Chapter 34: Unraveled Tombs
The storm screamed like the world itself was tearing apart. Rain lashed the stone keep of Kurnov as thunder rattled the windows and shook the walls. Inside the birthing chamber, the air was thick—heavy with sweat, blood, and something colder, something that whispered of dread.
In the midst of cries and chaos, a child was born. Pale as frost, his hair white as untouched snow, he lay silent for a heartbeat too long. The attending doctor, a woman hardened by decades of life and death, froze. Her eyes widened in terror, a strangled gasp escaping her lips. She stumbled back, then fled into the hall, screaming for the knights, her voice echoing like a curse through the keep.
The boy's mother lay trembling, eyes wide, staring at the infant with a mixture of horror and disbelief. Her voice was a hoarse whisper, cracking with fear.
"Why… why did the gods curse me with this… thing?"
Her husband's face was hard as stone. He stepped forward, his eyes cold, emotionless.
"Only you, I, and the doctor have seen this abomination," he said quietly. "The only mercy… is to erase it."
The mother shivered, yet her words were decisive.
"Burn it… drown it… let the forest take it."
The father's hands closed around the infant. "Perhaps the old well. No one will find it there."
Outside, the storm raged as if protesting the injustice. Without ceremony, the father dropped the child into the abyss. No name was spoken. No prayer offered. The boy's tiny cries vanished into the darkness below.
But fate is rarely so merciful.
Through the rain, a ragged figure shuffled. An old wanderer, bones aching and stomach twisting with hunger, heard the faintest whimper. Drawn to it, he peered into the dark well. There, impossibly, the boy lived. With trembling hands and aching limbs, the old man descended and rescued him from the darkness.
When he emerged, drenched and exhausted, he whispered, "So the world has already thrown you away… little one."
He sought shelter from the church, the orphanage, even the villagers—but fear met him at every door. Finally, he tore crusted bread into pulp and fed the child, wrapping him in strips of his own tattered clothing.
"I've not eaten in two weeks, little one," he murmured. "But I will protect you."
Two weeks passed. Hunger gnawed at the old man, yet he shielded the child. In the town square, fear became panic. The mayor, red-faced and trembling with zeal, bellowed, "The white-haired devil breathes! Purge this curse from our land!"
Torches lit the forest.
The hunt ended with the wanderer's broken body, torn by a bear. No child remained. The villagers rejoiced, convinced the demon had been destroyed. Yet beneath a hollow cliff, hidden in a cave, the boy survived.
Weak, starving, and alone, he cried for days. Vultures circled above. Just as their shadows reached him, a figure appeared—white hair shimmering like sunlight on snow, eyes cold but gentle. With hands glowing faintly, she healed his wounds, cradled him, and whispered to the grave of the old man, "You deserved better… but thank you, for him."
The girl vanished into the wild with the child as the village celebrated, blind to their sin.
---
Four Years Later
The boy had not died, nor had he been spared.
In the bowels of a hidden fortress, Leornars sat in chains. Frost-white hair fell past his shoulders. His skin was pale, almost translucent, stretched thin over his bones. His eyes—hollow pools of madness—stared into nothingness.
"Nine years…" he whispered. "Nine years of darkness, of pain…"
He remembered every scream, every torture. Fingers broken and healed. Legs shattered and restored. Organs ripped out and mended again. He had watched his mother die—over and over and over—millions of times.
"Why… why me? I did nothing!" His voice became a raw scream that echoed through the dungeon.
Eventually, even words failed him. Silence became his companion. The mayor had ordered a neural chip implanted in his brain, forcing the memory of his mother's execution to replay endlessly. Physical torture resumed every six hours. Food came once every two weeks.
"They heal me anyway… so I keep living," he thought numbly. "I don't know what is real anymore."
Years passed. He ate rats, insects, even pieces of his own flesh. Pain was his only teacher, darkness his only friend. By seventeen, every piece of him had been broken—and rebuilt through suffering.
Then came the day of release.
The dungeon erupted in chaos. Leornars, freed from his chains of flesh and mind, slaughtered ten thousand souls. The mayor, the scientist, the small farmers who had dared breathe his name—they all fell.
"Leornars Seers Avantris is dead," he said, voice cold as ice. "I am Leornars Servs now."
In a flash of light, the world he knew vanished. Pain, dungeon, screams—all gone. In their place: a new world, ripe for vengeance.
With allies like Ascian, Bellian, and Stacian, he reshaped kingdoms. Royal blood could not withstand him. Princesses fell. Princes bent. His schemes dug into the heart of Lutra itself.
The boy who had been tortured and broken was gone. In his place stood a force of vengeance, manipulation, and darkness—a shadow that would reshape the world.