Chapter 1: Ashes Remember the Dead
--i died that night.
Not from the fire.
But from the lie they left me to burn in."
---
The first thing I remember is screaming—not mine, not yet—but raw, choking panic from the hallway just outside my dorm.
That night was supposed to be like any other. Another forgettable evening in the gray, crumbling walls of St. August's Home for the Abandoned and Afflicted. A place where your name fades faster than your birth certificate, and the only prayers that echo are the ones nobody listens to.
I wasn't even supposed to be there. I had snuck out again—my usual routine: climb the half-broken rain pipe, sit on the roof under the stars, and imagine I was anywhere else. I was good at pretending. Good at lying to myself that the scars didn't itch when it rained, that the ache in my chest was just the cold.
I was seventeen, nameless to most, and broken in ways even therapy couldn't reach. But that night?
That night, I made the mistake of going back.
Because I heard him cry—Jayden. Six years old. Big dreams, bigger eyes. The kind of kid who still believed that the world owed him kindness.
He was sobbing in his sleep again, whispering something about monsters in the dark.
I couldn't leave him like that.
So I slid back in through the vent, crept across the dusty library tiles, and reached the dorm just in time to hear the alarms scream.
Fire.
It spread too fast to be natural.
The hallway burst open in a wall of black heat. Smoke rushed in like a living beast. The lights shattered overhead. Wood groaned. Ceiling tiles cracked.
Kids screamed.
I didn't think. I grabbed Jayden—barefoot, half-asleep, terrified—and pulled him into my chest.
We ran.
The fire chased us.
Down the hallway, past the crying, coughing chaos. I saw Ms. Ruth trying to smash open the door to the stairwell, her hands bleeding. I saw Timmy—nine years old, covered in soot—curled up in the corner like hiding would save him.
The heat slammed me in the face. My lungs felt like paper. But I kept going.
Almost there. Just past the old chapel—
The ceiling collapsed.
A beam pinned my legs. I screamed, raw and animalistic. Jayden fell forward, skidding onto the floor.
He turned back.
"Zayn!" he cried, crawling toward me.
I pushed him hard.
"GO!"
He hesitated—too long. The fire was too close. I reached down, dug into what strength I had left, and threw him.
He landed near the doorway. I saw Ms. Ruth dragging him out. I saw his tiny hand reaching for me—
Then flames swallowed it all.
People say dying is peaceful. Like a gentle exhale.
They're wrong.
It was violent. Not because of the fire—but because of what I saw in that final moment.
A figure, standing in the flames.
Unburned. Unbothered.
Watching me.
Its eyes weren't human.
Its smile… knew something I didn't.
Then everything went black.
I woke to silence.
Not like sleeping silence—no. The kind of silence that hurts. That stretches across your ears and chest like a vacuum. No sound, no time, no body.
Just… me.
Floating.
Somewhere.
I wanted to scream, but had no mouth. Wanted to cry, but had no eyes.
"You died protecting someone."
The voice shattered the silence.
Soft. Male, maybe. Maybe not. It echoed like a whisper underwater. It wasn't frightening—but it wasn't comforting either.
"You shouldn't remember. But you do."
I tried to speak. Tried to ask: "Where am I?" But I had no tongue, no form. Only thoughts. Only memory.
The voice pulsed through the emptiness again:
"They never told you, did they? That you were never meant for that world. That your soul… was borrowed."
And then—
Images.
Flashes.
A throne of bones. Black flames. A boy with silver hair and eyes that glowed like dusk. A child—me?—being held under water as voices chanted above. A ritual.
A curse.
"Would you like to remember who you are?"
I hesitated.
Then I nodded, with something that wasn't a head.
And the darkness shattered.
I woke up screaming.
Air tore into my lungs like claws. My skin burned—not from fire, but from too much feeling. Like I'd been numb my whole life and was now feeling everything at once.
Stone walls. A faint red glow. The scent of sulfur and old blood.
I was in a tomb.
Chains burned around my wrists—etched with runes I didn't recognize. My body was older. Taller. Stronger. Not human.
Something ancient stirred beneath my ribs.
I crawled toward a mirror shard on the floor.
The face that stared back at me…
wasn't mine.
White hair. Pale skin veined with faint black patterns. Eyes like amber fire. And horns—small, subtle—but definitely there.
I wasn't Zayn anymore.
I was Rael.
They came for me that night.
Cloaked in silver, wielding blades made of light. Priests of the Divine Order—I didn't know their name yet, but their hatred spoke for them.
"He awakens! The cursed child returns!"
I didn't understand the words, but I understood the intent.
To kill me.
But something inside me moved first. I raised my hand, and the world cracked.
A burst of black fire erupted from my palm—pure instinct. One priest screamed. Another's blade melted before it touched me.
I didn't know how. I didn't care.
I ran.
Through ruins. Through blood. Through whispers that clung to the air like smoke.
---
I passed a statue—wings spread, holding a scale in one hand and a broken mask in the other.
It whispered as I limped past:
"The sins of the father… awaken in the son."
I didn't know what it meant.
Not yet.
She found me just before I collapsed.
Long silver hair. A scar across her left cheek. Dagger strapped to her thigh. Eyes like cracked rubies.
She didn't say her name.
She just raised her hand, and the shadows bent around her like loyal wolves.
"You're supposed to be dead," she said softly.
I tried to speak. Blood came out instead.
She looked at me—for a long time. Like she recognized something she wasn't ready to accept.
Then she reached out, pressed her fingers to my forehead, and whispered:
"Sleep, Rael. You'll remember when it's time."
I slept.
Dreamed of fire and snow. Of a world split in two. Of a boy named Zayn, and a prince named Rael. Two souls in one body. Both broken. Both betrayed.
I saw my father—not the drunk that ran off before I could walk, but a king. Horns like thrones. Hands drenched in blood. Eyes full of sorrow.
"They feared you," he whispered. "So they made you human."
Then I saw the girl again.
In a temple.
Crying.
Whispering my name like a prayer.
And beside her—
A dagger.
And a crown.