Fate/Thorns of Glory

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Inscription on Black Marble, Author: Lykon of Akrytos, Royal Advisor

Etched onto the stone base of the statue in the Garden of Ashes. Date uncertain.

"I served him from the beginning. From the gutters to the throne. I saw a boy turn into a tyrant, and a tyrant into something... else.

He was cruel. Unapologetically so. He punished disloyalty like a vulture punishes the dying. But in his later years... I saw hesitation. A frown where once there'd be fury. He spared a city once. I never understood why.

I don't claim he was good. But I saw something change. If not in his heart, then in his silence."

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Torn Diary Page, Author: Lady Calliane of House Nyros

Recovered from a scorched estate library. Charred around the edges.

"He burned my father alive. Took our land, shattered our name. I called him a devil. I prayed for his death. Every night.

But gods, I watched him.

There were nights I saw him walk the city alone, cloaked like a shadow. He laid a wreath on the grave of a rebel child. He wept, I think. Or maybe the rain lied for him.

I hate him still. I will never forgive him.

But when he died, I stopped dreaming of revenge.

Now I only dream of him."

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Entry from the Archive of the Silver Veil Convent, Author: Sister Melania

Preserved in monastery vault, codex 'Reflections of the Broken Age'

"In his final days, the Tyrant-King sent us food for the orphans. No one believed it. We thought it poisoned. It wasn't.

We never saw him pray. Never entered our chapel. But one morning, we found a single silver ring placed at the foot of the altar, still warm.

We never spoke of it again.

But every year, on the night he fell, the roses in the convent bloom blood-red. No matter the season."

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Commentary by Professor Idris Hale, Modern Historian

From the documentary series "Phantom Monarchs: Truth or Tale?"

"There are ruins. There are stories. There's even a statue—but no records in surrounding city-states of a 'King Leonas.' No birth, no treaties, no death certificates. Only myth.

Some say he was a warlord. Others, a fabricated symbol of rebellion.

But the Garden of Ashes exists. So do the statues. And the roses still grow there, where no soil should bear life.

So we keep searching."

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Fragment of The Ballad of the Thorned King

Passed down by bards. Earliest transcription estimated centuries after his death.

"He burned the world to keep us warm,

A crown of ash, a soul reborn.

With silver gaze and shattered blade,

He walked the pyre his own hands made.

A devil? A saint? Or both in one—

The tyrant king who chased the sun."

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