambition, and selfishness. Even the Dark One himself had felt something when he warred with the Gods. It hurt him specifically that his youngest son had to be sacrificed to keep his wider family and country safe. He wouldn't be able to berate his sons about their shaggy manes of hair, and he wouldn't be able to tease his daughters about catching the eyes of the handsome noblemen either. It hurt. Everything hurt in the end.

"And the boy's mother?" He rasped, gasping as another shot of pain coursed through him.

"Imprisoned in the remotest prison that our Kingdom has." His son answered, looking at the sizzling fireplace as the flames whipped around, as if in a trance. "She will never see the outside light ever again. She will be lucky to be alive within the next five years."

"Your mother would damn me for this, were she alive." He murmured underneath his breath. But his son was nothing if not attentive. He nodded, as a sad smile gathered on his face.

"I believe she would have disinherited me." His son smiled with a melancholic expression present on his face. "She would shout, and cry, and would not speak with either of us for days, even months on the end."

"I fear she would never talk to us if she ever knew about this." He murmured sadly. "And I will not even be able to meet her, explain myself to her. She will undoubtedly have been purified. I shall not be, as is evident."

His son's ashen face turned towards his hand. Within the palm of both father and son laid a glowing symbol. A scar that glowed ethereal purple. Within the blink of an eye, the scar twisted, and grew into a circle, signifying the Samsara of Rebirth.

"The Gods save your soul Vajra, for I fear my soul is already damned." He said sadly as he took his last breath. His hand crumpled to the side and was left hanging on the bed. His son turned to the side again, trying to hide tears that sprung upon his eyes. He took a gulp, patting his dead father, and stood up. He exited the room and looked around, as servants and aides eyed him with curiosity.

"My father is dead." He declared softly. "Gods Save the King!"

"Gods Save the King!" The servants repeated after him, bowing their heads in respect.

"I am now King. King Vajra, Fifth of My Name. And my first order as King is to give my father the appropriate last rites."

The servants bowed and got to work. The new king turned to the side, lost in his thoughts, thinking of the boy that his father had inquired so much about before he died. It was a done issue and one that would be forgotten into the wind. He would take the secret to his grave. He let a small tear fall to the ground before snapping his cloak and walking away.

Unbeknownst to the new king, leagues away, a being by the name of Dali had found a peculiar boy, a very peculiar boy lying on the side of a decrepit old orphanage. Taking him into his arms and cooing at the boy, Dali took the boy as his own.

Thus began the Legend of Vajrah.

***