Kael broke into a sprint as soon as the first glimpse of smoke curled above the tree line—something was wrong. Dread unfurled in his chest like black wings, clawing at his ribs with every frantic step. The path he had walked a thousand times felt alien beneath his feet, unfamiliar in the darkness now shattered by flickering, unholy light.
When he finally crested the hill and the farmhouse came into view, the breath caught in his throat and didn't return.
It was gone.
Not just damaged—gone.
The sturdy timber walls that had once echoed with his mother's chants and his father's laughter were now collapsed into a blackened skeleton. Flames still clung to broken beams like dying serpents, and cinders danced in the air like mocking fireflies. The vast oak trees that had stood sentinel for generations—watching him grow, swaying gently to his whispered questions and musings—were twisted and scorched, their limbs clawing at the ash-dark sky like the fingers of the damned.
The garden was no more. The marigolds Priya had so tenderly planted, the sacred tulsi, the stones painted with old Norse and Vedic symbols—obliterated. The wards, he would later understand, had done their work; some had exploded with enough force to destroy invaders, but they had not been enough. Not for what came.
Kael stumbled forward, his feet crunching over glass, charred offerings, splintered furniture—ghosts of a life extinguished in a single, brutal storm.
"Mom? Dad?" he called, his voice cracking, brittle as the bones of their once-happy home.
No reply came. Only the whisper of wind through broken rafters and the low hiss of embers dying.
Then he saw them.
And the world stopped.
Erik lay by the hearth—or where the hearth had once been—a blackened, broken figure twisted in a pose of unnatural stillness. His chest, scorched through the leather tunic he always wore, still bore the melted rune pendant Priya had gifted him. Smoke curled from his limbs like he was still burning inside, as if even death hadn't fully severed him from the fight.
Kael's legs buckled. His vision tunnelled.
"No…"
His gaze moved—and that's when he saw her.
His mother. Priya. The invincible warmth of his world. She lay only a few feet away, one hand stretched outward, palm open as if reaching for him, or maybe for Erik, or maybe just reaching because even in her final moment she had refused to surrender. Her body was curled as if in pain or prayer, and her long hair was singed, tangled with blood and soot. Her japa mala beads lay scattered like dry seeds around her—the same ones that had once clacked softly between her fingers as she whispered mantras into his dreams.
Kael's scream didn't come. It was as if his lungs had forgotten how to draw breath. He dropped to his knees beside her, his hands shaking violently as he reached out, afraid to touch, afraid not to. He pressed his forehead to her cooling skin, ignoring the ash and grit and blood, willing her to breathe, to open her eyes, to say anything.
But there was no heartbeat.
No warmth.
Nothing.
He couldn't cry at first. It was too vast for that. Too much. The pain was an ocean crashing down on a single, drowning soul.
His trembling fingers closed around the scattered mala beads, desperate to hold something—anything—that still carried her touch. He clutched them to his chest, curling into himself, rocking, the wreckage around him groaning under the weight of ruin.
This wasn't just death. This was erasure. An annihilation so complete it felt cruel beyond anything the gods could have intended.
And that's when the fear truly set in.
Because this hadn't been a random act of fate. It was precise. Tactical. Executed with knowledge of what lay hidden in the farmhouse's walls, where the wards would strike, when the defenses would fall. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing.
Kael's thoughts spiralled. Why now? Why here? Why them?
A thousand whispered warnings came rushing back—his father's insistence on never leaving the forest, his mother's relentless prayers, the forbidden histories they'd only ever hinted at.
He saw the signs now, and they painted a picture too awful to ignore.
They came for me.
His voice cracked. His chest heaved.
He looked at them one last time—his parents, protectors, his entire world—burnt offerings on the altar of gods he barely understood. The weight of their sacrifice pressed into him like a curse.
He was alone.
The forest that had once cradled him now loomed as an empty tomb. And the gods, whoever they were—his ancestors, his bloodline, his curse—had taken everything.
His lips parted, and the only sound that came was a question—a whisper, raw and stripped of everything but unbearable sorrow:
"Why did this happen?"
"Because of whom you are," a voice said, cold and hollow, slicing through the silence like a blade through silk.
Kael spun around, nearly slipping on the ash-covered floorboards. His heart slammed against his ribs, wild and panicked. He had expected silence. He had expected death. But not this.
A figure stood amidst the ruin and smoke, barely more than a silhouette carved from shadow. His form seemed to flicker at the edges, as though the world itself wasn't sure he belonged in it. His long silver hair moved without wind, rippling like tendrils of moonlight. His face was gaunt, beautiful in a terrible way—ancient and unyielding, carved from sorrow and something far older. But it was the eyes that held Kael: burning, pale, and endless. Looking into them felt like standing on the edge of a bottomless cliff with gravity reversed.
In his hands, the man held a leather-bound journal, its cover etched with strange runes that pulsed dimly, like the fading heartbeat of some wounded star.
Kael's voice trembled. "Who are you?"
The figure tilted his head slightly, his gaze piercing. It wasn't curiosity that gleamed behind those eyes—it was recognition. "A man who has seen too much," he said, his voice like frost cracking across glass. "And lost even more than you."
Kael instinctively stepped backward, his fingers curling tighter around the prayer beads still slick with soot. "What do you want?"
The man stepped forward, his movements too smooth—predatory and graceful, like something forged from shadow and purpose. He stopped just short of Kael and extended the journal. Its weight seemed to press against the air itself.
"This belongs to you now," the man said flatly. "Whether you're ready for it or not."
Kael stared at the book like it might bite. "I don't understand. What is this? Who are you?"
The man's lips curved into something that might've once been a smile, though no warmth reached his eyes. "You'll learn the answers in time. Or you'll die trying. Either way, the burden is yours to carry."
Kael's breath caught in his throat. He wanted to scream. To hurl the journal into the fire. To make time unravel so he could warn his parents, stop it all, undo the pain. But all he could do was whisper, "What burden? What are you talking about?"
The man's expression shifted—just slightly. A tightening at the edges of his jaw. A flicker of something ancient and heavy.
"The gods," he said softly, almost reverently, "fear you, boy. Not for what you've done… but for what you might become. And fear like that makes even gods foolish. Reckless." He gestured to the destruction around them, the scorched land, the still-smoking remains of what had once been a home. "This? This was the work of cowards. Divine cowards who acted without sanction. Without the law that binds them."
Kael blinked, and his stomach churned. "But… why? Why would they break their own law just to do this?"
The man's eyes darkened. "Because laws were made by gods, but fear... fear answers to no one."
He pressed the journal into Kael's hands. The leather was warm. Too warm. It throbbed faintly in his grip, a rhythm too steady to be natural. Kael wanted to drop it. But he couldn't.
"This book," the stranger said, "contains truths that were buried before time had a name. The kind of truths that shatter pantheons. That remake fates. That kill mortals and gods alike."
Kael swallowed, his throat dry and raw. "And you're just giving it to me?"
A breath—sharp and sad—escaped the stranger. "I'm giving you what was always yours. The rest… is survival."
Then he turned. The man's body began to flicker and melt into the smoke. His limbs stretched into shadow, his hair dissolving like strands of silver mist. Within seconds, he was fading.
"Wait!" Kael cried out, taking a desperate step forward. "Please! I'm not ready!"
But the man was already gone—no flash of light, no noise, no parting words. Just a ripple in the air, like someone had whispered a secret too heavy to bear and vanished with it.
Only the journal remained. And Kael—kneeling in the ruins of his childhood, clutching the only piece of his parents left untouched by fire.
His body trembled. His fingers curled tighter around the binding. And as the sky darkened further above him, as the last embers flickered and died, a thousand questions burned like coals in his chest.
And one, above all others, clawed from his throat in a whisper that cracked with pain:
"Why did this happen?"