The King of Hours

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"The body of the sun is still cooling. A few embers continue to glow at its core, a low and sullen red."

The King of Hours, also known as the Martyr-King, was the Regent of Albion, or at least the space that would become it.

Eternal No More

During his reign, this Regent used his power as the king of all time to hold his realm in a state of eternal daylight, a Golden Day. The Sapphir'd King didn't like this state of affairs very much since he adheres to the Amaranthine Conjunction, the agreement that all things must end; so he had the King of Hours murdered using poisoned words. A long, (long, long,) long time after his death, the Clockwork Sun took over his domain, and Albion took all the credit for his death.

The Unseen Queen

The King had a daughter, a being by the name of the Unseen Queen, who resides in the underworld of New London. The Queen is a flirtatious spirit who manifests as a painting of a noblewoman with her face scratched out. In his last moments, the King used his last remnants of the Golden Day to create the Martyr-King's Cup, an artifact that can grant the imbiber immortality. As a result, he stole the moment of his daughter's birth to evade death and transform into the Storm that Speaks. The Unseen Queen heavily resents her father for creating the endless day where she never shone, as well as for using her as a contingency to escape his death. One day, she may take her revenge.

One of the erstwhile questers for the Cup, and one of the most successful of them, says that the Queen "is nothing; she is less than nothing. She never existed."