There was no temperature in the emptiness, but cold permeated everything.
Pale moonlight glowed from chains hanging in the dark, each link the size of a man's fist. Instead of being made of metal, they were woven from blood sacrifices made during lunar eclipses, binding oaths uttered by seven kings, and the physical manifestation of a world's hatred.
They held a soul
He was alone here. Just awareness, suspended, and compelled to comprehend every moment of five hundred years fully.
Most souls would have shattered and gone mad.
However, this one was furious. Anger that could wait centuries and never forget a single face—cold and patient.
And now, five hundred years, three months, and seventeen days later...
In the shadows, something was moving.
The creature was no larger than a child's fist, and although its spiral shell did not catch any light, it was still discernible as a darker shadow against the black.
Reviver slowly. The eighth and last fang he had used before his downfall. Wait five hundred years if I die, and then bring me back.
Reviver gradually. It was the eighth and final fang he had used before his demise. If I pass away, wait five hundred years before bringing me back.
With its black pearl eyes fixed on him, it came to a stop three feet away.
"You're late," he remarked.
His voice was a thunderous whisper. The creature said, "The time is exact," without using any words at all. Not too early. Not too late. Just when it was supposed to be.
"Then do it."
A single black flame appeared from the centre of Slow Reviver's shell, revealing the price of resurrection.
The flame revealed to him what it would require: memories that had already been chosen and marked for ingestion. A laughing woman's face. The hand of a child holding his finger. A wheat field at dusk.
"Take them," he commanded. "I don't require tranquillity. Just return my hands to me."
The first chain was hit by the flame's forward surge.
CRACK.
The quiet was broken by the sound. The binding of the Crimson Dawn: Let his name be forgotten everywhere.
CRACK.
The curse of the Iron Wastes: Let no Fang return his call.
CRACK.
They broke one by one. Power surged back, unadulterated, overwhelming, the manifestation of five hundred years of pent-up rage.
accumulated anger given a shape.
His soul-form became firm. The hands, arms, torso, and face were angular and gaunt, with molten silver-burning eyes.
The final chain broke.
He felt himself expanding across dimensions and then contracting into a single point for an impossibly brief moment. Somewhere far away, he sensed flesh calling to him, a body taking shape. pumping blood. The lungs are getting ready to take their first breath.
The world folded. world collapsed
And five thousand miles away, in a kingdom built on his grave, a woman's waters broke. The royal birthing chamber reeked of blood and incense. Queen Seraphine had been in labour for fourteen hours. Sweat glued her black hair to her face. Her silk nightgown clung to her skin, soaked through. Stone walls adorned with heroic Valthorn tapestries could just as easily have been prison bars. She had stopped screaming an hour ago. Not because the pain had eased—she had run out of voice.
Midwife Elara moved with practised efficiency, checking dilation for the hundredth time. At sixty, she'd delivered three generations of Valthorn children. But she'd never felt air this cold during a birth. "Your Majesty, one more push," Elara said. Her breath fogged despite the roaring fireplace. "The head is crowning."
Seraphine gritted her teeth and bore down. Something was wrong — she had felt it for hours. This wasn't normal pain. It was hollow, pressing against her from within, trying to escape.
The windows rattled. Not from wind — there was no wind tonight. From pressure. Reality subtly shifting.
"Now!" Elara commanded.
Seraphine pushed with all her strength.
The baby slid free.
And silence fell — absolute, complete silence.
No crying. No gasping. Not even the wet, struggling sounds newborns make as their lungs begin to breathe.
The priestess in the corner paused mid-prayer. Her eyes widened.
"He's —" Elara froze, staring at the infant in her hands.
"What? Why isn't he crying?" Seraphine's heart clenched.
Elara couldn't answer because the baby was staring at her.
Newborns don't see clearly. Their eyes drift and are unfocused. But this child's eyes — pure silver, like polished coins — locked onto Elara's face with clarity. Not the blank stare of an infant. The focused, measuring gaze of something far older.
"He's alive," Elara finally managed. "Breathing."
"Then why —"
"I don't know."
The baby blinked. Slowly. Deliberately.
- —
Within that tiny body, consciousness stirred.
Sensation. Overwhelming. Everything.
Light — too bright. Sound — too loud. Air — burning his lungs anew. Every nerve ending is screaming.
He tried to move, but his limbs barely twitched. He tried to speak but only managed a gurgle.
Weak. Helpless. But alive.
Memories flooded in fragments: Battle. Betrayal. Chains. Darkness. Five hundred years of nothing.
But other memories — faces, names, warmth — were gone, just... empty spaces where important things should be.
What did I lose? Who did I forget?
The woman above him was speaking softly: "Please, let me see him. My son."
I am a child. Reborn.
This... complicates things.
- —
Elara placed the baby in Seraphine's arms.
The moment her son touched her skin, she felt a shock — like touching metal during a storm. He was cold, far colder than any infant should be.
"Hello, my little one," she whispered, fighting down dread. "I'm your mother. You're safe now."
The baby kept staring. Not just at her eyes, but at her entire face, as if memorizing every feature, gathering data.
Seraphine had imagined this moment for years. That rush of pure love mothers talk about. She felt it — fierce and overwhelming.
But she also felt fear.
"Your Majesty," the priestess said softly, "the child's chest mark."
Seraphine looked down.
Above her son's heart, a mark glowed faintly. Intricate. Mathematical. A crescent moon wrapped in chains, pulsing with each heartbeat.
"What is that?"
"What does it mean?"
- —
The door slammed open.
Everyone jumped. Guards straightened. Elara bowed.
King Aldric Valthorn stood in the doorway — tall, broad-shouldered, with jet-black hair streaked with grey. His eyes crackled with barely contained lightning. Even in sleeping robes, he radiated authority.
"I heard," he said simply.
He crossed the room in four steps, each footfall echoing. But he wasn't looking at Seraphine. He was focused on the baby.
And his face went blank.
- —
Within the infant's body, the reborn soul sensed it.
This man knew something. Not everything — but enough to be dangerous.
Aldric paused by the bedside, staring silently at the child. The silence stretched, becoming uncomfortable.
Then he spoke, his voice colder than the void: "Like the imprint of an ancient seal."
"He's a baby," Seraphine said, her voice breaking. "Our baby."
"He's a threat."
"He's both." Her voice hardened. "And you will not harm him. He's ours, Aldric. If you can't accept that, then you're not the man I married."
Aldric looked at her, then his gaze shifted to the baby.
Those silver eyes stared back, unblinking.
Finally, he exhaled. "Keep him isolated. No visitors without my permission. Tell the court the prince is delicate and needs special care."
"Aldric—"
"That's my compromise. Be grateful I'm offering one."
He turned toward the door. Paused.
The door clicked shut softly.
- —
Inside his new body, Kael's tiny hands clenched.
So that's my father. He sees threats, not opportunities.
Fine. Power comes to those willing to wait.
The royal nursery was a gilded cage. Silk curtains. Hand-carved crib. Master-crafted toys.
And bars on the windows. Guards outside. No visitors.
Aurel spent his first months learning the prison of infant flesh.
His mind was sharp — perhaps sharper than before, five hundred years of forced meditation burning away mental fog. But his body was useless. Couldn't speak, walk, or barely lift his own head.
Humiliating.
But he was patient.
- —
His mother visited daily.
Seraphine sat beside his crib for hours, reading stories, singing lullabies. Desperately seeking normalcy with her strange, silent son.
Aurel watched her carefully.
She was genuinely kind. Not performing for servants. She truly cared, despite knowing what he was.
Interesting.
He tried to remember his previous mother — surely he had one — but that memory was gone, consumed by the resurrection flame.
Sometimes he felt phantom aches where memories should be. Gaps he could probe but never fill.
What else did I lose? Who else did I forget?
He pushed the thought away. Doubt was weakness.
His father never visited. Not once.
Aurel heard about him through servants' gossip — always busy, fighting border wars, scheming nobles.
Good. Let him be afraid.
---And avoiding the son who frightened him.
He learned faster than normal.
Crawled at six months. Walked at ten. By his first birthday, he understood full conversations and could read the books his mother left lying around.
He learned about this world. The seven kingdoms that now existed where his Loftus had once stood.
Nothing remained of his kingdom. Not one building. Not one mention in history.
They erased me. Built their thrones on my grave.
The rage that sparked was cold and calculating. Not hot fury. The kind that could wait decades. That could plan.
---
One night, a week after his first birthday, the moon was full.
The seal on his chest pulsed. Once. Twice.
Then—**crack**—a tiny fissure appeared in one of the chains.
Power leaked through. Just a drop. But after a year of being completely powerless...
That drop felt like fire in his veins.
His wooden toy horse, sitting on the shelf across the room, trembled. Rose an inch off the wood. Hovered for three seconds.
Then dropped with a soft thunk.
Aurel's eyes widened.
Finally. It begins.
But late at night, in dreams his infant brain couldn't fully control, fragments surfaced:
A palace burning. Seven figures standing in a circle. A woman's scream—someone important, someone he'd loved. Her face was blurred, erased, but her scream remained.
And betrayal. Always betrayal.
Blades were driven into his back by hands he had trusted.
His small body was covered in perspiration as he awoke gasping.
Everything was taken by them. My realm. My folks. My...
Someone. I had feelings for someone. However, I can't recall who.
More painful than any physical injury was the loss.
A shadow moved in the nursery's corner in the dead of night.
He sensed that Aurel was awake and gazing at the ceiling. a presence. old. Well-known.
The shadow separated from the wall and moved like liquid darkness across the floor. It gathered next to his cot, then rose formless but in some way observing.
He heard a whisper in his head that was pure meaning rather than words: Master. The seal becomes weaker. I'll be able to return properly soon.
Acknowledgement struck like lightning.
Weave at night. My very first fang.
After acknowledging with a single pulse, the shadow-Fang vanished back into the shadows.
However, it did leave one black feather on his pillow.
Evidence that it was real.
Kael felt the feather's strange coldness as she held it.
They're still out there. My teeth. awaiting my return call.
Excellent.
Let the world believe I've passed away. Allow them to become at ease.
When I'm ready, I'll tell them why it took seven kingdoms to chain me.
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[Lore Note – Fang: Slow Reviver]
(Writer's Note – Not part of the story)
Slow Reviver is a Divine-class Fang. It appears like a snail — small, slow-moving, but containing unimaginable power.
✦ Ability:
> "This Fang consumes one or more of the user's memories, and in return, brings them back to life once."
But its rules are strict:
One-time use only.
After a single revival, this Fang becomes free from its soul contract.
Memory sacrifice:
The user comes back to life, but never knows what memories were lost in return.
Seal duration:
Immediately after revival, Slow Reviver is sealed for 100 years.
This Fang is not a blessing but a tragedy.
It grants life…
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