The Silent Throne
Draxmere was a land of silence long before it became cursed. The forests whispered, the winds murmured, and even the rivers seemed to glide without song. The sky was always gray, and the snow that fell each winter never melted fully, as though the cold was not of nature, but something far older. High above the land, perched on the cliffside like a blackened fang, was the Castle of Hollowrest. It had once been a place of music, of laughter, of diplomacy and song. Now, it was ruled by a man no one heard. King Corven. He had not always been deaf, nor had he always been feared. In his youth, Corven was a prince of warmth and wit, who sang in the garden courtyards and studied languages beyond his own. But something happened during his thirtieth year—something no one in Draxmere dared to speak of aloud. It is said he rode alone into the northern woods, deep beyond the lantern-lit trails, to a place where the trees grew in spirals and the ground pulsed like breath. When he returned, he was ch...
