Chapter 1: The End and the Beginning
A city swallowed by the night. Towering buildings, their steel and glass faces reflecting the dim glow of streetlights. A world that never slept, yet one boy stood still, unnoticed, uncared for.
Alden Volumes.
Fifteen years old. Too young to give up, too tired to keep going.
The rooftop was cold beneath his feet. The wind howled in his ears, whispering words he had long since grown deaf to. The city below was a blur of lights, moving figures, distant laughter. A world that had never once welcomed him.
He had tried. Tried to be good. Tried to be enough.
But in the end, it was never enough.
A deep breath. His heart pounded against his ribs.
Then—he jumped.
For a fleeting second, a strange sense of peace settled over him. The weight that had pressed down on him for years—gone. The world blurred as he fell, gravity pulling him toward the inevitable.
But then—
A blinding light. A deafening roar.
A truck.
It came out of nowhere, metal and motion, colliding with him in midair. The impact shattered everything.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
Floating.
Weightless.
Alden drifted in an endless void, neither alive nor dead. The silence was deafening, stretching into eternity.
Then—something changed.
A voice. Distant yet clear.
You have reached the end of one path… and the beginning of another.
Light.
Pain.
A cry, raw and piercing, tore from his throat.
No.
No, this wasn't right. He was supposed to be dead. So why—why could he feel everything?
The warmth of soft hands. The chill of air against his skin. The overwhelming scent of something unfamiliar yet safe.
And voices.
"He's beautiful…" A woman's voice. Gentle, trembling with emotion. "Just like you, Aldric."
"No," a deeper voice rumbled, steady and firm. "He has your red eyes… but my white-silver hair."
Red eyes. White-silver hair.
The words struck something deep in his mind. A name surfaced, unbidden.
Averis Ravenshade.
His breath caught. No. It couldn't be.
But the memories surged forward, unstoppable. The setting. The voices. The names. He knew them. Knew this world.
Because he had read this story before.
A novel. A tale of power, destiny, and conquest. The story of an imperial princess who regressed to her birth and rose to become the strongest with the aid of a mysterious system.
And in that story…
He was nothing more than a minor villain. The first to die by her hands.
His tiny fingers curled, trembling.
This wasn't salvation.
This was a death sentence.
"What should we name him?" his mother whispered, her voice filled with love.
Silence. A heartbeat stretched into eternity. Then, his father spoke.
"Averis."
The name settled over him like a heavy shroud. Cold and kind. A name that did not belong to Alden Volumes.
But it was his now.
A new life.
A new beginning.
And yet, his fate was already sealed.