The village of Elowen was small—so small, it wasn't even marked on most maps. Tucked between thick forests and quiet hills, it was a place the world forgot. A place where nothing happened.
And that's exactly why it was the perfect place to hide.
Rael was seventeen now.
He looked like any other village boy—wavy silver hair that he kept tied, eyes too pale to be called gray, too sharp to be called kind. He worked in the fields by day, helped his adoptive father at the forge when needed, and read dusty books under moonlight when the rest of the house had gone quiet.
Everyone said he was polite. Charming. Smart.
But no one saw him at night.
Not when the stars blinked out and his eyes glowed faintly gold. Not when he touched the edge of his dreams and remembered a woman with hair like firelight and a voice that once sang lullabies he could never forget.
He dreamed of blood and warmth. Of a name he'd once heard in a whisper—Seraphina.
Rael didn't know where he came from.
Not officially.
The villagers said he was a miracle. That he was found, barely a baby, wrapped in torn cloth under the roots of an ancient tree. The woman who found him, Mira, had just lost a child of her own. She wept the moment she saw him, claimed it was fate.
So she and her husband, Tomas, raised him as their son. With warmth. With patience. With no questions.
They never asked why his body healed faster than it should.
Or why he could read at age four.
Or why animals avoided him when he was angry.
But Rael knew.
He wasn't like them.
Even as a child, he felt it. Like a second heartbeat, low and deep, echoing from his core. It whispered in his bones. It curled behind his ribs like a coiled flame. He learned to smile. Learned to laugh. But that voice inside never left him.
By fourteen, he stopped crying in his sleep.
By sixteen, he learned how to lie with his eyes.
Now, at seventeen, Rael stood atop a small hill overlooking Elowen. The wind pulled gently at his tunic. Behind him, the forge smoked. Below him, children played in the grass. His "mother" called out to a neighbor, waving with flour on her apron.
Peaceful.
It made his skin crawl.
He had just returned from the forest. He liked it there—no eyes, no questions. Just trees and old roots and the hum of silence where no one could see what he was truly doing.
Because lately… things were changing.
Magic that shouldn't exist in this world was stirring in his veins. Not the soft, radiant magic he had seen the village priest perform—but something darker. Something colder. It obeyed him like a loyal beast.
Yesterday, he turned a wild boar to ash with a thought.
And smiled.
"Rael!"
He turned. Mira approached, smiling, holding a basket of warm bread. She handed him a piece, ruffling his hair.
"You're always staring into the woods these days," she said gently. "Dreaming of adventure?"
He took the bread, bowing his head. "Something like that."
"Well, keep your feet on the ground," she laughed. "The Capital's only a month away. If you still want to apply to the academy, we'll need to start preparations."
Ah, yes. The Royal Academy of Magic and Swordsmanship.
The perfect place to blend in. The perfect place to gather power. To find the truth.
To find him.
Because deep down, Rael knew one thing for certain.
His father was still alive.
And he would find him.
Not for love. Not for family.
But for answers.
Why had he left them? Why had he not come?
Why had Rael grown up alone?
That night, as the village slept, Rael stood once more beneath the ancient tree—the very one where he'd been found. His hand brushed the bark.
"I'll smile for them," he whispered. "I'll be the perfect son. The ideal student. The promising young hero."
His eyes glowed red in the dark.
"But the world will never see what I really am... until it's far too late."
And the tree cracked beneath his fingers.