The wind that rolled through Morvain that morning was heavy with smoke and frost. Houses of wood and stone trembled under the distant echoes of shellfire. It was early, yet the sky hung low, bruised and gray, as if mourning before the bodies fell.
At the edge of the village, behind a crooked line of frostbitten trees, stood the old healer's house—half clinic, half mausoleum.
Inside, a woman had just died.
Her body lay still on the bed, her breath long vanished, her arms limp and bloodied. But cradled between them was a newborn boy.
He did not cry.
He did not scream or flinch. His skin was pale—too pale. His tiny chest rose and fell in perfect rhythm, silent and still. The midwife—an old woman with years of death in her hands—froze where she stood, staring at the child.
His hair was white. Not the dull, lifeless white of the sick, but a sharp, silky white—like winter woven into strands.
And his eyes—already open—were a deep, dark blue. Not gentle like his mother's sky-colored gaze, but deeper, colder. As if they belonged to something that had seen too much already. Something buried in shadow.
He looked at nothing. Not the ceiling. Not the woman. Not his mother, who lay lifeless beside him.
Just… existed.
Unmoved. Unbothered.
The old woman felt a chill in her spine that had nothing to do with the wind outside.
She had delivered over a hundred children in her time—some screaming, some silent, some gone before they arrived. But none like this.
Alive. Yet distant. Present. Yet apart.
She wrapped him in a worn blanket, her hands shaking more than usual.
"You've got no name," she whispered. "And no one left but me."
She glanced down at the woman on the bed—her hair white like the boy's, but softer, silky, cascading down her shoulder like spun snow. Her eyes, now glassy and open, had once been as clear as the skies—so unlike the boy's veil-dark gaze that seemed to drink in the world without blinking.
The girl had appeared three moons ago, barefoot, bloodied, and silent, asking only for shelter. She had spoken little. Asked for nothing. Helped with chores, slept by the fire. A ghost pretending to live.
She never mentioned the father. The old woman never asked. Some things, if not spoken, are easier to carry.
Now, she was gone. Another name to the earth.
A low rumble echoed in the distance. The old woman turned her head slowly. Machines.
Stella had come.
The first of their airships cut across the sky—long, black, and gleaming like a blade in the light. The villagers had whispered for weeks, and now the whispers had turned to steel.
Brena was poor. Forgotten. The republic's weapons were decades old, rusting in dirt and memory. It was no match for Stella's iron legions.
The old woman looked down at the child one more time, then moved quickly.
She crossed the room to a cracked wooden board behind the hearth and pulled it up with a grunt. Dust and soot spilled out, revealing a narrow crawlspace below. It had once hidden dried herbs and coin—now it would hide something far more precious.
She placed the child gently into the hollow, laying him on the old cloth lining the floor. "Stay silent," she whispered, even though he already was. "Don't move."
The child simply stared upward, expressionless.
She closed the plank over him, sliding a crate across it to hide the seam just as boots echoed outside.
Then the door burst open.
Soldiers stormed inside—three of them in dark imperial coats and filtered visors. Their rifles raised, their steps methodical. Kyle was the first through.
"Clear."
He saw the old woman standing stiffly in the middle of the room.
"What do we have here?"
She didn't speak.
Kyle walked toward her slowly, eyes scanning the room.
"You're hiding something."
"I have nothing," she said.
His boot kicked the crate aside. He stepped on the loose plank—felt the shift.
He sneered. "Old bitch."
He raised his boot and brought it down hard.
Crack.
The wood splintered.
At the same moment, he slammed his boot into the old woman's head.
She collapsed against the wall, skull bouncing off the stone with a sickening thud.
Blood sprayed—across the hearth, across the ruined floor, dripping down.
She was still breathing, barely, reaching weakly toward the shattered boards.
Kyle grabbed her hair and drove her head down into the broken floor.
A second crack.
The splintered plank split fully open. The hollow space below became visible.
The child stared up.
Unblinking.
The old woman's face—smashed, soaked in blood—slumped forward over the edge of the broken wood. Her jaw hung loosely, her eyes empty.
A slow trail of blood rolled from her scalp—down the split board—and into the hollow space.
It reached the boy's eyes.
He didn't blink.
Red filled his vision.
Soaked into his lashes.
The blood of the only person who had held him.
His gaze remained cold.
Kyle leaned over and looked in.
"Well," he muttered, "that explains it."
The comm crackled.
"Unit K-5, extraction complete. Return to base. This sector will be wiped in seven minutes. Prepare for high-altitude firebombing."
Kyle pulled the child out roughly, holding him by the blanket.
"Let's move."
As he turned to leave, his eyes passed over the woman on the bed—the one with the regal face, her hands still curled as if holding something, her blood pooled beneath her like the remains of a forgotten crown.
Kyle snorted.
"Shame," he muttered. "Could've had a bit of fun with her."
Then they left.
Outside, the world prepared to burn.
And beyond the Great Border, where the realms of magic and man pressed silently against one another, the air stirred.