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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1 - Embers of a Forgotten Life

The candle flickered as if fighting the gentle wind sneaking in through the cracked window. Dust danced in the air of the library—a massive, ancient place tucked beneath a worn-out estate on the edge of the Kingdom of Nareth. A young boy sat buried in grimoires three times his size. His hands, though small, turned the pages of forgotten magic with the precision of a scholar and the hunger of a soul born with questions.

Ashvard Rennveil, the son of nobles, lived not a life of comfort but one of isolation and silence. His father, Alaric Rennveil, was once the respected Head of the Rennveil House. His mother, Lady Elisia, a former priestess, spent her days healing the sick in secret, while hiding from the eyes of a world that no longer welcomed them. They had once been honored figures—until betrayal scorched their legacy.

Ash's uncle, Darius, Alaric's younger brother, desired the title, the power, and the secret spellbooks the Rennveil family preserved. He lit the fire that consumed the palace, and hired assassins to finish what the fire could not. Alaric and Elisia escaped with a fraction of their possessions—and with a secret they hadn't even shared with their son.

Elisia was pregnant.

The family found refuge in a remote region known as the Hollow Pines, near a sleepy village that bordered the edge of the Veiled Wilds, an ancient, forbidden forest.

Ash did not remember the fire. But he remembered the screams. The heat. Ash chanted a teleportation spell—one that had only been half-finished.

It failed.

The magic fractured across dimensions, scattering their family across unknown lands.

Ash was only six.

Years Later

Ashvard Rennveil was no longer a crying child. He had grown into a quiet, thoughtful boy with an old soul. Now twelve, he survived in the wilderness—driven by guilt, haunted by flashes of a world he never knew. In dreams, he heard voices, saw flickers of magic unlike anything in his books. Faces he had never seen, yet knew. A sword pierced his chest. A crown lay shattered. Wings weeping light. A kiss from someone crying.

His chest ached every time he woke.

One name kept surfacing in his sleep:

Seraphina.

A name filled with warmth and sorrow.

Ash wandered from one ruin to another, studying lost grimoires, practicing spells, helping travelers in need, and asking every town about a family of two nobles and a pregnant woman.

He hadn't found them.

Now

In the city of Velmire, Ash arrived after weeks of travel. It was his first time in a major city—towers of gold-tinted stone, glass-bloom gardens floating mid-air, and elemental orbs lighting the streets. Yet, beneath the surface, something pulsed.

Darkness.

The rift between dimensions had widened again. Monsters—creatures of Chaos from the Shattered Realm—had started invading.

Ash remembered the first time he saw one. He was eight. It nearly devoured him, had he not instinctively cast a spell—one he hadn't learned but somehow knew.

A High-Level Teleportation Spell.

He still didn't know how he cast it. But it marked him.

Marked him as someone unnatural.

As he wandered Velmire's Scholar District, a loud voice interrupted his thoughts.

"You there! Are you a spellcaster?"

He turned to see a girl about his age. Wavy red hair, confident eyes, a battle-worn short sword at her side.

"I'm Arya Valemire. You've got the look of someone who knows magic, and I need a partner."

Ash blinked.

"…Partner?"

She grinned. "I'm exploring the continent. You?"

He hesitated. "…Looking for someone."

"Then we travel together."

And just like that, a new chapter began.

Meanwhile…

Far below the lands, in the forgotten depths of a shattered temple, a pulse echoed through the void.

A crown fragment glowed. A voice whispered.

"My king… we shall rise again."

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