Worthy- Prince of Mae-kondo

The heavy iron door groaned on its hinges, sealing the fate of the infant prince before he had even tasted his mother’s milk. In the heart of the Mae-Kondo palace, a room had been prepared—a room where the sun was an outlaw and the shadows were the only guardians.Pete was born into a lineage of kings, but his inheritance was a curse that made the heavens tremble with spite. The blood of Awan flowed through his veins, a genetic marker that the Gods had sworn to erase from the face of the earth. To the Royal Committee, the infant was a ticking time bomb. If the Gods sensed his presence, the entire kingdom would burn. Their solution was a mercy that felt like a slow execution: Pete was to be raised in absolute, soul-crushing darkness.For twelve years, his world was the size of four stone walls. He did not know the color of the sky or the shape of a tree. He grew up navigating by touch, his senses sharpening in the void. He learned to hear the heartbeat of the guards outside his door and the scurrying of mice in the rafters. His only tether to humanity was Tanois, the daughter of a high noble who was allowed to visit the "Ghost Prince."Tanois would sit by the heavy door, her silhouette a shimmering outline against the dim light of the hallway. She told him stories of the Mae-Kondo warriors, of the "Blue Ray" power that once ruled the world, and of her own dream to become the greatest blade the kingdom had ever seen. Pete would press his face against the cold stone, memorizing her voice. She was his light, his hope, and his secret.But while Pete was molding himself to the dark, the Royal Committee was looking toward the horizon. In a territory far from the watchful eyes of the Gods, a boy named Dan was born among the weaker races.The contrast was staggering. Dan was everything the Committee wished Pete could be. He was charismatic, brilliant, and possessed a natural affinity for magic that bordered on the divine. He was a "better version" of a hero—a boy with a supportive family and the freedom to run under the sun. When the Committee secretly observed Dan, they saw a masterpiece; when they looked at Pete, they saw a liability with a "broken" gift—the ability to restart a heart but never reclaim a soul.On Pete’s twelfth birthday, the Committee made their move. They found a commoner boy to act as a double, a fake prince to sit on a fake throne and draw the Gods' ire. Pete was finally allowed to step out of his dark room, but he did not emerge as a savior. He emerged as a ghost.The light of the sun was a physical assault, a searing pain that made him weep. He was thrust into a world he didn't understand, forced to attend the Academy where he was immediately eclipsed. The Royal Committee didn't even look at him; their eyes were fixed on Dan, whose potential was so overwhelming that they had already begun grooming him to be the kingdom's true champion.Pete tried to reclaim his place beside Tanois, but the years in the dark had left him socially stunted and physically fragile. He watched, helpless, as Tanois—his only friend, his only light—began to gravitate toward the gravity of Dan’s brilliance. Dan was a warrior. Dan was a leader. Dan was the sun.And Pete? Pete was just the boy from the dark who spent his nights in the library, obsessively studying human anatomy and medicine. If he couldn't be the hero they wanted, he would understand the machinery of life better than anyone else. He accepted his trauma, his exclusion, and his "useless" power, unaware that the very darkness he had survived was forging him into something far more dangerous than a king.He was not just a prince. He was the quiet before the storm.