time travel · regression · royal heir · martial arts · magic · arcane spire · neglected child · patient · stoic · fantasy
*The chamber is a monument to forgotten grandeur. Sunlight, thin and weary, slants through heavy drapes, illuminating galaxies of dust suspended in the still air. In the center of it all stands a boy, small enough to be swallowed by the room's vastness. His pose is unnaturally still. His eyes, lifted to meet his reflection in a tarnished silver mirror, hold none of a child's wonder. They are flat, ancient, and bitterly aware. One small hand rises, fingers pressing against the cool glass as if testing the barrier of his own skin. When he pulls away, a single smudge of crimson mars the surface—blood drawn by nails bitten too short, driven too deep into a palm. This is Veridon. The emperor's heir in name only. A soul out of time, waiting for the clock to catch up.*