Chapter One: Brandless
They made him watch his mother burn.
It was supposed to be a public cleansing. A spectacle. The crowd had gathered at the Plaza of Judgment, where the stone was charmed to echo every scream and crackle. High Arcanists stood like marble saints above the pit, their golden staves glowing faintly with containment sigils.
She'd stolen a scroll.
Just one.
They said it was enough to warrant incineration by soulfire. Not for what she took, but for who she was—a Brandless.
Eyris Vale was seven when he saw her ash spiral into the sky. He never cried. He didn't speak for three years after that. Words were for those who could cast. Those with power.
The Arcanum didn't punish his silence. It pleased them. Easier to erase a ghost than a rebel.
At thirteen, he stood where all children of Elethar eventually stood—before the Branding Crystal.
The room was cold. Not physically. Arcane cold. Magic saturated the air in silent threat, coiling through the chamber like smoke that refused to be seen.
Dozens of other children watched from pews of stone, their parents highborn and hopeful, their eyes hungry for color.
Because that was how it worked.
The Branding Crystal glowed with a spectrum that revealed your Rank. From dull crimson for the weak, to radiant voidgold for the elite. If it turned black, you were cursed. If it stayed clear?
You were nothing.
They called your name. You stepped forward. Touched the crystal. Accepted your fate.
Most were out before their pulse slowed.
But when Eyris Vale approached the pedestal, even the Inquisitors whispered.
"Is that the Brandless boy?"
"I thought he'd been culled."
"They kept him alive?"
"Why?"
The Head Inquisitor, robed in runes that crawled across his fabric like living text, leaned forward.
"Proceed."
Eyris walked.
His feet didn't echo. No sound followed him. The air around him thickened like the moment before a storm.
He raised his hand. Touched the crystal.
It shattered.
Not cracked. Not dimmed.
Shattered.
With a sound like gods breaking their teeth, the entire crystal exploded into powdered light. Every torch died. Every child screamed. The floor convulsed with raw unshaped magic, rippling like disturbed water.
The Inquisitor's face went pale. He took a step back.
Then another.
Then fell to his knees, clutching his eyes.
"W-what… what is he—"
A scream.
Blood poured from the Inquisitor's eyes, ears, and nose.
And on Eyris's forearm, the mark formed.
Not a rune. Not a number. Not a sigil from any known school of arcana.
Just a flickering, living scar, pulsing in spirals of black and silver. Changing every few seconds like it was breathing.
A voice only he could hear spoke then.
Not aloud.
Inside his bones.
[RANK: ???]Classification: UndefinedSpell Access: AllRestriction: NullUser Type: Exemption EntitySystem Warning: Subject is not authorized to exist
Eyris smiled.
He didn't know why.
Only that for the first time in his life, the world felt quiet.
They tried to execute him that night.
Seven 6-Rank Executioners in black robes, armed with spellknives and void-sealed glyphs.
He didn't fight back.
He just stood there.
The spells refused to hit him. Fireballs unraveled into sparks. Acidic blasts curved around his body like he was a gap in reality. A spell meant to freeze his blood backfired—freezing the caster's lungs instead.
Then came the soulfire.
The Head Executioner whispered the rite. "Ignis anima, anima mortis..."
Flame erupted.
Eyris closed his eyes.
The fire entered him.
When he opened them again, his irises were burning.
He didn't learn spells. He became them.
The executioner screamed as the fire that should've killed Eyris consumed him instead—drawn out of the boy like a curse expelled in reverse.
Eyris turned to the others.
"You're not trying to kill me," he said calmly. "You're feeding me."
They fled.
They didn't even scream.
From that night forward, the Arcanum stopped speaking his name.
They called him:
"The Rank That Shouldn't Exist."