The wind carried the scent of ash long before the first
scream rose above the valley.
Draventh's towers, once golden beneath the moons, bled
crimson fire into the heavens.
Within the chaos, a woman ran barefoot through the smoke,
clutching an infant to her chest.
"Lira!" a voice shouted behind her. "Take him, go!"
The man's figure flickered through the haze armor shattered, blood dripping down his jaw.
The invaders' banners, black as pitch, tore through the streets behind him.
"I won't leave you, Taren!" she cried, clutching the child
tighter."You must!" He thrust his sword into her hands. "They want the boy.
Hide him with your motherswear, Lira looked down at the baby, his eyes gleaming
like two shards of molten gold. The air itself shimmered around him, as if fire
hid within his breath. "I swear," she whispered.
Taren smiled once,brief, proud and turned back toward the
enemy. The night exploded in flame.When the sun rose, Draventh was broken.
Among the ruins, a lone horseman rode east with the crying
infant wrapped in a cloak. His destination: the forest village of Elderwood,
where an old woman named Grandmother Lira awaited.
And so the legend of Alonso begannot as a prince or soldier,
but as a child of ashes.
Fourteen years later, the boy of fire was a slave.Alonso's
hands were raw from scrubbing stone floors. The noble house of Merinth believed
in cleanliness and cruelty. The overseer's whip sang more often than birds.
"Faster, wretch!" barked Captain Thorne, the master of
servants. His boots echoed across the hall. "The Duke will walk here at dawn.
If I see one speck of dust the lash snapped. Alonso gritted his teeth, refusing
to cry out.
He had long learned silence; silence was safer than
defiance. Yet deep within him, something stirred. A restless warmth beneath his
ribs, like a sleeping ember that refused to die.
When night fell and the other slaves slept, Alonso climbed
the manor's outer wall. He looked toward the distant forests where he'd last
seen his grandmother years ago, before he was sold.
"One day," he murmured, "I'll walk free under my own sky."
He didn't know that the world itself was listening.
That night, the ember in his chest pulsed oncebright enough
to cast a faint glow upon his skin.