They said the night the storm came, even the stars refused to shine.
Wind howled through the valley of Darnell, tearing through crops and rooftops alike. The rain fell like shards of glass, sharp and endless, as if the sky itself was crying for something lost.
And in that storm — a knock came.
Three slow, heavy knocks on the door of a small farmhouse on the edge of the village.
Jaren and Mira, simple farmers with no magic and little money, had just tucked in their only child, a two-year-old boy named Apex.
When Jaren opened the door, the cold hit like a wall.
There, lying on the wooden porch, was a bundle.
Inside it — a baby.
He couldn't have been more than a few months old. Soaked, silent, staring at the world with eyes of pale gray.
The cloth that wrapped him shimmered faintly silver runes pulsing once before fading away.
Mira gasped. "Someone abandoned him… in this storm?"
Jaren knelt, lifting the baby carefully. "Or maybe someone hid him."
The child didn't cry. He simply blinked, calm as the thunder rolled above them.
Mira pressed the baby close to her chest. "Then he's ours now. The storm brought him here for a reason."
And that was how Alex entered the world of the Darnell family.