Prologue

How far would you go to change who you are? Not because other people wanted you to, but because you wanted to? To become the sort of person you never even knew you could be?

People think they know the truth; about me, about my father, about the Perspicacious and the Valorous (the intelligent and the brave), about the history of our land and the future they are fighting for- but the fact of the matter is that almost all of what they know, of what they have been taught and told- is a complete and utter lie. I was included in these masses of deceived people, that is- until I came to learn something that altered my perception of reality so completely that it would never, could never, be the same.

Sometimes lies are told to protect us, to make us feel safe- and the fact of the matter is that not everyone can completely handle the truth. But nonetheless, everybody has a right to it. A right to know. That is, after all, what the Perspicacious are founded on. The principle that everyone has a right to know.

But, speaking from experience, once you know the truth, you can no longer ignore it. You can’t pretend that it isn’t there anymore, that it never existed. And the truth? While we would like to say the truth sets us free, in all actuality it smothers you. It chokes you. Coils up inside of you and makes you writhe in discomfort. Like taking the lid off of a sealed container that contains something putrid and rotten, something that reeks and festers. The smell seeps out into the air and try as you might to put the lid back on, it never quite fits perfectly after you’ve taken it off, the stench is always there. The truth is not a glorious thing as people would like to think, often it hurts people and reveals deep shame, and so, this brings us to the point of our story, the one question that started this entire tale and seats deep within the hearts of all Valorous and Perspicacious-

Is it better to know a revolting truth- or to live in a blissful lie?

And to further this concept- what if the person I am today, is but another blissful lie?

I lived in a lie. No, I myself was a lie. The things I was so trained to detest. The truth shattered everything that I thought my world was- and because of that, the world I used to live in grew to hate me. The people I was destined to rule, the way they see it, I betrayed them. But they did not know, they couldn’t have known the crimes committed, the lies and tales my father had woven to cloak them in a soothing blanket of lies and bliss. After all, the smarter the man, the better the lies, the more convincing the lies.

The day that completely and utterly flipped my world upside down, that cracked the mask I had so persistently thought was the real me, took place on the 13th of Kryo Ptosi, of Ice Fall. It was halfway through the nonstop month of celebration that preceded my coronation, which would have taken a place in a mere two weeks…..had the truth not destroyed everything…..