Fate of Fateless

The Sky Journey to the Capital

The day after the child's birth, the skies over Duke Hepton's estate opened—not with storm or fire, but with the soft shimmering of ancient enchantments being awakened.

A fleet of skyborne carriages—sleek, rune-etched, and veiled in flowing banners of Hepton gold—rose silently from the estate's floating docks. Griffon-winged constructs pulled them, each guided by knights in ceremonial armor.

In the lead carriage, sat Lady Seraphina, cradling the child who had silenced the world.

Her eyes were hollow from pain, but her posture was still that of an imperial daughter.

She had chosen not to rest.

Not to delay.

Not when a question greater than fear loomed in her chest.

Beside her, ancient protective talismans hummed. The very air bent around the infant in her arms, as if reality still did not know how to accommodate his presence

And trailing behind her, thirty aerial knights from the House of Hepton rode in formation—every last one sworn to die before letting harm near her or the child again.

Meanwhile, In the Vault of Secrets

Back at the Hepton estate, Duke Hepton—still reeling from what he had sensed in his son—descended into the ancestral vault beneath the old mountain.

The stone doors opened only for the blood of the ruling duke. No servant dared follow him.

Here were kept not weapons, but truths unspoken—sealed relics of knowledge, scrolls wrapped in time-laced chains, and the shattered remains of divinations never meant to succeed.

He passed through layers of temporal resistance. Visions from past dukes flickered beside him, whispering caution.

And then—on the eleventh tier—he found a scroll sealed with black wax bearing the emblem of a serpent swallowing its tail.

A relic of the time when the Empire was not yet the master of the world… and when gods still walked in shadow.

His hands trembled as he unsealed it.

The scroll spoke not of a name—but of a concept.

A birth that defied prophecy.

A soul cloaked in absence.

A child of contradiction, fated to either remake the stars… or erase their purpose.

A prophecy

The Duke closed the scroll, eyes darkening.

> "So it's begun again…"

Arrival at the Imperial City

Back in the skies, Seraphina's caravan began descending toward the capital as the sun neared its zenith.

The Imperial Guard spotted the banners long before they arrived, and rushed to formation around the Celestial Gate—the highest entrance reserved for divine messengers and blood kin.

As the carriages touched down upon the skyplate, a shock ran through the guarding knights.

They had heard no summons.

There was no heralding.

No announcement from the House of Hepton had been made.

Yet here was the Emperor's daughter, surrounded by twenty knights and carrying an unknown child whose very aura disrupted their formation wards.

The Guard Captain stepped forward, saluting rigidly.

"Princess Seraphina… forgive me, but you arrive without notice. The Emperor is—"

"He'll see me." She raised her eyes, fierce and unwavering. "Tell him… I bring the only answer he's been too afraid to ask."

And with that, she passed them, her child in her arms, as the Imperial Palace itself seemed to hold its breath.