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Far, Far away in a small but strong country old marriage was waiting for the birth of their firstborn. The child was a fruit of love between the King and Queen of Iron Kingdom, but because of the age of Her Majesty, she couldn't get pregnant, so the royal couple went to an old witch to get her help with conceiving a child.
The old witch with a scary smile said. “I will help you, My King, but when the time comes, you will come to pay for it. Magic always has a price, my King” after that, she looked at the Queen and added. “My Queen, I will give you a child with the help of magic so your firstborn wouldn't be normal. There will be traces of magic in you and a baby. It will be dangerous. Are you sure you want it, Your Highness?”
After the question from a witch, Queen felt her husband's hand on her shoulder. This gesture made her unable to give ‘no’ as an answer, “ My King and this country need an heir.” she started, “ I can’t take from them this chance away just because it’s dangerous. When there put a crown on my head, I swore an oath to protect them at all costs. I’m not going to break this promise.”
The King, who was silent for most of the conversation, spoke. “I’m the King of this country and husband of my Queen. I’m capable of protecting her and the child from any danger. Say your price and go to work, witch.” The voice of the King was full of anger and hatred toward the older woman. Howard Stark, the King of Iron Kingdom, was a man of science, not magic. But ironically, it was his last chance to get the heir with truly pure blood. If to get him, he must believe in magic this one time. He will do it.
“My King, a price that both of you will pay is not for me to decide. It lies in Destyni hands because it's her domina. The child you want isn’t for you. Your Highnesses fate was to die without a successor.” while speaking, she took Queen's hands in her own. “My King, My Queen. It is my last warning. When a ritual begins, there wouldn't be a way to stop it.”
The Royal Couple looked each other straight in the eyes for the last time. The atmosphere around them was cold. Neither of them told the other what exactly was on their mind. After almost a minute, the King spoke, “Start the ritual, witch.”
After hearing that the face of an older woman changed, she made a horrible smile which made its witnesses shudder.
One week after the meeting, the ritual started. The process of it was cruel because it consisted of bathing in the blood of newborn lambs and drinking their mothers' milk for more than two months. Interruption of the ritual would lead to the death of the royal couple and cursing the ground on which they walked, but the Queen bravely endured the entire process. Eventually, she became pregnant, and the whole kingdom was overwhelmed with joy.
Joy and grand celebrations covered the changes taking place in the country for a long time. Magic slowly began to die in the kingdom, and the magical beings started to leave the land to research a new home. As the heir to the throne's birth date approached, citizens began to panic and accused the King and Queen of bringing misfortune to the country.
The King, fearing the loss of the crown, began to modernize the kingdom. He focused on the development of science and medicine. And at the same time, looking for the cause of the fall of magic in the country. Desperate once again, he went to the old witch living on the border with Asgard, but the older woman was no longer there.
Slowly dying magic ceased to exist the day the royal firstborn was born. The first cry of a newborn baby occurred at the climax of a solar eclipse when the entire kingdom plunged into darkness for a moment. It was a bad omen for the ordinary people, which led to theories about the newly born Prince.
Anthony Edwards Stark, the Crown Prince of the Iron Kingdom, was born May 29. in the 25th year of King Howard's reign.
He was the first child born in a kingdom without magic.
The news of childbirth spread around the country, but it became quickly dominated by the report of the death of magic in the kingdom. It gave the beginning to one of the most frightening wars in the last few hundred years of the Iron Kingdom's existence.
The neighboring kingdoms, upon the news of the fall of magic, decided to attack the weakened Kingdom. But His Majesty Howard's prudence and many years of war preparations resulted in the pure slaughter of enemies. The King was a scientist who tried to cut himself off from magic from an early age. He gathered knowledge and built different types of machines which effortlessly killed enemies inexperienced in combat with weapons. During the fights, it turned out that the land of the Iron Kingdom was cursed, and the magic of the invaders quickly stopped working, which led to King Howard winning the war, gaining a new fief, and giving him the nickname King Howard Stark the Prudent.
The victorious war quickly overshadowed the events of the birth of the young heir to the throne, and peace returned to the Iron Kingdom. People seeing the power of the reigning King, quickly forgot about the loss of magic and plunged into the world of science. The kingdom blossomed again, became much more powerful, and at the same time gained new allies.
However, the story of The Iron Kingdom does not end here. Hours turned into days, days turned into months, and months turned into years.
No, the real story begins there because, together with the development of the Kingdom, a young Prince grew up.
The young heir to the throne quickly followed in his father's footsteps and devoted himself entirely to science. The prince never met a world filled with magic, so he never missed it. The young boy wanted to learn to fly and be free, but he was not allowed to achieve it.
King Howard Stark was a wise and beloved King by his subjects, but he was also a strict father with an ever-dissatisfied gaze on his son. Prince Anthony soon became convinced of his father's severity.
A young boy, like most children, would like to be a hero like his father. Therefore every evening, Anthony sneaked into his father's chambers, where the man kept his new projects. He examined them thoroughly while trying not to damage anything. When one of the evenings he found the King's project broken, he decided to help his father.
Howard, seeing that his son was capable of starting a machine that he deemed impossible, went berserk. His son was better than him. An unpleasant thought seized the King's head. What if he wants to take my throne?
Prince Anthony was only four at the time. Yet Howard, despite his wife's assurances, was unable to overcome his uneasiness. So, on the advice of his advisor, he sent his son to the Rhodes family for upbringing. He hoped the general would instill allegiance to his King in the Prince.
The King did not see his son until his tenth birthday.
During these six years under the protection of the general's family, Prince Anthony was free and loved. The general's family did not treat him as a prince but as their youngest son. After a short time, they started to address him as a Tony because this was the form the boy preferred. But the best thing for the young prince was to be able to make a real friend.
James Rhodes, who Tony referred to as "Rhodey," was the eldest son of General Rhodes. Rhodey was older than the prince by three years, but for the boys, it wasn't too much of an obstacle. They became friends very quickly and were almost inseparable.
When it was time to return to the palace, the young prince did not come back alone. The general son returned with him to train in fencing and become a knight of his best friend. Tony was against it but eventually agreed on the condition that Rodey would still call him by name.
When Prince Tony turned ten, he left the Iron Kingdom for the first time to travel to Asgard with his parents to celebrate the fifteenth birthday of Thor, Crown Prince of Asgard.
Asgard was a breathtaking kingdom. It bustled with life in a completely different way from the Kingdom where Prince Tony was born. The citizens wore odd clothes, but the most fascinating was the magic that existed here, with which the boy had not had any contact before.
The prince's head began to flood with ideas about how he could combine science with magic if the second one existed in his Kingdom.
After greeting the ruler of Asgard, Odin and his wife, Frigga. Then the young Prince to introduced to Asgard’s Princes - Thor and Loki.
The two boys were complete opposites. Tony himself struggled to believe that they were flesh and blood brothers. Thor was joyful and loud, so it was easy for Tony to befriend the elder of princes. However, it was Loki who fascinated the boy. The younger brother was quiet and aloof. He spoke whenever he had to and kept his distance from everyone.
It wasn't a problem for young Stark. The boy reacted quickly to all of Prince Loki's biting remarks with his own. Which, despite the denials of the prince, who was a year older, brought a smile to his face. After two days at the palace, Loki and Tony spend most of their time together. And it became positively received by both royal couples.
The day after Thor's birthday, Tony asked if Loki could show him magic and how it works. The Asgardian Prince was skeptical about this idea, arguing about the lack of magic in the boy's body, but the younger prince's pleading eyes made him surrender last.
Loki was supposed to cast a simple flying spell, but as soon as the magic touched Tony's skin, the boy started screaming in pain. And golden marks appeared all over his body, which, as the prince described, seemed to burn on his skin. Terrified, Loki called for help from the Queen of Asgard, but when the woman arrived, the young Prince was already unconscious.
When the Royal Couple found out, what had happened to their son, they were frightened. Their only son lay unconscious with pain painted over his face. The boy’s skin, on the other hand, was covered with golden marks that seemed to start to disappear.
"What happened to my son, Queen Frigga?" Howard asked with a hint of anxiety in his voice that he had never heard before. "Will he be alright?" added Maria while grabbing her husband's hand.
After hearing the worried voices of the boy's parents, the Queen of Asgard smiled gently and calmly said, "Prince Anthony is alright" seeing that her words did not bring relief, she added, "We just witnessed the ancient magic of destiny. Telling specifically your son has gained a soulmate. The last time such an event happened was a thousand years ago. It is a true miracle."
"But why now? He's a ten now. Didn't such things happen at birth?" Queen Maria asked, still terrified
Queen Frigg, stroking the head of her still terrified son, replied, "Yes, babies are sometimes born with a birthmark telling they have a soul mate, but the mark on Prince Tony's body is not ordinary. It is a message from Destiny that no matter what your son does. He will meet his soulmate. Together they will have to face the challenge of destiny. You ask why now, Queen Maria. It is most likely the beginning of their journey. "
The young Prince awoke in the middle of the night. The sky was drowning in the darkness because of the lack of stars. It reminded him of the story of the day he was born that Jarvis - the servant who looked after the young Prince most of the time in the palace - told him. Then he looked away from the darkened sky and directed his gaze toward the person sitting by his bed.
The boy expected to see Jarvis or his mother there, but what he saw surprised him. His father was sitting in a wooden chair next to the bed. The same father who has ignored his existence for the past six years. The King chastised him for things the young Prince had done against his will. The same man repeatedly shouted in his face that he wished Tony had never been born.
"Anthony, my son," Howard began as soon as he saw his son wake up, "I was so worried about you. I was afraid I would lose you." Having said these words, he looked into the prince's eyes and saw no love in them but terror and incomprehension. Then the harsh truth came to the king. The man has never shown love to his son, so now his son looks like he is about to have a panic attack.
Howard felt for the first time in his life that he had failed someone. As a King, he tried to improve the lives of his people and make them happy. But as a father, he couldn't even show a little love for his only son.
That night, the King didn’t leave the room where his son was.
The next two days passed quite calmly. The young heir to the throne spent it learning about soulmates. The boy seemed fascinated by the stories of the boundless love of two people. The thought of having someone out there in the world who would love him for being a Tony and not a Prince made him happy. Only the lack of an answer to how to know if a given person is his soulmate built a slight uneasiness in him. What if he doesn't recognize her? Will he lose her forever?
For Tony, returning to his Kingdom was like waking up from a long dream. To his disappointment, his soulmate didn’t wait for him in the palace. Just as the boy had dreamed of, but this didn't discourage him from searching.
However, the biggest change in the Prince's life since his return from Asgard was his father's behavior. The man seemed downright concerned about his son. It was an uncomfortable feeling at first, but after a while, the boy got used to it. Sometimes a slight smile formed on his lips as the King asked about Tony's new designs.
And this was how the next months passed.
The idyllic atmosphere of the castle was interrupted by an argument between King and his son. Tony didn't give up looking for his soulmate, which Howard disliked. The man had endured the boy's behavior for a long time, but when the boy began to search for his soulmate among the ordinary people, the King couldn’t stand it. It was the final straw.
Howard was a man of science. He thought his son was too, but seeing the boy's behavior after contact with magic. He began to doubt it. To talk out of his son's head idea of searching for his soulmate and all that magic. The King made a ruthless plan.
It all started when, during one of the hunts, the young heir to the throne met a mysterious young woman. From the beginning, the girl seemed to understand the boy and his point of view of the world. Tony fell into love quickly and soon discovered that the girl had golden marks all over her body. She explained their constant visibility by the presence of magical energy in her body. The young prince did not even try to undermine it.
His love for Sarah was growing with each passing day. At one point, the boy was thinking about nothing but her. So after three months, he introduced her to the King and Queen. Sarah herself turned out to be the daughter of a poor nobleman.
The days passed, and the prince in love didn’t see that he was falling more and more into his father's trap with each passing moment. Sarah was nothing more than an actress hired by Howard to seduce her son and make him abandon his search.
Prince Anthony was supposed to be a future ruler, not a dreamer.
As time passed, Tony began to see the rotten nature of Sarah, who very quickly entered the palace. Her eternal dissatisfaction and conflict with everyone were justified by having the Prince as a soulmate. However, the antics of the young girl didn’t end there. One day Tony found her with one of the knights in his bed. Sarah didn't even try to lie, only announcing that the prince didn’t devote as much time to her as she needed. With every next day, the boy grew sadder, but he couldn’t get rid of Sarah. She was his soulmate. So why is their relationship so different from those in the books?
In the end, Tony's heart broke the day the girl attacked him in the middle of the night. Sarah tried to strangle him, but the sudden visit of the guards in his chamber thwarted her plans. When the Prince's breathing regulated and the court doctor decided that nothing was threatening the life of the heir to the throne, Tony plunged into sadness.
His soulmate tried to kill him. The person who was to love him immeasurably betrayed him most cruelly.
He needed to know the motive behind her actions.
Sarah motivated her actions by hating the Prince and his father. With a grin, she told him her entire revenge plan against the royal family. Seeing the fright and despair in Tony’s eyes, Sarah took advantage of it and added how easily he could believe that the marks on her body would grant him her eternal love. "I hate you," she screamed as the prince left the dungeons.
The next day, Sarah got cut by the guillotine. Howard couldn't let her live as she was the only one who could bring his plan to light.
This experience had a profound effect on the behavior of the young prince.
The heir to the throne decided to devote himself entirely to science and fun. He traded searching for a soul mate for looking for one night's bed partners and books about non-existent love for alcohol. Tony was still the life and soul of the party, but the number of people he trusted was small.
In this way, the next few years passed.
The Prince's lavish life ended a few months before his twentieth birthday, as Tony's father declared that he must marry and take over the Kingdom.