Screams echoed from beyond the veil—not human cries, but fragments of sound, stitched from sorrow, agony, and the memories of forgotten gods.
The battlefield was no longer alive, but it had once breathed fire and sanctity. Now, it lay in ruins. Obsidian ash covered everything. The thrones of god-kings lay toppled like broken promises, shattered halos scattered like rusted crowns beneath dying stars. The air shimmered not with heat, but with aftershock—as though reality still hadn't accepted what had transpired.
At the altar's heart stood a divine figure, neither man nor beast. Light and void wrapped around him like twin mantles. His face, obscured beneath shifting layers of time, turned to the nine silhouettes behind him.
They stood in a crescent arc, cloaked in shadow deeper than midnight, their mouths twisted into smiles that should never be. Red grins carved across blank faces. They had no eyes—only sockets where chaos wept.
"The Eyes must not remember," one hissed. Its voice came from nowhere and everywhere, like a memory etched into the marrow.
The divine being lifted a hand as though to shield something unseen—something precious.
He was too slow.
Time convulsed. Space folded in. Blades of forgotten ages burst through his back. They weren't wielded by the nine—they simply existed now, buried inside him.
He did not scream. The sound was stolen.
His skull split open as if by a divine decree, and from the sundered bone, two Eyes—not of flesh, but of condensed eternity—floated out. Glowing gold, they wept pale light like rain. Each drop that fell made the battlefield groan.
The nine stepped forward. Their smiles widened.
The Eyes fled.
Reality cracked. The dream trembled.
A scream finally came—not from the god, but from someone else. A boy.
Elarion.
He woke up.
Silence reigned.
No wind. No gravity. No breath.
Elarion floated in void. Limbless. Thoughtless. Yet painfully aware. As if the dream hadn't ended, merely shifted.
From the nothingness, something emerged. Not with motion, but with inevitability.
A peak of white bones—seven feet high, built like a monument to forgotten war—rose from the dark. The bones weren't broken. They had been shaped, molded, and placed with disturbing symmetry. At the base, dried blood clung like ivy, forming roots into invisible soil.
He couldn't move, but he drifted closer. The peak pulsed.
At its pinnacle floated an Eye—golden, just like the two from the altar. It was not dead. It was not alive. It was watching.
It rotated slowly. Its pupil never stopped shifting. First vertical. Then a spiral. Then an infinite circle.
Elarion knew, in some buried part of himself, that it saw everything.
And then the Eye opened.
Truly opened.
The void collapsed. Gravity returned like a hammer.
He gasped. Air tore into his lungs, sharp and cold. The world rushed back in—the smell of burnt soul-ink, the hum of glyph lanterns, the ache behind his eyes.
He was awake.
His blanket was damp with sweat. The single candle in his dorm flickered erratically, casting shadows like twitching limbs.
His hand trembled as he reached for the basin of water.
In the reflection—for a moment—the Eye stared back at him.
Then it was gone.
Duskmire was a city veiled in grey.
Not just sky and fog—but spirit. The sun never fully broke through the haze, and the moon rarely left. People here didn't smile with their eyes. Their souls were too weary for that.
Situated on the cusp of the Shrouded Expanse—a borderland between the civilized world and the unspeakable—Duskmire was built like a fortress masquerading as a city.
At its heart stood Academia Umbrael.
A sprawl of towers, arches, and soul-forged bridges connected like veins. Glyphs crawled across the walls, pulsing with pale blue light. The air here always smelled faintly of iron and ozone—the scent of power.
Elarion walked among its courtyards like a shadow.
He was sixteen today.
But there were no candles. No well-wishers. No sigil on his wrist or aura around his body.
He was a Blank.
No Awakening. No Path. No mark from the Veiled Origin.
He passed a group of students—their glyphs hovered faintly behind them like banners. A girl with amber hair laughed.
"Still blank, Elarion? Maybe your soul missed the memo."
A boy beside her snorted.
"Maybe he was born without one."
They walked past.
Elarion kept his gaze low, the hem of his coat brushing over his worn boots.
His fingers twitched again.
He didn't understand why. It always happened after the dreams.
Somewhere deep inside him, something waited.
Something remembered.
The bell rang, screeching its metallic clang across the schoolyard. Students began to scatter toward their classes, but a group of four lingered near the iron-fenced boundary wall of the Academy, behind the old gym building — a place few teachers passed by.
Elarion was there. Not by choice.
His thin frame leaned against the wall, one hand clutching his book, the other shielding his bag as if it held something worth protecting. His eyes were hollow—not sad, not afraid—just... distant.
Three boys surrounded him. Laughing.
"Hey Blank," spat one with crimson-tinted hair and the school crest barely hanging on his uniform. "Still no spark in you? You sure you're not defective?"
"Maybe he's saving it," mocked the second, thicker one. "Saving it for the day pigs fly."
The third snorted and picked up a loose pebble from the ground. "No offense, Blankie, but you're wasting space here. You should be out there with the Forgotten. Picking up corpses. That's all Blanks are good for."
Elarion said nothing.
Silence had become his weapon and his shield. He knew better than to engage.
The red-haired one stepped forward and grabbed the book in Elarion's hand, casually flipping through it before tearing a page and letting it flutter to the dirt.
Elarion's fingers twitched. Still, he said nothing.
"Say something, ghost-boy," the thicker one grinned.
The boy with the pebble raised it.
The rock flew.
Fast. Spinning. Sharp-edged.
Elarion didn't flinch. He never flinched anymore. But even he wasn't ready for what came next.
CLANG.
A sound like a spiked chain whipping through air shattered the silence.
Something black and metallic streaked from behind and snatched the rock mid-flight, crushing it midair like paper in a vice.
Gasps.
From the corner of the building, stepping into the light, Vaelreth Drayk emerged — cloak loose around his shoulders, his pale violet eyes unreadable.
No one heard him approach. No one dared speak now that he had.
Another chain slithered out of the void behind him — alive, intelligent, predatory. It curled around his arm like a sentinel before lifting skyward, then slammed into the ground just inches from the feet of the one who had thrown the stone.
The earth cracked.
Dust rose.
Silence reigned.
And then, the voice came — calm, steady, like frost over glass.
"Even if he doesn't have an ability…"
Vaelreth stepped between Elarion and the others, his back shielding the boy entirely.
"…he has me."
The chain hissed, tightening like a cobra sensing prey.
"And I'm enough to bury you."
One of the bullies took an unconscious step back. The red-haired one trembled slightly. They had heard of Vaelreth. Everyone had. Not because of his test scores, nor his noble lineage — he had none.
But because no one ever crossed him twice.
A moment passed. Then two.
The chains faded—melting back into shadow, as though they were never there.
Vaelreth turned his head slightly toward Elarion. "You good?"
Elarion nodded, barely.
Vaelreth didn't wait. He began walking away, hands in his coat pocket. "Then let's go. The hour's changing."
Elarion followed, quietly, still not fully processing what had just happened. His thoughts swirled with too many things.
Why?
Why did Vaelreth—of all people—protect him?
The chains receded with a low hum, vanishing into Vaelreth's arms as though they had never existed.
But the fear… that lingered.
None of the bullies moved. Not a twitch. Not a blink.
The lead boy, the one who had thrown the rock, stood frozen. His fingers still awkwardly curled as if the stone was still in his hand. His mouth opened to speak—but no sound came out.
Elarion stared at his friend. No—at the being beside him.
There was no doubt in his mind now.
Vaelreth wasn't like them.
Not like any of them.
He was terrifying in the most silent, controlled way.
And yet… he had never hurt a soul who didn't deserve it.
Slowly, the bullies began backing away. One stumbled over his own foot. Another nearly dropped his pack. But none dared speak. Not a word. Not after that display.
And then—
"Wait."
Vaelreth's voice was quiet, but it froze them again.
The lead bully turned, shaking.
Vaelreth stepped forward, shadows curling around his legs like loyal dogs.
He reached down, picked up the stone the boy had thrown earlier, and placed it gently in the boy's hand.
"Try it again," he said, voice ice. "Let's see if your arm works faster than my chain."
The boy dropped the rock.
Then turned and ran.
The others followed like shattered glass spilling downhill.
Only once they were gone did Vaelreth exhale and let the tension slip from his body. The chains were gone, the menace dissolved.
Just two boys stood in the courtyard now.
One, trembling.
The other, smiling softly.
Elarion opened his mouth. "Why… why do you always protect me?"
Vaelreth didn't answer right away.
He sat on the low stone wall nearby and looked at the cloudy sky above them. A few flecks of light peeked through.
"Because," he said finally, "I remember what it's like. To have nothing. No power. No one."
He turned to Elarion.
"And I swore I'd never let someone like you feel that alone again."
Elarion sat beside him, eyes distant.
"Will I ever awaken something?"
A pause.
Then—
"You will."
"How do you know?"
Vaelreth's gaze sharpened.
"Because… even if the world forgets who you are… the gods don't."
The wind blew gently between them, rustling the cracked leaves of the old tree beside the wall. Somewhere in the distance, bells tolled—signaling the end of break.
But neither of them moved yet.
They just sat there—in silence, in solidarity, in the strange, fragile bond between a boy with no power…
…and a boy who was clearly more than he claimed to be.
TO be continued....