-The Fourth Year-
The biting frost covering the wasteland between Altena and Elrand was treacherous at the best of times, and during the winter months even the most well prepared of travellers would be risking their life to brave the dire freezing temperatures and the sudden violent snowstorms.
Not even the ferocious monsters that made the sub zero snowfield their home, dared venture from the safety of their lairs at this particular time of year. It was an environment suited only for the foolish and for the dead.
Guren fell face first into the snow, his red travelling cloak crunched as the water frozen between its fibres snapped from his body's irregular movement. The death penalty had long been rescinded in the kingdom of Altena, but in its stead the guards and nobles alike took great pleasure in expelling a prisoner from the city in the depths of winter and forcing them to travel beyond the safe border of perpetual spring, and venture deep into the wastes where arriving at Elrand would be their only hope of staying alive. That hope was a dream, and all those behind this punishment knew that no living being could cross the wastes in the depths of winter without sufficient magical protection.
Every joint in his body was stiff and barely responsive, his face, arms, legs, fingers, and toes were numbed through from the hail of fine powdery snow that flew in gale force winds, swirling across the empty landscape. But still he forced himself unsteadily and slowly back to his feet, the parts of his body that retained feeling burned with cold as the numbness spread through his skin like a cancer.
He cursed them, all of them, over and over again. With each painful step toward Elrand, Guren cursed the names of all those who had done this to him. He had known all along, even before he had been left to rot for a year in Altena's prison, ever since that day the doors of the magic academy closed behind him for the last time, that he would never be able to reach the life and status he had dreamed of. Ever since Angela's lips had brushed his cheek that night, he knew at the back of his mind that it would never happen again.
Even so, why had they done this to him? Was it really such a crime to live with these feelings? Had he been wrong all along to dare love beyond his station? Those boys he understood, he understood the selfish brand of cruelty that was inherent in all walks of life. But that old man, Guren resented him most of all. For Guren, having a fellow common born sell him into the abusive machinations of noble born brats breached his already fragile belief in loyalty and camaraderie.
Guren fell again, awkwardly, he crumpled into a heap on the plains and lay still, the wind howling like a horde of ravenous demons, stalking, teasing, waiting patiently for the last flickers of life in Guren's eyes to go out.
Every day for the past year, Guren had thought of Angela, waiting and wishing for her to find him and set him free. Of course he knew she wouldn't come, it was likely she didn't even know where he was, likely she didn't even remember his name. But when thoughts of his princess could no longer keep the feelings of sour betrayal from boiling in his heart, Guren's thoughts to turned to revenge, pure violent, physical, torturous retribution.
It was a an aspect of his personality that even Guren had not known existed, a seething hatred that grew day by day which called out for blood. Until eventually the long stream of days and the growing thirst for justice buried his tender feelings for the princess of Altena, deep under a bubbling black shroud.
Guren remained a defeated object of no importance, helpless in the snowstorm while a thin film of powdery white gradually settled over his body, buffeted by the hard, dry Altenian wind. The black hateful mass in his heart rippled and spat with every command to move that was ignored by his numb extremities.
Thump, thump.
"I don't want to die..." Guren whispered through pale, blue lips.
Thump, thump.
"I don't want to die." He repeated, fully aware of the sound of heavy, unnatural footsteps approaching him, but unable to move to do anything about it.
Thump, thump.
Guren stared off into the distance, his eyes heavy and his body devoid of energy, he wanted so badly to move, to run, to reach the safety of the orphanage in Elrand. If he had gone back to Elrand two years ago as he should have, he wouldn't be suffering this way. If he hadn't entertained his foolish wish to remain close to the princess, he could have returned home and lived a normal, productive life, instead of dying like an animal lost in the wastes.
Thump, thump.
"Angela..." He said as tears welled in his eyes only to freeze over and distort his vision, "I want to see you...So please... Look at me..."
Thump, thump.
Guren finally lost consciousness as a black shape emerged from the storm. A suit of armour, darker than the night itself, trudged toward Guren's prone form with hollow, heavy footsteps. On its back a large, threatening, silver broadsword rested within a tattered sheath. It ceased its movement as it stood over Guren's body, a pair of glowing purple eyes set deep within its helmet, the only light against the otherwise black interior of the silent thing's bulky frame.
The thing reached out and grasped Guren by his tunic, hoisting him off the icy ground and curling him under one arm where he hung like a fish on a hook. The suit of armour carried Guren off into the storm without so much as a word or a breath, only the sound of empty metal set heavily against the earth.
Guren awoke, sluggish and confused, finding himself moving through the interior of an enormous cavern of ice. The walls were shaped oddly as if the entire structure had been created by melting away the very innards of a great glacier. His clothes were soaked through and his body shivered . A black suit of armour was carrying him in both arms, silent but with unmistakable heavy footsteps that resounded throughout the passage, its path illuminated by a pair of glowing purple eyes.
The light of day was slipping away as he was carried through the cave by the dark knight. Though he could still feel his life ebbing away in the cold, Guren had somehow regained consciousness, perhaps because he was finally out of the storm, but at this point he didn't think a brief respite from the harsh gale would do much to prolong his life.
"Where am I?" Guren asked the suit of armour, his lips trembling and the mist of his breath growing less dense as the temperature of his body dropped dangerously close to equalizing with the world around him.
The suit of armour lowered its head to consider Guren, and for a moment Guren thought he could see the shape of a man's head through the visor, but it was too dark inside to make out.
"Did you save me?" Guren asked again, hoping to get a response from who or whatever was inside, after all Guren didn't know of any race possessing eyes that would glow with a purple light.
The dark knight said nothing and continued to traverse passage that led deeper into the cave. The heavy footsteps thumped through Guren's head as he drifted in and out of consciousness, surely this thing had no intention of saving him, and he wondered if whatever was inside was going to eat him when he finally died.
Without warning, the knight dropped Guren suddenly to the floor of the frozen structure, then proceeded to walk by him, finally coming to a halt at the foot of a raised dais. With the last ounce of strength in his body, Guren pulled himself to his knees and swung his head carelessly backwards to observe the room.
Atop the dais, a large man in plain flowing green robes, and an ornate golden helmet with a tail that curled and writhed like the tail of a dragon, regarded Guren's last moments of life with a look of contemptuous disdain.
"I asked you to bring me an Altenian wizard, and you bring me THIS?! This half dead THING?!" The man turned his head to the dark knight, his voice full of scorn, the tail of his helmet whipping angrily as if in response to his mood.
The dark knight lowered its head in subservience and apology, but the man had already lost interest in chastising it. He had climbed down from the dais and approached Guren, long claw-like nails on his fingers clacking together as he flexed and relaxed his hands.
"No matter," The man began tapping one of his clawed fingers against his chin, "My patience is at an end. Tell me child, do you want power?"
Guren couldn't understand the question, he was at his limit and nothing seemed to matter at this moment. The only thing he wanted was for all this to be over, so that he could watch over Angela and all his brothers and sisters, and finally meet his mother in whatever afterlife awaited him at the end of this cold, depressing ordeal.
"Do you want revenge?" The man probed further.
A switch went off in Guren's mind, and he remembered everything that had happened to him since that night one year previous in the span of a mere second. Yes, of course, of course he wanted revenge, all of them needed to pay for what they'd done to him.
"I want..." Guren began but hesitated before the word left his mouth.
"What do you want?" The man asked again.
"I want..." Guren hesitated again, his thoughts of revenge lost amidst the void left by his depleted strength.
"Whatever you want most in this world, I will give you. All I ask in return is that you pledge your body and your soul to me."
"I want... her..." Guren wheezed and he toppled forward his head cracking uncomfortably against the solid ice.
"Then tell me, child. Do you wish a contract with me?" The man knelt to whisper in Guren's ear.
"...Y...es..." The word Guren spoke was broken and almost impossible to hear, but as the word left his mouth, he felt that a piece of his very soul escaped along with it.
"Then you shall have it." The man acknowledged, placing a gnarled hand atop Guren's bleeding head. "Everything that you have earned."
This was the culmination of Guren's first meeting with the being that would become known as the Dragon Emperor.