The Dark Prince

I heard a voice—soft and familiar, like a forgotten lullaby echoing through my dreams.

“Solvik… Solvik… Can you hear me?”

It was a voice I had long known, a voice I had once loved. I had heard it in silence, in shadows, and in dreams so often that it haunted my waking thoughts. It called out again.

“Solvik, it’s alright… Everyone is afraid. Grab my hand.”

I awoke with a start, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding like a war drum. The cold of the room crept over me. I sat up in my bed—the same grand yet crumbling chamber in the darkest wing of my castle.

Solvik… I hadn’t heard that name in years. That name belonged to someone else—a boy who smiled, who loved, who had dreams. I was no longer that boy.

Now, I was only… the dark prince.

My body ached with a pain I didn’t understand. My head throbbed as fragments of memories refused to return. Was this physical pain—or was it the agony of losing everything? My honor. My kingdom. My love.

He had taken it all. The one who stood in the light now—he held what I had once possessed. My crown. My people. Even her.

The thoughts were like poison, circling daily. I staggered from the bed and faced the mirror. But the sight of my reflection made me recoil. What was more terrifying—my face, the cold emptiness of this castle, or the cursed forest that curled around it like claws?

Whatever it was, it had driven them all away. Everyone had fled—from my sorrow, from my darkness, from me.

I threw myself back onto the bed, clutching the remnants of the dream like sand slipping through my fingers. My voice cracked through the silence.

“Elvi…”

A wisp of dark smoke curled in the air, and within seconds, the figure of a woman appeared beside me. Tall and shrouded in flowing black garments, Elvi was the only soul who remained in this wretched place—a witch of ancient spells and strange potions. Or maybe… a fragment of my fractured mind.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice hoarse. “Yesterday…?”

Elvi raised an eyebrow. “Yesterday? Or a month ago, my dear prince?”

I stared at her, stunned. “A month?”

She nodded slowly. “You’ve been asleep for that long.”

Panic tightened in my chest. “What happened to me?” I demanded, grabbing her by the throat.

She did not resist. Her voice was even. “You should have given her a choice, Solvik.”

And just like that—a name bloomed in my mind.

“Merida,” I whispered. Her name tasted like honey and ash on my tongue. “Where is she?”

I rushed from my room, down the crumbling stone hallways, and flung open the doors to her chamber.

Empty. Shattered. Broken.

“Where is she?!” I roared, turning back to Elvi.

Her eyes gleamed with sorrow. “You don’t remember?” she asked softly. “You killed her. With your own hands.”

“No… No, I couldn’t have…” My voice faltered. “Not my Merida. I would never…”

Blind with rage, I grabbed my sword from the wall and swung at her—only to see the mirror shatter in front of me. A thousand shards of myself fell to the ground.

And with the crash of glass, truth returned.

There was no Elvi. There was no Merida.

There was only me.

I dropped to my knees, sword slipping from my fingers. The illusion was gone. I had been speaking to myself in mirrors, fabricating voices to fill the silence. Desperate hallucinations, designed to guard me from the crushing truth.

The castle was cold. Empty. Silent.

The last tear rolled down my cheek and joined the puddle of despair on the floor. How long had I been like this? When had I fallen so far into darkness that I became a stranger to myself?

I wept—without words, without shame—because no one was left to see.

I had built walls around myself so high and thick that love could not climb them, and kindness could not pass through. I had locked myself away in a fortress of grief, of rage, of pride. And now, I was the only prisoner inside.

No one remained to wipe my tears. No one dared to enter my world of shadows.

I had cast out the world—and the world had obeyed.

All I had now was silence, solitude, and the echoes of memories I could no longer trust.

And that voice… That single voice from my dreams. The voice of my mother.

The only one who had ever truly comforted me. The voice I had heard on the day she was taken from me. Since then, I had wandered in darkness, trying to fill the emptiness she left behind.

That voice—the only warmth I remembered—continued to call out to me in dreams. A soft lullaby in a sea of sorrow.

“Solvik… My child… It’s alright… You are not your darkness…”

And I wept again—not because I was angry, not because I was broken. But because in all the darkness that I had drowned in, that single voice still dared to reach for me.

Moral of the Story:

Loneliness can twist even the noblest of hearts into shadows of their former selves. But no matter how lost you feel, no matter how broken you become, a voice of love—be it memory or dream—can still reach you. Healing begins when you allow it.