When The Sun Bleeds

The Coldest Place in the Palace

The Eastern Wing of the Imperial Palace was unlike the rest.

Unlike the grand halls of gold and marble, this place was silent, its corridors lined with faded tapestries and cold stone floors. There were no grand chandeliers, no intricate carvings, no signs of warmth or life.

And within its heart, hidden behind iron-bound doors, was a room that no one dared to enter unless absolutely necessary.

Inside, a child sat on the floor.

His hands were small.. too small to grasp the weight of his fate.. but they clenched the fabric of his cloak tightly. His silver-white hair, a rare trait of the Imperial bloodline, was messy and unkempt. His golden eyes, a mirror of the Emperor's, held a dull glow in the dim torchlight.

This was Kaelion Velmoria, the cursed prince.

The boy no one dared to love.

He was four years old.

And today, like every day, he was alone

Kaelion had learned something about the world.

It whispered.

It whispered behind his back, in the corridors, in the gardens he was forbidden to walk.

It whispered when the servants thought he could not hear.

"That cursed child…"

"Born under the Blood Eclipse… nothing but misfortune."

"Even the Emperor refuses to see him."

He had never spoken to his father. Not even once. He did not know what his voice sounded like.

Once, when he was younger, he had tried. He had wandered past his chambers, past the golden doors that separated him from the rest of the palace.

"Your Majesty… your son—"

The servant had barely finished speaking before the Emperor's cold voice rang through the hall.

"Take him away."

Kaelion had not stepped past those doors again.

The palace of Velmoria stood high above the city, a fortress of power and control. Its marble towers gleamed under the sun, but beneath its grandeur, shadows festered whispers of fate, omens, and fear surrounded the child born under the blood-red eclipse.

Kaelion had spent his earliest years in isolation, locked away in the palace depths. Servants avoided his gaze, and nobles spoke of him in hushed tones, as if merely acknowledging him would invite ruin.

One Night

A woman, dressed in palace robes, knelt before him and spoke in a voice soft as silk.

"Your Highness, the Emperor wishes to see you."

His golden eyes widened. His father?

The Emperor had never once spoken to him directly.

Kaelion hesitated, his small hands clenching the fabric of his tunic. But the hope the desperate desire to be acknowledged was stronger than fear.

So he followed.

The woman led him through winding halls, past courtyards where moonlight kissed the stone, and up a towering staircase he had never climbed before.

But when the doors opened, it was not the throne room.

It was a balcony at the edge of the palace.

And waiting there were three men in noble attire, their faces masked, their voices cold.

"The cursed prince walks freely tonight."

"Let's correct this mistake."

Kaelion barely had time to react before strong hands seized him.

He struggled small, weak, helpless but their grips were firm.

And then..

They threw him over the edge.

The world tilted.

The wind screamed in his ears as he plummeted through darkness. The towering walls of the noble district blurred past him, the golden lights of the palace shrinking, fading—

And then—

Crash!

Glass shattered as he broke through a rooftop, tumbling into a world he had never seen before.

The Lawless Quarter.

Where the forsaken, the criminals, the damned roamed freely.

Where Velmoria's discarded souls gathered.

Where he would come to understand true suffering.