Crown Prince Tsukasa

Fifteen-year-old Tsukasa stands on the balcony ledge, gazing at the lights of the lower city. At first glance, he looks like an ordinary teenager, but upon closer inspection, one can notice how his ash-gray eyes, with a barely perceptible ghostly pink tint, reveal something more than just a street urchin. Disheveled blue-black hair falls over a pale face that, due to constant exhaustion, looks like porcelain.

However, his clothing today gave him away completely, had anyone looked through the windows of the royal wing. A heavy black cloak with an asymmetrical cut shimmered silver in the moonlight—numerous metal chains, buttons, and pendants jingled with his every movement. Massive, fluffy light-colored fur covered his shoulders, making the already tall youth look imposing, and a beige jabot, fastened with an elegant brooch, flowed down the center of his chest. The spitting image of a crown prince. Except that this very title was suffocating him.

His family hated him. Every whisper behind his back, every icy glare from his father or brothers brought him back to the day he was born, taking his mother's life. Tsukasa's birth had been a tragedy for the royal house. His mother did not survive the labor, and from that moment on, he was considered a killer. The advisors bowed their heads but spoke to him with disdain, and the servants looked at him with pity. In this luxurious palace, he was nothing more than a cursed shadow.

That was why Tsukasa devised his own ritual. To keep from going insane in his golden cage, he escapes. Shedding the heavy fur, hiding the formal jabot under an ordinary gray worn-out cloak, he transforms into an insignificant passerby. He pulls up his hood, shoves his hands into his pockets, and loses himself in the crowd, entering stuffy taverns, buying cheap bread from night vendors, listening to others' gossip...

Today, he escaped again. With a barely audible exhale, Tsukasa jumped from the ledge onto a stone outcrop and ran back into the city... pretending to be a peasant... a poor one. But he didn't even notice that he had cut his knee when he jumped.