Silence ruled the room.
The cloaked figure stood motionless, its voice still echoing in the minds of everyone present:
"You will not live past your seventh year."
The air thickened, heavy with divine authority. The child blinked twice his golden pupils narrowing. Then, slowly, he stepped forward.
"Says who?" he asked flatly.
The figure tilted its head, smoke coiling around its robes like living shadows.
"Not I," it said. "I am but the messenger. The judgment was cast by the Pantheon of Thirteen. The gods of this world."
Queen Solinine let out a gasp, one hand going to her chest. "The Pantheon… hasn't interfered in mortal affairs since the Age of Fracture."
Emperor Cobard rose to his feet, sword still in hand. "Who are you? Speak your name, spirit."
The figure turned toward him slowly. "You know me by many names… but in the old tongue, I am called Aexion. Herald of Bound Flame."
The name struck something deep in Cobard's memory a name from forbidden scriptures, buried in the Empire's vaults. A god's messenger who only appeared when the world's balance was at risk.
"You're saying… my son has seven years to live?" Cobard demanded, voice rising. "Why? What crime has he committed?"
The figure didn't answer immediately. Instead, it turned to the child again.
"His existence is a contradiction. He bears the Mark of the Voidflame a power lost since the Celestial War. A force not meant to return."
The child stared up at him. "Then why did I return?"
For a moment, even the Herald had no words.
Finally, Aexion said,
"Because someone defied the gods. Someone brought you here. Against the natural order."
Soline's hands began to shake. "You mean… he's not from this world?"
"No," Aexion said coldly. "His soul was taken from another realm. Ripped from the thread of his own fate and sewn into a vessel of this world."
The child smirked. "So I really did get isekai'd. Hilarious."
Cobard stepped in front of the child protectively. "If this is punishment for someone else's crime, then take it out on the one responsible not him."
"It is not for me to decide," Aexion replied.
"The decree has been made. Seven years. That is the time you are given. At the end of it, your soul will be recalled ,torn from this world and erased."
The child narrowed his eyes. "Unless I break the rule."
Aexion's form flickered. "Many have tried to defy divine law. All have failed."
"Then it's about time someone didn't."
Far below, Sraverjek heard every word. The ancient dragon coiled tighter, his body glowing with subtle light beneath scales that shimmered like galaxies.
"The Voidflame has returned…" he whispered to himself.
His voice vibrated the dungeon walls.
"They fear what he may become. But fear is a poor compass for the divine."
He inhaled deeply not air, but fate itself.
"I will see this child… with my own eyes."
Back in the nursery, the Herald of Bound Flame began to fade.
Cobard raised his sword. "Wait. What do we have to do? What can we do?"
Aexion's voice was already drifting, like wind through a canyon.
"Prepare him for what comes. The prophecy has already begun."
Then, with a gust of cold wind and a final crackle of divine energy, Aexion disappeared.
The room fell silent again, though the weight of the message still crushed every heart within it.
The child looked down at his hands once more.
Seven years.
He didn't feel fear. Not really. But he did feel pressure like time itself had started a countdown inside his bones.
He turned to the emperor.
"You still gonna raise me?" he asked.
Cobard looked at him for a long time, then nodded. "You're my son now. Whatever fate says, I'll defy it beside you."
Soline rushed forward, pulling the child into her arms.
Her voice was low but fierce.
"You are the answer to our prayers. Not a curse. Never a curse."
And for the first time, the child let her hold him.
That Night…In the Tower of Records, deep in the imperial archives, an old scholar flipped through forbidden tomes by candlelight.
He stopped on one page, an illustration of a black flame encircling a gold star.
He traced the old glyph beneath it with trembling fingers.
"He has returned…"
Then, suddenly a knife slashed across his throat from behind.
Blood splattered across the pages.
A hooded figure snatched the book and vanished into the shadows.
Meanwhile, in a faraway mountain range beyond the empire's borders, a group of masked mages stood in a burning circle.
A child's face hovered in the flame the same white hair, golden eyes.
One mage stepped forward, clutching a cracked obsidian staff.
"He's awakened," she said. "And he bears the Mark."
Another mage hissed, "Then the prophecy was real."
The first turned to the others.
"We must kill him before he turns seven."