A kingdom does not fall in a day. It rots from within, the decay creeping like a sickness until all that remains is ruin. Such was the fate of Eldrinor, the mighty realm ruled by King Aldred the Unyielding. His rule was long, his wisdom undeniable—until one day, something changed. His people whispered of dark voices in his chambers, of shadows that moved when no one watched. And then… the executions began.

I, Merlin, have seen kings rise and fall, but few have succumbed to madness as swiftly as Aldred. And now, as I stand before the abandoned gates of Eldrinor, I hear the echoes of something that should not be here. The king may be long dead.

But his madness remains.

The Madness of King Aldred

The castle loomed before me, its towers stretching into the mist-laden sky like skeletal fingers grasping at the heavens.

Once, Eldrinor had been a jewel among kingdoms, its banners flying high above golden fields and proud cities. But now, the land was silent, choked by an unnatural fog that had not lifted in years.

The gates stood ajar, rusted with time, their iron bars twisted as if something had forced them open from within.

I had seen kingdoms fall before. But this?

This was different.

The air itself whispered, carrying voices that should not exist. I could feel something watching me—not a person, not even a spirit, but a presence woven into the very walls of the castle itself.

Aldred’s madness had not died with him.

It had lingered.

I stepped forward, staff in hand, and entered the ruins of Eldrinor.

The moment I crossed the threshold of Eldrinor’s ruined gates, the air shifted.

It was more than just the weight of the fog or the silence of the dead kingdom. Something had noticed me.

The castle’s great courtyard stretched before me, its once-glorious marble paths cracked and consumed by creeping vines. Statues of former kings, once proud and noble, now stood defaced and crumbling, their eyes gouged out as if to blind them from whatever madness had consumed this place.

I took another step forward.

And then—I heard it.

A voice.

No.

Many voices.

“Turn back…”

“You should not have come…”

“He sees you…”

The whispers curled through the air like mist, weaving around me, pressing against my mind. But they were not just voices.

They were memories.

Fragments of the past, caught within the very stones of this place. Eldrinor itself was speaking to me.

And it was afraid.

The Throne Room of Shadows

I moved deeper into the castle, my staff casting a faint glow against the darkness. The halls of Eldrinor were silent, but not empty.

The long tapestries that had once depicted the kingdom’s victories now hung in tatters, their embroidered images twisted into grotesque shapes, as if the fabric itself had been warped by the king’s descent into madness.

And then—I reached the throne room.

The massive doors stood slightly ajar, their gilded carvings blackened with soot and something darker. A chill curled through the air, sending a shudder down my spine.

I had seen many cursed places in my lifetime.

But this was different.

This was a wound in reality itself.

I pushed the doors open.

And there, upon the throne of Eldrinor, he sat.

Or at least, what was left of him.

The King Who Refused to Die

King Aldred.

His body was ruined, his flesh stretched thin over bones that should have long since turned to dust. His robes, once fine, now hung in rags, their fabric stained with centuries of decay. But it was his eyes that sent a cold wave of unease through me.

Because they were still alive.

Burning with a blue, eldritch fire, they flickered as they locked onto me.

“Merlin,” he croaked, his voice a thing of broken glass and forgotten echoes. “You finally come to kneel.”

I tightened my grip on my staff. “You are no king anymore, Aldred. Whatever remains of you is not human.“

He let out a hoarse, rattling laugh.

“And yet, I still reign.”

Aldred lifted one hand, his skeletal fingers twitching. The room shuddered, and from the shadows they emerged.

The Specters of Eldrinor

The courtiers. The nobles. The advisors who had once served this throne—now nothing more than twisted phantoms, their faces frozen in expressions of silent horror.

They drifted forward, their forms barely holding together, their eyes hollowed pits of darkness.

“They abandoned me,” Aldred whispered. “They begged for their lives.”

He smiled.

“So I took them instead.”

With a single movement, he rose from the throne. The floor beneath us cracked, splitting like fractured glass, and suddenly—I was no longer in the throne room.

The world around me twisted, the walls warping into a cyclone of screaming faces.

I was inside his madness now.

And the king was hunting me.

The Mind of a Mad King

The whispers became shouts, overlapping in a chorus of pain. I spun, trying to anchor myself in this illusion—or was it real? The castle was gone. The world had been rewritten into Aldred’s prison, and now I was trapped inside it.

I had to break free.

I closed my eyes, forcing my magic outward, searching for the cracks in the illusion. Every spell—every curse—had a weakness.

And then, I found it.

Aldred had bound his soul to the throne itself.

If I severed that link, I could end his reign once and for all.

But first—I had to face him.

The Final Confrontation

Aldred emerged from the shadows, his form flickering between a decayed corpse and something far worse—a creature of pure, writhing darkness, its limbs twisting unnaturally, its mouth splitting open in a grin that was too wide.

“You cannot unmake me, Merlin.”

I raised my staff. “I don’t need to unmake you, Aldred. I only need to erase your throne.“

His expression shifted—from arrogance to rage.

“NO!”

But it was too late.

I slammed my staff against the ground of his illusion, channeling my magic into the foundation of his prison. The world shook violently, the shadows howling as cracks spread through the fabric of his cursed existence.

Aldred screamed, lunging toward me—but his body was already breaking apart.

“You cannot erase me, Merlin—”

His voice fractured, his form disintegrating into dust and light.

The throne collapsed in on itself, shattering into a thousand pieces—and with it, so did the last remnants of King Aldred.

Haunted Reality

When the world snapped back into reality, I found myself standing in the ruined throne room once more.

But now—it was empty.

The phantoms were gone.

The whispers had ceased.

The curse was broken.

I stepped forward, placing a hand on what remained of the throne. It was cold now, just stone and wood—no longer a prison for a mad king.

I had done what no army could.

I had ended the reign of Aldred the Unyielding.

But as I turned to leave, a faint whisper curled through the air—so soft I might have imagined it.

“Madness never dies, Merlin.”

I exhaled slowly.

Not all ghosts haunt the living.

Some haunt time itself.

And so, without another word, I stepped out of the castle and vanished into the mist—leaving the ruins of Eldrinor to the past, where they belonged.

For now.

I walked away from the ruined throne room, my boots echoing against the empty halls of Eldrinor. The whispers had ceased, the air no longer hummed with unseen forces.

And yet… something was wrong.

As I descended the castle steps, the fog thickened around me once more, coiling like a living thing. The great doors loomed ahead, cracked and half-open, leading back into the outside world.

I stepped forward.

And suddenly—I was back in the throne room.

The Loop of the Damned

I stopped. My breath caught in my throat.

The shattered throne still sat before me. The ruined banners still clung to the walls. The whispers were gone, but their absence was even more suffocating.

I turned—but the doorway was gone.

No.

No, that wasn’t possible.

I had just left.

Hadn’t I?

A cold shudder crept down my spine. I gritted my teeth, spun on my heel, and strode toward the opposite hall.

But no matter which passage I took, I always ended up back in the throne room.

I was trapped.

And then—a voice.

“You did not think it would be so easy, did you?”

The King Who Never Left

I turned slowly.

And there, standing upon the shattered remains of the throne, was Aldred.

I felt my heart lurch.

This was impossible.

I had destroyed him. I had shattered his soul-bound prison. His kingdom was nothing but dust and echoes.

“You thought you won, Merlin.” Aldred’s voice was softer now, almost amused. “But you never left.”

I narrowed my eyes. “This is a trick.”

His grin widened. “Is it?”

I raised my staff, gathering magic in my palm. The air crackled, golden energy surging outward.

I struck.

The magic hit the walls, the throne, the floor—blinding light filling the room.

And when the glow faded…

I was still in the throne room.

And Aldred was still watching me.

A slow realization settled into my chest, thick and suffocating.

I had not trapped him.

He had trapped me.

A Prison of the Mind

Aldred stepped down from the throne, his movements unnatural, as if reality itself hesitated around him.

“You came here to defeat me. And in doing so, you stepped into the one place you can never escape.”

He gestured around him—and the walls of the castle shifted, twisting into endless corridors, spiraling into impossible angles.

A labyrinth of repeating rooms and false doors.

“This is my kingdom now, Merlin. And you are just another prisoner.”

I steeled myself. “If this is a prison, then I will break it.”

I gripped my staff tighter, forcing my mind to push past the illusion.

This was magic—but magic had limits.

I closed my eyes, seeking the edges of the spell that bound me. Every enchantment had a source, a weakness.

And then—I felt it.

The Mirror in the Mist

A disturbance.

Faint. Almost imperceptible.

But it was there.

The throne itself had been destroyed. Aldred had no physical anchor left.

So what was keeping me here?

I turned sharply, scanning the walls—until I saw it.

A mirror.

A large, cracked mirror at the far end of the throne room, barely visible through the thick fog curling around it.

Aldred followed my gaze.

And his smile faltered.

Breaking the Reflection

“You see it, don’t you?” I murmured.

Aldred’s form flickered. His shape warped, as if the illusion around him was losing its grip.

“That mirror,” I continued, stepping toward it, “isn’t just a reflection. It’s the doorway you’ve been using to keep me here.”

His expression darkened. “Merlin—”

But I was already moving.

I thrust my staff forward, channeling every ounce of power I had left into the mirror.

The moment the spell hit, the glass shattered—not in shards, but in pieces of reality itself, the fragments falling like broken time.

Aldred screamed.

His entire form collapsed inward, as if he were being sucked into the void beyond the mirror.

The throne room ripped apart. The castle melted away.

And suddenly—

I was outside.

The Truth of Eldrinor

I staggered backward, gasping.

The castle was gone.

There were no ruins. No shattered throne. No fog curling through the land.

Just emptiness.

The kingdom of Eldrinor no longer existed.

Had it ever existed?

Had I truly been there, or had I simply stepped into a memory so strong that it had become real?

I felt a weight in my chest. I had seen time fracture before, seen places fold in on themselves when their very existence was no longer supported by history.

Eldrinor had fallen to Aldred’s madness long ago.

And I had simply walked into the echo of it.

I exhaled, brushing dust from my cloak. “Some kings are forgotten,” I murmured.

I turned away from the emptiness, gripping my staff tightly.

And some kings never existed at all.

The wind howled across the empty plains where Eldrinor should have stood.

But there was nothing.

No ruined castle. No broken gates. No fog creeping along forgotten streets.

The kingdom had never been real—at least, not in the way I had believed.

I stood there for a long moment, the realization sinking into my bones. Had I truly fought Aldred? Had I truly been in his cursed halls? Or had I merely stepped into a prison of thought, a realm woven from madness and memory?

Some places do not vanish in fire or war.

They vanish in time itself.

And Eldrinor had been one of them.

The Last Whisper

I turned to leave.

But just as I took my first step away, a whisper slid through the wind, curling around me like a ghost’s touch.

“Merlin.”

I froze.

It was his voice.

Aldred’s.

It was faint, barely there, but it should not have been there at all.

I glanced over my shoulder.

And for a fraction of a second—just before I turned away completely—

I saw it.

A shape in the distance.

A flickering, distorted figure, standing at the edge of my vision, just beyond what was real.

Watching.

Waiting.

I exhaled, gripping my staff tighter.

“Madness never truly dies.”

His own words echoed in my mind, and though I had shattered his illusion, I knew the truth.

Aldred was not gone.

He was simply waiting for someone else to find him.

For another mind to stumble upon the thought of Eldrinor, to hear its whispers, to step into its prison once more.

And when that day came…

Would anyone be there to stop him?