The Tallest Tower

Prologue

Once years ago, there was a great king. This king ruled over his people with grace and kindness and for many years, all was well. However, like all good things this did not last as there were others who wanted the throne for themselves.

It all began with our kings great grandfather, the most revered King Gavin. Gavin was the most loved king to ever serve his people, and before his death he had two children, a daughter Claudia and a son Henry. Henry was set to take the throne after his father's death, but died himself of the same disease that inflicted his father. This left no male heir to the throne, as Claudia had as of yet to have a child. Gavin himself had only two sisters, one elder, one younger. The younger had died of influenza years before his own children were born and the elder was barren.

So it seemed the throne would pass to Claudia and her husband, where they would wait for her to give birth to a rightful male heir. This suited most people, as Claudia was a popular among the commoners for her kindness. However, this began the feud that would last a lifetime. Unknown to the royal family, before Henry had died he had sired a son with a commoner. This woman was not quite a peasant, but nor was she a noble.

This woman wanting her son to be provided for and have what was rightfully his took him to court, saying that he was next in line to receive the throne, not Claudia and her husband Ulric. This caused quite a stir and the royal council debated over this new development for thirty days, before deciding that the lineage of the child could not be proven and thus there was no way of ensuring that he was the son of the Prince Henry. In either case, the council hardly wanted a bastard child taking the throne.

Ulric and Claudia became rulers of the kingdom, waiting for Claudia to give birth to a child. Years passed and it seemed she was barren, unable to conceive child for all her trying. The people were in a flurry, there was no child to take the throne when the king and queen died.

It happened to be that Ulric had a son from his first wife, who died giving birth. This son was named Lewis, and Claudia loved him as if he were her own. In seeing there was no true heir and Claudia had adopted the boy—who was now a man—as her own, he was named next to be king.

This did not sit well with the family of the infamous lovechild of Prince Henry. The mother who was not a peasant or a noble, was in fact, something else entirely. She was a Fae who had been cast out of her own people as punishment. The crime she committed is not important, only that it left her twisted and bitter to be isolated so. She was a member of the high court among her own people. Henry was hardly the first royal she had seduced, nor the last, but he was the only one to make her with child.

The child of Henry's she named for his father. Being the enchantress she was, she easily secured a marriage to a noble and raised her son as if he were royalty. Years later when Henry the 2nd married, his wife gave birth to a son who he named Marcus. Henry the 2nd, being born with Fae blood was naturally a very strong sorcerer. However, he lacked the ruthless ambition to become king.

He fought against Lewis bitterly, but in the end he failed. He was unable to properly use his gifts, being the spoiled and sheltered creature he was. Ultimately he failed in his quest and died of a rare fever. This same fever would eventually kill the king Lewis as well, leaving his young son Ulric the 2nd the throne. The first years of his reign were peaceful, believing all threats to the throne to be gone.

Little did he know in this time, Marcus's grandmother, Nimue was teaching him the secrets of magic, harnessing him into a far stronger magician than his father ever was. It was with this magic that he threatened the kingdom, unless King Ulric the 2nd should hand him over the throne.

Ulric was a good king, and did not wish to inflict his people with such a ruler. However, he had little choice in the matter as Marcus threatened an all out war if he refused, having aligned with all matter of cast out Fae. The Fae only cast out those who abused their magic, who used it in some treacherous way. Fighting them would lead to his kingdoms sure defeat.

So, King Ulric came up with a compromise. His wife Clarice was expecting child, a child the doctors were sure would be a girl. If Marcus would promise him peace, when his daughter became of nubile age, he could have her hand in marriage, thus securing him the throne.

This deal, Ulric hoped would never need come to pass. It allowed sixteen years for him to find a way to defeat Marcus, as well as produce a male heir that would make the marriage meaningless. In short, it was a way of stalling, a way to buy time. His firstborn child, his daughter, his heart, would never go to this man. He would kill Marcus first.

Marcus, being far more clever than the king deemed, fully expected something like this. Being prepared, he went to his grandmother who developed a plan. She cast a spell over the king, leaving both he and his wife unable to conceive any more children, lest the child be born male. As to ensure Marcus's safety, she placed him under a spell which put him into a deep sleep. This sleep was so deep it could not be distinguished from death, keeping him preserved exactly as he was, to wake on the day of the princesses sixteenth birthday.

Nimue proclaimed her grandson dead, putting his body inside the family tomb. With word of his death reaching the kings ears, Ulric and Clarice rejoiced, believing they had nothing to fear. Their daughter would grow to be a woman who would marry any man of her choosing. It was this belief that kept them happily unaware for sixteen years, until the very day of their daughters sixteenth birthday, which is when this story begins.