Once, the world spoke his name like thunder. It shattered mountains. Lit the skies with fire not born of stars. Built temples so high, they bled into heaven. Then one day, it stopped. Not with battle. Not with prayer. But with silence.
And that was how the god who had ended cities became a man no one remembered.
Rain greeted him when he arrived at the gates of Aegisspire Academy.
Not the soft kind that whispered through leaves—but a downpour that chewed the earth, gnawed at stone, and tried to peel the sky back to whatever lay beyond it. Dozens of recruits stood in loose formation, some shivering, some silent, others laughing like fools who didn't yet know how easily the world broke things that laughed too loudly.
He stood behind them all. Cloaked. Hooded. Watching.
The guards didn't notice him.The wind didn't touch him.The rain bent before it struck his shoulders.
He didn't do that. Not consciously. The world still remembered him in ways he couldn't control. He had sealed his name, yes—ripped it from himself and buried it so deep no god would dare find it. But names were only part of power. Some truths bled through even when forgotten.
The line moved. One recruit coughed blood into his palm and said nothing. Another made jokes about burning the place down if they failed.
He almost smiled. Once, people said that about him too.
A stone-faced registrar stood beneath an iron canopy, reading names from a curled scroll already soaked through at the edges.
"Kael Veyne, Vareth-born. No noble crest. No magical rank."
A pause. The man squinted.
"You sure this is your name?"
Kael lifted his head just slightly. Enough for his eyes—dark, ringed with old sleep and older knowing—to meet the clerk's.
"Yes."
The clerk frowned but moved on. "Assigned to Team Seven. Proceed through the gates."
Kael stepped forward without another word.
As he crossed the threshold into Aegisspire, he felt it: A pulse beneath the stone. A breath in the iron. A memory sealed inside every wall.
This place had been built atop a ruin.That ruin had been built atop a battlefield.And somewhere below all of it… His name was still screaming.
The Assembly Hall
It was not a hall, not truly. More like a wound carved into the cliffs, reinforced with obsidian ribs that hummed with barely-leashed leyline energy. Kael stood on a circular seal with four others as a half-dozen instructors watched from above.
"Team Seven," one of them barked. "You've been assigned your cohort. Live through training and you'll live through war."
Kael did not look at the others, but he noted them all with perfect clarity.
A girl with silver-blonde hair, faint light clinging to her skin like the memory of a prayer. Her name was Elyra.
A tall, broad man with a blade too large for mortals. It hummed when Kael stepped near. That sword had drunk divine blood before. That boy's name was Dain.
A half-elf rogue, lean and sharp-eyed, arms crossed, suspicion already kindling behind her stare. Her soul bore an old mark—one of his. Her name was Lira.
A bard—gods help them all—already muttering some tune under his breath that sounded just enough like a binding hymn to make Kael flinch. Torin Wildreed.
He'd seen this before. Patterns. Circles. Cycles.
They had no idea what he was. No idea what they were walking beside.
That was good.
For now.
That Night
Kael lay on a bunk in a shared stone room that smelled of torch oil and cold steel. The others had gone silent. Lira snored softly. Dain slept with one hand on his sword. Elyra faced the wall, breathing slow, like someone trying to pretend sleep would keep her safe from questions she didn't want answered.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.
In his hand, he held a small fragment of scorched stone. He turned it slowly, feeling its weight shift in ways stone shouldn't shift. It was the last piece of a city that had begged for his mercy centuries ago.
He had not given it.
Somewhere outside, the wind screamed across the spire walls.Not in anger.In recognition.
The world had forgotten his name.The gods had sealed his truth.But the stones still knew.The rain still knew.And somewhere, in a place not meant for waking minds,a dream stirred.
The stars above Aegisspire rearranged themselves. Just slightly. Just enough to spell the first letter of a name no one dared speak.
The god was still here. And the world had just begun to remember.