Some of the dead king’s people left, fearing war would reach their borders, until only a handful remained. But nobody came to collect on the king’s debts. Nobody came to claim the lands or abandoned villages.
Soon, those who had stayed, either due to being unable to travel or because they felt they owed the dead king their loyalty, also perished. One after the other, the remaining villagers died from disease, illness, or old age, until eventually no one was left aside from the servant girl and her son, whom she named Golvath.
They could have left the ruined kingdom, should have left like the others, but lost merchants and travelers who passed through the desolate lands brought stories of sweeping illnesses, raging wars, and unyielding blights from their neighboring kingdoms. These tales, whether true or not, scared the servant girl so much she kept her son hidden in a crumbling stone tower whenever a strange face came near. Nevertheless, she ventured down to meet those passing through, hoping to restock supplies. With nothing to pay for these life-saving provisions, she offered herself to those who would not show charity to a poor, lonesome woman, stuck in a penniless and abandoned kingdom.
Golvath was spared seeing his mother bartering for the necessities that would keep them alive, but he grew up as all children do, and eventually came to grips with what his mother did to keep him fed and clothed.
He used to keep himself busy by whittling wood, carving animals and soldiers, in the hopes of creating a companion for himself.
When he was old enough to venture into the village by himself, he would slip away while his mother entertained their guests to explore the ruins at the foot of the tower.
Some of the houses had been abandoned in such a hurry after his father’s death that plates and stoneware had been left on the tables. Clothes and toys were scattered amongst the debris. As a boy, he used to imagine what type of people had lived in these houses, judging solely by what they had left behind. He grew bolder with his explorations as the years wore on, and moved farther from the stone tower, until he reached houses where those occupants who had held on to the very end had perished in their beds, chairs, gardens. And with nobody there to bury the corpses, the bodies had rotted away where they lay until only bones remained.
Golvath was so desperate for companionship, and so naïve, that he didn’t find the skeletal remains disconcerting. In fact, he found the sun-bleached bones nothing more than a new material on which to practice his whittling.
It took Golvath a while to get used to working with the bones, for they were much softer than wood and their porous nature made them prone to splintering and fracturing. Some bones were too small, some were broken, some wholly impractical to work with. Still, he honed his skills as best he could. Eventually, the carvings he made from the villagers’ remains became magnificent pieces of art. He kept them to himself, though, too greedy to share his new obsession with his mother for fear that she would take away his beloved carvings.
In his eighteenth year, as he was coming into his inherited powers, he sat beside his mother’s bed and held her hand as she whispered her final words. “I have protected you as much as any mother can protect her children. I have given my life so you can live yours, so you might reign as your father once did. Go out into the world and find yourself a wife, and when you return, my sweet boy, rebuild this kingdom so your children might have a better future.”
Golvath would leave the land of his birth soon after his mother’s death, but he was unprepared for the world that lay beyond. So unprepared, in fact, he could not speak with a single soul who crossed his path. How would he ever fulfill his mother’s dying wish if he could not even speak to the fairer sex?
The uncrowned king of a forgotten kingdom, lost amongst the various cultures of Orthega, had no other choice than to use his inherited abilities to forcibly sway a maiden’s heart.
The first maiden, who had hair as white as snow, was fortunate to be saved from Golvath’s enchantment by another suitor before the day of their wedding. The enchantment of the second maiden, who had lips as red as rubies, was broken by her father, who had rallied the town against the drifter. Golvath was run out of every town and village in Orthega after his devious plans were discovered, until his only options were to either return to his decimated kingdom alone, nothing more than a failure, or to continue his search in another realm.
As fate would have it, Golvath found himself near the Grimwhorl at the time, and decided to continue his search for a bride.
So beware, young maidens, one and all. For Golvath the Lonely may be watching you, waiting to steal you to a kingdom of ruin.
Rachel frowns as she stares at the monitor, the story’s ending utterly unsatisfying. Renaud Dupont was certainly not up to the Grimm Brothers’ standards of storytelling, that’s for sure. But was this who she’s dealing with right now? Golvath the Lonely? And what was a Grimwhorl? So many questions run through her mind, and so few answers present themselves.
She clicks the return button and scans through the next few search results, most of which seem to be journal entries by a variety of authors on the horrors that the people of Shadow Grove had endured over the
