Justin Nightwalker was not allowed to be ordinary.
From the moment he opened his eyes—abyssal irises ringed with faint white fire—the world either feared him, plotted against him, or longed to worship him. Elise kept him close, wrapped in silk and wards stronger than stone, but it never stopped the attempts.
The first came before he could walk.
A coven of witches slipped through the wards of Elise's estate, convinced that killing the child would sever Mammon's hold on the world. They crept into the nursery, daggers gleaming under moonlight. But when they reached the crib, the babe inside was already watching them. His tiny eyes burned faintly, cold and knowing.
One witch raised her blade. Her arm froze mid-air.
The dagger shook, but she could not bring it down. Her mind went silent, blank as snow. The others gasped, suddenly paralyzed. They stood locked in place, unable to breathe, unable to think, staring at the child who had stopped them without a word.
Elise found them moments later, their bodies stiff with terror, eyes wide, mouths unable to scream. With a single gesture, she ended them, burning their names from the records that very night.
By the time Justin turned four, assassination plots were routine. Vampires came with silver blades. Wolves with poison claws. Humans with guns and holy water. None succeeded. Elise's empire crushed them all.
But Justin was no helpless child. Even then, his powers whispered at the edges of control.
—
At six years old, he sat in his playroom surrounded by blocks of polished stone. Elise entered quietly, but stopped short at the sight before her.
Every block floated in the air, stacked into impossible towers that turned like gears in slow, graceful rotation. Justin's small hands twitched, eyes glowing faint white fire as the blocks clicked into perfect rhythm.
"Justin," Elise said carefully. "Put them down."
He didn't look at her. "Don't want to."
"Sweetheart," her voice softened, "you'll frighten the staff again."
"They already look at me funny." His lips tightened. "Like I'm broken."
Elise's chest ached. She knelt beside him, fingers brushing his pale hair. "Not broken," she said firmly. "Different. Stronger. They don't understand, but I do."
The blocks fell all at once, clattering across the floor. Justin finally turned to her, and in his gaze was something far too old for a child.
"He talks to me sometimes."
Elise froze. "Who?"
"The man with the gold eyes." His small voice was quiet, hesitant. "He says I belong to him."
Elise's arms wrapped around him instantly, pulling him close, crushing him against her chest. "No," she whispered fiercely, voice trembling with fury. "You are mine, Justin. Mine before his. Mine always."
Justin clung to her, trembling. "But he says… what is his will always be his."
Her eyes burned with sapphire fire. Rage coursed through her veins. Mammon's whisper had already reached him.
She pressed a kiss into his hair, her words iron and oath. "Then we will prove him wrong."
—
Justin's childhood was a paradox. Towers of toys floating in the air. Shadows whispering of assassins in the halls. The constant presence of Mammon circling like a vulture, whispering through cracks in his mind.
And yet, he grew in love. Elise's love. Fierce, protective, unyielding—the kind of love that would defy Hell itself.
In time, he would find friends: a boy named Xavier Thorpe, whose father Amanatius stood like a giant in psychic circles, and a girl named Hope Mikaelson, who carried a legacy of her own.
But even before them, he was already marked.
A child born in fire.
A boy raised in shadows.
A prince whose crown was waiting.