Somid's moons hung like twin blades over the horizon, one blood-red, the other cracked and silver. The desert wind carried the metallic scent of dust and old engines, whispering across the shattered towers of Kito Hold—a fortress once proud, now hollowed by shame.
In the shadow of its jagged walls, a boy stood barefoot on scorched stone, bound in iron rings and silence. His name was Kael of House Kito, but they no longer called him that.
They called him Bloodflame now.
A curse. A monster. A warning.
The boy said nothing as the Elders formed a circle around him, cloaked in layered synthsilks, their faces hidden behind silver masks etched with constellations. Their voices, when they spoke, echoed through the courtyard like judgment carved into the bones of the planet.
> "By decree of the Trium Code and the law of the Ancestral Flame, you are cast out."
Kael met their gaze without flinching. The burns along his arms had faded to ember-colored scars, but beneath them, heat still coiled like a living thing.
He hadn't meant to burn the chamber. He hadn't meant to scream. He hadn't meant for the fire to come pouring out of his veins like molten wrath.
But it had.
And now, he was alone.
A servant approached—a woman with tech-laced eyes and a memory tattoo of the Kito sigil on her throat. Her hands shook as she handed Kael a small parcel: dried food, a cloak, a knife dull with age. Not enough to survive the Wastes, but enough to pretend they hadn't killed him.
"Go," she whispered. "Before your blood burns hotter."
The gates groaned open behind him. Beyond them stretched the Ashwilds, a wasteland riddled with broken skyships, glass dunes, and forgotten weapons from the Old Crash. No one returned from there unless they were a ghost. Or worse.
Kael stepped into the dust.
The gates shut like the end of a prayer.
---
Above him, the red moon pulsed.
Far below, in the buried ruins of the Precursor World, something stirred—a shadow with eyes like coals, awakened by the scent of flame-born blood.
Grimworld had taken notice.
And it would not forget.