The city of Sickle rarely saw rain, but today water hammered down in merciless abundance. The sky was smothered beneath a churning sea of grey.
The usual infernal heat had, without warning, given way to a biting chill. No one in the city knew what to make of it.
Ordinarily, such rain would be cause for celebration, but this was no gentle shower. The downpour was so fierce it threatened to drown the streets entirely, the slums most of all.
Those with homes rushed inside, dragging in their laughing children, fearful the cold might bring fever. But in the shadows of the muddied alleys, the wrong sort lingered like vultures, watching, waiting for some poor soul to wander past.
There were always those who thrived, no matter the storm.
---
As the rain lashed the slums, flooding the streets, a towering man with a bristling mustache shoved against the tide of fleeing pedestrians.
Beside him, a plump woman fought to keep pace.
"Hargette! Where is she?!" His voice boomed over the storm, startling those nearby.
Hargette shook her head, grim. "We'll have to find her! She was due today, gods only know where she might have gone in this storm!"
He cursed, rage flashing across his face. How had they let her out of sight—especially now, of all times?
The woman pressed closer through the mob. "We split up. I'll check her home. You... go to the brothel. If you find Aurel… just do what you can."
The man balked. "The brothel? What will people say, me turning up there in the middle of this—"
"Just go, you fool!" Hargette snapped.
He grumbled, muttering under his breath, then shoved his way forward into the storm, while Hargette veered sharply left.
---
In a shack of rotting timber and straw groaning beneath the rain, a young woman lay sprawled on the dirt floor. A boy, no more than four years old, stood watchfully beside her.
Her screams tore through the storm as the child within her finally forced its way out. Hours of agony ended in one last heave, and a newborn tumbled onto the cacophony of blood and wet dirt that rested below.
It did not cry. Not a sound accompanied it's drop unto the soiled ground.
The boy bent down, lifting the slick infant from the filth with trembling hands. A grin spread across his small face.
"Mama! It's a boy, Mama!"
Aurel's lips curved into a weak smile. But the joy drained from her almost instantly. Something was wrong. The child was silent—eerily so.
She reached out with trembling fingers. "Draven… give your little brother to Mama."
Bright-eyed, the boy nodded and placed the infant into her arms.
Aurel's heart froze. She looked upon the child, and despair hollowed her eyes.
'No… no, this can't be…'
A strangled cry ripped from her throat.
"No! No, no, no!"
The baby was stillborn.
But before her grief could consume her, Aurel's body clenched again, violently. A wave of pain washed over her abdomen...
Another one was coming.
---
A woman of large stature charged through the slums, mud sloshing between her bare toes. The rain had driven most indoors. Here, the silence was unnerving. Even for the slums, this neighborhood was particularly dreadful.
It was also where Aurel lived—the poor, pregnant girl Hargette had been watching over.
A scream tore through the storm, sharp enough to freeze her in place. It came from Aurel's home.
Hargette's heart sank as she forced her way forward, shoving aside broken crates and debris swept down by the flood. The girl must be in unbearable pain, with no one but her little boy for comfort.
At last, the shack came into view. Aurel's home had never been much, flimsy walls and a leaky roof, but now it looked like something a child might stack from toy bricks, one hard gust away from collapse.
Another cry pierced the rain.
"Aurel, darling! Are you in there?!" Hargette called, rattling at the warped plank that served as a door. It wouldn't budge.
"Coming!" a small voice shouted from within.
After some fumbling, the door creaked open. Standing there was a boy with raven-black hair and wide lapis eyes set in a pale, round face.
Though barely four, he already wore the weary look of someone older. Yet the moment he saw her, his eyes lit up.
"Miss Hargette!"
He flung himself into her legs, clutching them tight.
"Draven, my dear boy—your mother, where is she?"
His face dimmed again. "Inside… I-I think my brother's gone…"
Hargette's stomach dropped. Aurel had lost the child? By the gods... this storm was far from over.
Draven led her inside. The "house" was nothing more than a single room, and it didn't take long to find Aurel.
She was sprawled on the filthy floor, bare and trembling, her legs slick with blood and mud. From between them, the crown of an infant's head already pushed its way out. Yet even half-born, the child shrieked with a terrible strength.
Hargette's brows knit. Something was wrong.
Her gaze lifted—and froze.
In Aurel's arms lay another infant, limp and silent, its skin pale as bone.
The young woman looked up, her once-bright blue eyes drowned in salty tears.
"Please… miss Hargette… he's not breathing!"
---
As Ethan's consciousness slipped away, a strange voice reached him. He couldn't quite discern it's source. It was as if It came from nowhere, yet from everywhere... all at once.
"Lóthmar velith broydenath thu… consartes? "
The sound was maddeningly feminine, like the voice of the most beautiful woman to ever exist, stretched across the cosmos.
Ethan struggled to make sense of the ethereal whispers. He couldn't even explain how he heard them. He had no body, no ears, nothing but awareness adrift in a void.
The best he could describe it: his mind was floating through space. Or perhaps... it wasn't.
Slowly—or... quickly? He couldn't tell... his sense of everything unraveled.
He ceased to exist. Not in a place, but in all places. Not in time, but in no time. He remained like that for… never and always, all at once.
He simply wasn't.
...
...
...
Until he was.
His soul?—or something like it—was yanked through the abyss, pulled toward somewhere distant and unknown. Again, the voice called to him, wrapping around his very essence. It was mind-numbingly loud.
"Lóthmar velith broydenath thu… consartes? "
It's origin was much clearer now... everywhere.
'What the hell are you even saying?!' Ethan thought.
And then he realized, thought itself had become possible again. One by one, his senses returned.
The first was pain. His heart ricoshetted against his ribs as if jammed into a cage too small to contain it.
Then came the cold. A bone-deep, unbearable chill, as if he was standing naked in the Arctic. Hell, even that would be warmer than whatever this was!
But then, warmth. A human warmth pressed against him. A hand, then a chest... soft, supple and most importantly, warm. The frigid abyss retreated.
Next, the copper tang of blood filled his mouth, mixed with the acrid stench of soot and damp earth. Followed by a shrill sound tearing through the haze... it was the cry of a baby, followed by the sound of falling rain.
He tried to open his eyes, but light seared them shut. The world was coated in nothing but blinding radiance.
Finally, came an urge—breath. He needed to breathe. Desperately. But his lungs refused him, unresponsive. His mouth opened, yet the following action eluded him.
Until a powerful hand lifted him high in the air—and something struck his back like a batterring ram.
With it, came his first breath.
Relief never followed. Instead, white-hot agony ripped through his chest, as though his lungs were being shredded from within.
A guttural scream tore free, yet what escaped him wasn't the roar of a man, but the cry of a newborn. Again. And again.
There was no time to question what was happening. The pain was all-consuming, blanketing his mind, until it dulled and faded, suddenly soothed by a gentle rocking.
Up and down... up and down... up and... down...
At last, Ethan's body calmed. His cries subsided. And the agony melted into silence.
He fell asleep.
---
Hargette cradled the once-pale infant in her arms, rocking him gently. His skin was still white as snow, yet beneath it pulsed the undeniable thrum of life.
She glanced toward Aurel, who remained locked in the agony of bringing forth another child. Even so, her eyes lingered with worry for the boy nestled against Hargette's chest.
A faint smile tugged at Hargette's lips. "It's a miracle... the little runt lives…"
For the briefest heartbeat, light flickered in Aurel's face, only to vanish as another convulsion bent her body. "Don't… call him that," she rasped.
Hargette chuckled softly, her voice a fragile reprieve against the storm's howl. The boy had drifted into sleep, his tiny chest rising and falling with defiant peace. "By the gods… he's got a full head of hair."
She brushed her fingers across it, grinning despite herself. "Brown, just like his mother."
Aurel longed to see, to hold him, but the child still trapped within her demanded every shred of her strength. The slum hovel stank of blood, sweat, and... excrement. Her legs were slick with a foul mixture of gore and mud, a new life half-emerged from her torn body.
"What will you name this little miracle?" Hargette asked, her voice gentle, though her eyes never left the sleeping child. Naming him within these first few minutes was of tantamount importance. Without a name, the sigil would mark his heart.
A superstition, yet they weren't taking any chances. An infant being marked was no less than a death sentence.
Aurel's head rolled weakly, her breath ragged. She looked ghastly, near death itself. But still she spoke.
"…Eldric," she whispered hoarsely. "His name is Eldric."
And with that, the storm outside stilled, its fury falling into silence... As though the heavens themselves had bent to the small boy.