The wind blew over Valeria — cold and silent — as if it carried the last prayers of a dying kingdom in its breath.
In the high throne room, with its black granite columns and shattered stained glass, blood flowed across golden carpets. Bodies lay twisted in death: loyalists and traitors entwined in a final funereal embrace.
And on the stone steps, a king knelt.
Arthion Dae Valen, fifteen years old.
King of Valeria. Undefeated strategist.
A child turned legend… and soon, memory.
He clutched his left side, where the enemy's blade had cut deep. Blood pulsed from the wound in slow surges, dripping onto the stone floor like stolen heartbeats.
His eyes — steel-gray, sharp and clear — stared up at the collapsed ceiling, where starlight filtered through the ashes.
Silence reigned. Not the silence of peace… the silence that follows betrayal. The silence after the fall of an empire.
He coughed, spitting dark red.
He couldn't feel his legs.
His arms trembled.
But his gaze never wavered.
Not like this… he thought. Not stabbed in the back. Not by those I saved.
Since his father's death — murdered before his eyes when he was just ten — Arthion had grown in the shadow of war. He had fought for every inch of land, every name on a map, every fragile alliance. At fourteen, he ended a civil war. At fifteen, he dreamed of peace.
But peace is a crown heavier than war.
A figure slowly approached from behind.
Footsteps. Calm. Precise.
Too familiar.
"Forgive me… my king."
The voice trembled. But Arthion recognized it instantly.
Maldrik Dae Thorne.
His uncle.
Regent, mentor… traitor.
"I never wanted this, Arthion. You were strong. Too strong. The Houses feared you. So did I. You would have burned everything to build a new world. And I… I didn't have the courage to follow you."
Arthion tried to rise. In vain.
His fingers slipped on the steps. His breath caught.
"I'm sorry."
The blade slid into his back, between the shoulder blades.
Gently. Like a caress.
Like a farewell.
The world tilted.
Something opened beneath his feet.
A void. Vast. Cold.
Not death.
Something else.
A black light stretched like a crack in space.
It swallowed the throne, the stone, the blood — and at last, the king.
He fell.
Not toward hell.
Not toward heaven.
But toward the Noctis Varn.
A place without sky. Without time.
A crossroad between the end and the beginning.
A realm of dead dreams and screaming memories.
Arthion drifted through an ocean of living mist. Reflections of fire, ash, and cold light pulsed through the fog.
Around him, shapes moved — twisted, shrieking, ravenous.
The Umbræ.
Children of the Void. Devourers of consciousness.
They sensed him.
They drew closer.
But they didn't dare touch him.
Something still burned within him. Something ancient. Something alien.
A red-purple light bloomed before him, beating like a heart.
And a voice spoke — without mouth, without sound.
Only within the soul.
"Broken king, fractured soul… You have fallen where few survive. The Noctis Varn welcomes you."
Arthion tried to speak. But in this place, words no longer existed.
"You still carry the spark of the Ezrath. You are an anomaly… and we love anomalies."
The red orb pulsed. It seemed to contain fragments of memory, pain, desire.
His essence.
"Let go of what you were. Be reborn. Not as a king… but as something else."
He felt a part of himself tear away.
A memory lost.
A name erased.
Then—
Darkness.
In another world… far from the Noctis Varn…
A cry rang out.
A newborn had just arrived, gasping, bathed in the soft light of a modest home.
His eyes, a deep gray, shimmered with an ancient gleam.
A woman held him to her chest, tears streaming down her face.
A man laughed with joy as he spoke the child's name aloud:
"Kael. Kael Varion."
But that name…
It felt wrong, deep within him.
And in the shadow of his infant heart,
a dead king still slept.
End of Prologue