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Chapter 1 – The Awakening
The village of Eryndor lay nestled among rolling emerald hills, its stone cottages crowned with thatched roofs and smoke curling lazily into the sky. The market square hummed with life—merchants hawking herbs, cloth, and iron tools, while the scent of fresh bread mingled with the earthy aroma of the nearby forest. Life here was simple, predictable—and Kaelen had always believed he belonged to its quiet rhythm.
But tonight, the air felt charged. Electric. It tugged at something deep within him, a pulse in his chest that refused to be ignored.
Kaelen had always been… different. He moved with uncanny grace, climbed higher than the others, and sensed things no one else could. Shadows seemed to shift subtly when he walked past, and sometimes, in the stillness of night, he could feel a faint energy coursing through the air around him. He had dismissed it as imagination. Until tonight.
The sky above Eryndor shattered in streaks of gold and violet, weaving patterns no human eye was meant to see. Villagers froze, pointing and whispering, their faces pale with awe. Kaelen's pulse quickened—not from fear, but from an irresistible pull. The light seemed to call him by name.
Then a bolt of raw energy struck the forest edge, searing the earth. Kaelen felt it surge through his veins, a fire igniting deep inside him. His chest constricted, and instinctively he raised his hand, fingers trembling. The sigil on his arm—a mark invisible to anyone else—blazed with soft, ethereal blue light.
A voice, ancient and resonant, echoed in his mind: "You are awake."
Kaelen staggered backward, heart hammering. The forest trembled, leaves quivering as if it, too, sensed the awakening. Something had changed. Something powerful had taken notice.
From the shadowed treeline, a figure emerged. Cloaked, silent, and impossibly tall, its eyes shimmered like distant stars, fixed on him with an intensity that rooted him to the spot. Kaelen's instincts screamed that this was no ordinary traveler. The figure radiated authority and mystery, bending the very air around it.
He did not yet know that this stranger would pull him from the safety of Eryndor into a world of gods, ancient magic, and realms that existed beyond mortal comprehension. That tonight, beneath the awakening sky, Kaelen's life would be forever changed.
The Convergence had begun. And with it, the threads of fate began to twist—binding Kaelen to a destiny far greater than any human could fathom.
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