He was a mighty King, loved by his people for his heroic deeds and his unwavering sense of duty. His kingdom was vast, extending from the mountains to the north and west, to the seas that stretched to the ends of the world. His reign was a peaceful one, for no man dared challenge the just King, in whose veins flowed the blood of the ancient heroes who had united the realm long ago.

But the winters were harsh in his kingdom. After the last stubborn leaves were ripped from the trees, the north winds rolled across the land. Lakes and rivers turned to dusty sheets of ice. The earth hardened, unyielding to plough and spade. And snow fell until there was no colour left in the world.

Every spring, when the snows receded enough to make travel possible, the King would receive news from the many provinces of his kingdom. So many hundreds had died of starvation, the heralds would report. So many more of sickness and cold. Avalanches had crushed these villages, floods had carried off those others.

The spectres of past winters had always haunted the King. He was born on the coldest day of the year. His was a difficult birthing, and his mother had never entirely recovered from it. The following winter, she died giving birth to his sister. The feeble girl was taken by a fever shortly before her fourth name day. And his father, the king before him, died from the grippe when the King was barely a man.

For years, the winters taunted the King. For no matter how assiduously his people might prepare, the winters always exacted their toll. There was not a soul in the kingdom who had not lost a loved one to the winters.

One day, soldiers from a remote outpost brought an old man before him. They claimed that he was the Holy Man of legends. A sorcerer from lands beyond the southern seas—a place beyond the reach of the north winds, where the ground had never known frost.

Ever since the King was a boy—ever since his father was a boy, and his father before him—travellers have recounted the tales of a holy man who had conjured a spell of unimaginable power, who had tamed the seasons and blessed his lands with eternal summer. They say he bore a crescent-shaped birthmark on his back, as if he carried upon his shoulders the magic of the moon. A mark such as the one borne by this old man.

They questioned him at length. But the old man only smiled and claimed to be nothing more than a wanderer. They pleaded with him, promised him gold. They used flattery and threats. Still, the man swore he knew of no such magic. They imprisoned him, starved him, beat him. For twenty days and twenty nights, they persisted with their inquisition.

On the twenty-first morning, on the very last day of summer, the King was called to the gaols. The old man looked weathered by time and age, but no frailer than on the day they had brought him in. It was as though the persecution he had suffered at their hands had left no mark. His eyes met the King’s—eyes of a cold slate grey, the colour of clouds before a storm—and he confessed to being the Holy Man of legend.

The King implored the Holy Man to bestow eternal summer upon his kingdom. The Holy Man resisted. He gave wise counsel to the King—warning him that, just as every curse profits the curser, every blessing can be a bane. But the King persisted. He recounted tales of loved ones lost to the cold. He pleaded in the name of his dead mother and sister. And finally, the Holy Man relented.

That night, the Holy Man ordered the King’s attendants to bring him various herbs and rare roots. He commanded the huntsmen to gather one of every species of songbird in the kingdom for the sacrifice. He sharpened his knife, built a fire, set a cauldron upon the flames. He spoke ancient words to the skies. And he conjured all the magic and madness in the world into that sacred fire until the flames flared white and swallowed the night.

By break of day, the spell was cast. Ashes mounded on the scorched earth where the flames had danced. And in the glowing embers sat an enormous stone unlike any that the people had ever seen. It was the size of a barrel, as smooth as a river stone, and the ethereal colour of a waterfall. Its core sparkled with fire, as if a hundred winter sunsets and a thousand-thousand hearths were bound within.

For one whole moon, the north winds did not come. The people were wary at first. They feared that perhaps the cold was delayed; late winters were not unknown to living memory. Another moon waxed and waned, still the summer persisted. A second harvest was reaped. After a third moon had come and gone, it was proclaimed that the kingdom was free from the tyranny of winter.

The people rejoiced in this divine blessing. They pronounced the King to be the wisest of rulers. Feast followed feast as they celebrated harvest after harvest. Granaries overflowed with wheat, with barley, with oat. Soon, meat became plentiful at the markets. The butchers and bakers, the brewers and vintners—every tradesman was kept busy, their candles burning until late into the endless summer’s nights. All except the watchmen, for who needed to steal when even beggars ate like barons?

They erected a new spire in the castle at the heart of the capital city. It was the tallest spire that the world had ever known. And they placed the great gemstone at the very top like a trophy.

The King married a beautiful young maiden who had captured his heart since he was a youth. The banquet was the most lavish that the realm had ever seen. It was the sort of storybook romance that caused dreamy-eyed girls to gossip and giggle.

The years passed in peace, the kingdom flourished with every new harvest and a generation was born that never knew the hardships of winter. The Queen bore him two sons and a daughter. And the King knew joy beyond anything he could have hoped for.

But as with all things that blossom under the summer sun, bliss began to ripen and turn.

It began slowly at first, with a few good-natured quips about plump bellies. Then, there were accusations of laziness, complaints of a general lack of diligence. But why work in earnest when pleasures abound even for the indolent? It was a time of plenty, and few coins were needed to satisfy needs and indulgences.

Village elders said it was overindulgence in ale and wine that had bred languor and disregard for industry. Others pointed to the short summer nights, which robbed people of sleep and addled their minds.

But the King berated the grumblers. Have they forgotten a time when the first plantings of spring were the bones of those who did not survive the winter? Would they so quickly dishonour the memory of the dead?

Then, alarming reports came from the far reaches of the realm. The snows that capped the mighty peaks had receded, and the mountain springs had dwindled to mere trickles. The lands by the foothills were the first to become barren. Without the springs to feed the rivers, the drought spread across the kingdom. Even the rains became sparse.

Fields were abandoned. Shops were shuttered and left to decay. Swaths of the kingdom fell into neglect. And famine began to set in. Thieves roamed the streets. Neighbours fought neighbours, villages and towns took arms against one another to secure what remained in their stores.

Some blamed the great gemstone that watched over the realm from the highest spire. Perhaps some magic or madness had overtaken the people, and the mysterious gemstone was somehow to blame.

The priests beseeched the King to cast out the stone. Perhaps the gods would forgive them and restore harmony to the fields and towns. But the King spurned them for their ingratitude. Where were these gods when babes froze in their mothers’ arms? Do the gods object to the sheep and sheaves that were heaped upon their altars?

Suspicion against the great gemstone continued in hushed tones, with few words and many meaningful glances. For one could never tell who might be listening. And there were rumours about things that were brewing in the hinterlands.

The whispers grew louder, the gossip became less guarded. In time, the sounds of discontent could be heard as clearly as marching boots. Riots broke out in the countryside, stirred by words such as equality and self-governance and foreign influences.

Behind it all, weaving resentment into a veil for their lust for power, were the lords who had sworn fealty to the King—for promises of better days were easily swallowed by the hungry and the desperate.

The King sent his forces to quell the rebellion. But the rebel forces were spread out around the capital. The King’s forces snaked out in every direction. To fill the thinning ranks, village boys were pressed into service—never again to return to their mothers.

The rebels wore plain accoutrements, and the soldiers could not distinguish them from the common folk. As is the way with wars, villages were sacked and burned, women raped, children butchered. The slaughter fuelled hatred, further divided the kingdom and burnished the rebels’ cause.

Soon, the rebels reached the capital. The watchmen secured the gates and a long siege began. A fortnight passed, the city’s stores were rationed and consumed. And for the first time in years, the capital knew hunger.

Within the city walls, there was talk that the rebels would spare them if they surrendered. The staunchest loyalists would hang, of course. But for the city, it would be a far better fate than famine and disease. The loyalists would hear none of it. The two sides clashed in the streets. The madness that had ravaged the countryside had seeped through the walls.

The gates were thrown open. The rebels poured through. By midday, the walled city was choked with men armed with swords, with hoes, with poles. Men who had once shared gossip and bread were now disembowelling one another in the very streets on which they lived.

From the ramparts above the fray, the King saw his city fall to the sword. His two sons were somewhere in the fray. Perhaps they still lived, still commanded the army to stand their ground in his name. Perhaps his beloved Queen and daughter had safely fled to the countryside, far from the fighting. Smoke and cries drifted into the windless sky in which songbirds no longer flew.

The sun glinted off the tallest spire and bathed the ramparts in a maddening light. And in that madness, he recalled the purple sunsets of his youth. He remembered the fires that used to bring comfort and hope that this winter, like all the others, would come to an end.

With his war hammer in his belt, the King climbed to the top of the tallest spire where the great gemstone watched uncaringly over the realm. It had been many years since he first laid eyes on the stone, and his hair had gone grey. But there was still strength in his blows as he struck the stone. It did not yield, it would not shatter. Again and again, he swung his war hammer until at last the stone loosened from its setting.

Mustering what strength remained, the King hoisted the great gemstone into his arms. The midday sun glanced off a polished facet and into his eyes. Perhaps the effort had overwhelmed the old King. Or perhaps in that single instance, he had seen the price of forgiveness for his hubris—that he alone was to blame for the curse upon his kingdom, that his people once again needed the heroes’ blood that flowed in him. He held the stone tightly to his chest and plunged from the spire.

They say man and stone shattered into countless shards. They say the soldiers and city folk jostled in the courtyard for pieces of the great gemstone. A stone that had been the first of its kind. A stone that had been given the name of Diamond.

The siege ended. The victors celebrated. The peasant soldiers who survived returned to their villages. And by the next moon, the north winds began to blow. And winter returned to the kingdom.

As is the way with wars, allies turned on allies as they argued about how to carve the kingdom among them. Wars were waged. Alliances forged and dissolved. Nations rose and fell. And the once-mighty kingdom was no more, its very name lost to history.

Travel, trade and wars scattered the pieces of the great diamond to lands beyond the seas and the mountains. Through conflicts and catastrophes, some shards were returned to the earth. Even today, diamonds are taken from deep in the ground in far-flung corners of the world.

They say the larger shards still retain some aspect of the madness—filling hearts with murderous lust or cursing those foolish enough to claim possession. The colossal Hope Diamond was once owned by Louis XVI, who was beheaded after one of history’s bloodiest revolutions. For generations, the cursed Koh-I-Noor passed between the hands of many rulers from one savage reign to another in a land that would become Afghanistan—which to this day remains plagued by conflict. And the infamous Black Orlov is rumoured to have driven two Russian princesses to leap to their deaths.

But it has also been said that every piece—from the most magnificent marvels to the smallest shard—still holds a touch of the magic that created it. In the twinkle that catches the eye and captivates the soul, there lies the glow of hearths, the hues of a winter sunset, and the blood of a forgotten King.