We Are All Drawn to What's Broken & Beautiful

The Psuedo Beginning

            

Before we go on with Alec's journey, every story should always start from the beginning, so as our beloved prince sleeps, I will tell you his tale.

As with every good story, it begins with once upon a time.

Once upon a time, there was a prince. From the moment he was born, his parents knew him to be cursed. A great storm besieged the castle at the hour of his birth and when he cried his sound into the night, all the fires in the hearth went out. The servants cowered and hid in their rooms as the queen took the child upon her chest to feed him.

His eyes glowed like coals, golden in the candlelight, his pupils slitted like a cat's.

The queen was afraid, but he was her son. So she laid him upon her breast and fed him, and when they called his father, the king into the room, he named him.

He scared the servants, with his golden eyes. Wherever he went, destruction was soon to follow. He did not have many friends, the other children too afraid to come close. Despite that, despite his strange eyes, his parents loved him. They raised him as well as they could, until the day they died.

They died together, in a dreadful accident on their way home from a ball. There was an attack, a case of mistaken identity, and all of a sudden, the prince found himself all alone in the world.

The kingdom was struck by an epidemic shortly after their deaths, killing most of the townsfolk and the ones who survived fled. A storm ravaged the fields, stripping all value from the lands. Servants packed their bags and left, leaving behind a very young, very lonely prince.

Though they called him devil touched, the people dared not touch him. They would have burned him, were they not so afraid of being killed first. So they left, binding the gates of the castle with iron chains when the last servant was gone.

A forest sprung up around the castle when the commonfolk left, thick and dense, seemingly out of nowhere. Heavy fog descended upon the land, making it even harder for travelers to find the castle.

The prince remained in that castle, learning to survive on his own. He learnt to cook and clean, and to wash his clothes, for he had no desire to step out into the world. For cursed as he was, the prince had a good heart. He did not wish to unleash his curse upon the world, and remained locked up away, by choice, in his hidden castle, away from the rest of civilization.

His story became legend, a fairytale told to small children, and because his castle was never found, no one knew the truth.

Until the night of his eighteenth birthday, the prince lived alone. He chose a new name, a new self, for his old one bore the memories of his parents and his old life.

Magnus Bane was used to living alone. He had no choice, unless he wished to bring devastation to the world outside. He no longer kept count of his birthdays, wishing the days to pass as quickly as possible. He dug through the books in his parents' library, every minute of every day devoted to finding a way to break his god forsaken curse.

But the answer came to him on its own, in the form of an enchantress, Camille Belcourt. She was beautiful and cunning, and Magnus fell, hard and fast. She was the light of his life and he was the happiest he had ever been.

They laid together and the prince thought he had found the one thing that he had craved ever since his parents' death. He thought they had forever together, until she shattered him, breaking his fragile heart into a million pieces.

She whispered the answer to his curse into his ear when she left him, painted lips curved into a cruel smile.

If he could love anyone after her and be loved in return, the spell would be broken. If he could not, he would belong to her, body, heart and soul.

It was a purposeful act. She had broken him, broken him in such a terrible form that she was sure he would never love again. And he did not.

Magnus shut himself off completely, and It looked as if he would die of a broken heart if it were not for an accidental encounter. Ragnor Fell and Catarina Loss had only been trying to find their way to the nearest town.

But the fog was thick and dense, and there was magic in the air. As if the universe was trying to give the prince a little kindness, they stumbled upon the castle, and stayed for good.

And that is where the story truly begins.