Aurelius_Vesper

When The Sun Bleeds

The sky wept in crimson. A deep, unnatural red bled across the heavens, drowning Velmoria’s golden sunrise in an eerie, suffocating glow. The air was thick with an unshakable stillness, as if the world itself held its breath. Crowds gathered in the city streets, heads tilted upward in fearful awe at the sight of the blood-red eclipse—a celestial event unseen in Velmoria’s long history. In the heart of the empire, within the grand halls of the Imperial Palace, the echoes of a woman’s anguished cries shattered the silence. The Empress was in labor. Nobles and servants alike stood frozen in the corridors, their hands clenched in prayer, their faces pale with worry. For hours, her screams had filled the palace, each one weaker than the last. The royal physicians worked desperately, but the Empress—Velmoria’s radiant star, beloved by all—was fading. And then, silence. The heavy stillness that followed was more terrifying than her screams. A single cry pierced the air—the wail of a newborn. The moment the child took his first breath, the doors to the birthing chamber burst open, and a cloaked figure stumbled forward—an old seer, his eyes wide with horror. He raised a trembling hand toward the heavens, his voice cracking like brittle parchment. "The sun has bled to mark his birth!" he cried. "He will be the harbinger of ruin—the flames that will consume Velmoria!" His voice carried through the halls, past the nobles, past the gathered guards—out into the city, where the terrified people turned their eyes away from the red eclipse and toward the palace. A prince had been born. A cursed prince.