Death wasn't supposed to feel like this.
Raizel had hoped it would feel like nothingness—a peaceful emptiness, perhaps. Or at least, pain that would then fade away. But instead he felt terrible pressure, suffocating darkness, and screams—screams that weren't his own.
Worst of all, his consciousness was still intact. He remembered the truck. It had come too fast, too close.
He remembered the jolting pain that had preceded the darkness. But now, instead of the expected emptiness, he felt his body moving, forced through a narrow, suffocating passageway.
It couldn't be. The thought spun in his mind. This couldn't be happening.
Blinding light assaulted his blurry vision. Cold air stabbed at his new lungs. His first screams sounded foreign even to his own ears—too high-pitched, too… infantile.
"A strong son," a man's deep voice echoed through the room. "Worthy of the name Valthorr."
Large, rough hands lifted his small body. Through his blurry vision, Raizel saw the man's face—hard with scars all over it, eyes as red as fresh blood, and a smile that did not touch his eyes.
"His name is Raizel," the man announced. "Raizel Valthorr, heir of the Darkness and future ruler who will bring the world to its knees."
A woman sobbed softly on the bed, her body shaking from the labor she had just endured. "Master… may I see him?"
The man's gaze sharpened. "You have done your duty, Lyanna. As useful as one would expect from a concubine." Without a hint of sympathy, he snapped his fingers, and a servant took the infant from his arms.
Raizel felt himself being moved, and in his continuing confusion, he heard the soft whisper of the servant holding him.
"Poor little prince…"
A moment later, a heart-rending scream filled the room. Raizel was too young to understand what was happening, but his newfound instincts knew—death was imminent. The stench of blood was strong, and the woman who had just given birth was no longer making a sound.
The man called Valthorr stepped out of the room, his steps steady and weightless. "Clean up this mess," he ordered those around him. "The child is the ninth. Let us see if he will outlast the others."
In the helplessness of his infant body, Raizel's adult mind screamed in terror. Where am I? What is happening? Who is this monster?
But something inside him—some new soul forming in this body—felt calm. Even a strange sense of satisfaction at the efficiency of the cruelty.
The servant led him to a luxurious room with black stone walls and strange carvings. On the ceiling, foreign symbols glowed dimly with an unnatural purple glow.
"Welcome to the world, Prince Raizel," the servant whispered, setting him down in a ebony crib carved with skulls. "May the Darkness bless you with resilience… you will need it to survive as Lord Valthorr's son."
When the servant had left, Raizel lay alone in the room, his adult mind spinning in confusion and fear. A baby's instincts urged him to cry, but another part of him—a part that felt somehow foreign yet familiar—felt something different.
Power.
Something in his blood vibrated, resonating with the strange symbols on the ceiling. The darkness around him felt alive, breathing, as if it wanted to touch him.
And for the first time since he had been reborn, Raizel smiled—a smile that should not have appeared on a baby's face.
So this is the birth of a villain, he thought bitterly. Or perhaps… the birth of someone worse than a villain.
Outside the tall arched window, purple lightning flashed, illuminating a ghastly landscape in the distance—rocky mountains, dead forests, and skies that never cleared.
Raizel Valthorr had been born into a world he had never imagined. And here his tragedy—or perhaps his glory—would begin.