The world was silent.
Elias Vane's last memory had been flame—the acrid smoke curling through his lungs, the roar of betrayal in his ears as his own men chained him to the pyre. There had been no mercy, no final word granted. Just fire... and then nothing.
But now—He felt cold.
Not the bite of winter steel or the chill of death, but the soft, raw cold of birth. Air stung his lungs as he gasped violently, as if surfacing from the depths of an endless sea. His body ached in unfamiliar ways—small, fragile, weak. He blinked, and light flooded his vision: blurred shapes, shifting colors, the soft flicker of torchlight on stone walls.
"He breathes! The child lives!" a voice cried. Female, aged, but triumphant.
Hands lifted him—gentle, but unsure. He was swaddled in coarse cloth, warm and scratchy. Then he saw her: a woman, young, pale, with hollow cheeks and exhausted eyes. She reached for him as if he were all that mattered.
"My son..." she whispered, tears slipping down her face. "My little Malrik."
Malrik?
The name echoed inside him, but it was not his. He was Elias Vane, commander of the Black Legion, once the right hand of the king. But that man had died screaming, flesh melting from bone. He remembered it. Every moment.
And yet—he was here. Newborn. Helpless.
But not hollow.
In the depths of his mind, something stirred. Memory, yes—but more than that. A pulse. A seed of dark will, coiled and waiting. He could feel it. Whatever had brought him back hadn't done so cleanly. The edges of the world were different. He could sense the warmth of people not just on his skin, but beneath it—their fear, their hopes. Faint threads pulling from them like strands of smoke.
This was no ordinary world.
And he was no ordinary child.
He cried—not from pain or fear, but to play the part. The midwife cooed. His mother clutched him tighter.
Yes, he thought dimly. Let them believe I am theirs. Let them raise me, feed me, teach me this world's laws.
For I will learn them. Then break them.
Ashes had become embers.
And embers, given time, would burn anew.
The old Elias had been shaped by war and betrayal. This time, he would shape himself—from the first breath to the last blade drawn. Let the gods look down, smug in their judgment. Let fate weave its threads.
He would sever them all.
And rise again, not as a soldier.
But as a storm.
A creak echoed through the room as the door opened. A hunched man entered, dirt-streaked and trembling, carrying a half-rotted bundle of herbs. "For the bleeding," he muttered, setting them beside the bed. His eyes lingered on the newborn, then flicked away.
Even now, Elias felt it—the flinch. The unspoken fear. Something about his presence unsettled them.
Good.
He would grow in shadow, in silence. Let the world dismiss him. Forget him. Overlook him.
Until he was ready to remind them.
As the night deepened, the room dimmed to amber haze. His mother drifted into sleep, her hand still curled around him. He lay still in her arms, watching the flickering firelight on the stone ceiling. For now, he was trapped in weakness, imprisoned in a body too small to carry the weight of his will.
But the fire in his mind had not died.
It burned quiet, steady, patient.
And in that fire, he began to dream—not of what he had lost, but of what he would build. One life had been stolen from him.
This one would be forged by his own hands.