.....
The rain had no mercy that night.
Cold, heavy drops slapped against the cobblestones of Greygrave Alley, washing the filth into the gutters like the city was trying to forget the people who lived there. Beneath a torn cloth awning between two rotting shops, a boy no older than twelve curled against a barrel, clutching a dented tin cup and a threadbare cloak that barely covered his shoulders.
His name was Karl and no more .
No home.
No voice left to scream with.
Only scars—some fresh, others buried beneath the skin.
The last thing he owned, a carved wooden pendant his mother gave him before the fire, hung around his neck. It wasn't magical, but he held it like it was a shield against the world. His stomach groaned, louder than the thunder, and he clenched it with thin, shaking fingers.
Somewhere deeper in the alley, a gang of older boys were laughing, celebrating a stolen haul. He stayed hidden. They'd beaten him last week for a crust of bread.
Another crack of lightning lit up the sky, and for a moment, the boy saw a figure standing at the far end of the alley. Tall, cloaked, unmoving. Eyes like burning suns under a hood.
He blinked, and the figure was gone.
"Just the storm…" he whispered hoarsely, surprised by the sound of his own voice.
Then, everything exploded.
A pulse of white-blue light erupted from under the streets—not lightning. The air howled like a wounded beast. The buildings trembled. Sigils burned into the stones beneath his feet, glowing with ancient runes, and the pendant on his chest began to sizzle with heat.
He tried to run. Too late.
The light swallowed him whole.
---
When the boy awoke… he was not in Greygrave Alley.
He lay on polished obsidian tiles beneath a sky of swirling gold clouds. Vast towers floated above him, held in place by chains of pure light. In front of him stood the figure from the alley—taller now, cloaked in regal black and violet robes laced with glowing arcane runes.
The man's eyes, golden and piercing, studied the boy with the cold precision of someone who had seen ten thousand years of death.
"Your world has failed you," the man said, voice like distant thunder. "But I will not."
"I… who… what are you?"
The man raised his hand. A flaming crown hovered above it, spinning.
"I am King Aethros. Monarch of the Broken Sky. Last keeper of the Old Flame."
He stepped forward and knelt.
"And you, child… you are the heir I've waited a thousand years to find....."