The sky was bleeding.
Kael Roy Lancaster, only nine years old, stood barefoot in the ashes of what used to be his home. Smoke curled in the air,thick and bitter, painting the stars grey.His sister Lina cried in his arms.His baby brother Damon whimpered behind him, clutching a broken toy.
Their village – once quiet, hidden near the edges of Petonia – was gone.
Burned.
Torn.
Devoured.
By them.
The nyphelyms.
Twisted beings, neither beast nor spirit, corrupt by darkness. They came without warning, on the Day of Sabbath,when the border wall was left unguarded for sacred silence.
Kael heard stories.
None told him how loud sorrow could be.
---
His farther had fought. Sword drawn. Voice raised.
His mother had shielded them with trembling arms, whispering songs through bloodied lips.
They died before his eyes.
Kael didn't scream.
He remembered standing – knees shaking, chest burning–between the monsters and his siblings, holding a kitchen knife like a warrior's blade.
He didn't run.
Even when the creature snarled.
Even when it lunged.
He stood his ground.
---
The blade never landed.
A flash of light. A gust of wind.
Then steel.
Real steel.
A Raider had fallen from the sky like a star of vengeance – blade singing, cloak blazing. In moments, the Nyphelyms were dust.
Kael didn't even know his name.
He only remembered the silver mask.
And the hand that reached out, pulling them from ruin.
---
They were taken far away after that .
To Hearthshade.
To a family friend.
To silence.
But something inside Kael changed that night.
He was a shield.
For Lina, who still woke up crying.
For Damon, who had stopped speaking for weeks.
For the memory of a home lost to flame.
And for the promise he whispered to himself every night under the cracked roof:
"I'II never let them take anything from us again"
Even if it meant breaking the world in return.
---