Darkness. That was all Caelum remembered.
The chamber was cold, lined with steel walls etched with faintly glowing runes. The air was heavy, thick with the sterile bite of medicine and the acrid tang of smoke. Shadows clung to the corners, whispering of secrets that were never meant to be spoken aloud.
At the center of it all stood Valerius Duskbane. His presence filled the room like a storm barely held at bay — towering, sharp, and unyielding. His voice cut through the silence, steady and commanding.
"Again."
The device sparked to life, its crystalline core humming with restrained power. Light flared against Caelum's chest, sinking into his veins like liquid fire. His body jerked under the pressure, breath seizing in his lungs. Pain seared through him, white-hot, threatening to consume every fragment of his being.
He gritted his teeth. He would not scream. He never screamed. Screaming would mean weakness, and weakness had no place in the house of Duskbane.
From the shadows, his father's eyes gleamed with calculation rather than concern. Valerius was not watching a son — he was observing an experiment. A project.
"You were born to carry this power," Valerius said, his voice echoing against the metal walls. "You will perfect it. For honor. For our name."
Honor. The word rang in Caelum's skull like a curse. Honor was the chain that bound him, the invisible blade pressed against his throat. Honor demanded obedience.
Honor demanded sacrifice.
Honor had taken his mother from him.
Her face flickered in his memory like a candle flame, fragile and fleeting. Mireille Duskbane had been warmth in a house of stone. She was gentleness where his father was steel, laughter where he was silence. But her light had been extinguished far too soon, leaving only ashes in her place.
Caelum still remembered her lullabies, sung in the quiet of midnight. Promises whispered in the dark that he was more than the burden of his blood. That one day, he would carve his own path.
Those promises died with her.
A second voice — softer, uncertain — broke through the weight of memory. Aveline. His stepmother. She was the only one who dared to touch him when Valerius wasn't watching. The only one who whispered words that tried to heal cracks too deep to mend.
"You are more than what he makes you," she had said once, her hand trembling against his shoulder.
But whispers were fragile things.
They crumbled under Valerius's iron gaze, drowned out by the roar of power that warred in Caelum's veins. Fire and ice. Two forces that should never coexist, clashing violently within him. He bore them because he must — because his father demanded mastery, no matter the cost.
Caelum clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms until blood welled. Even as a boy, he had understood a truth too bitter for his age.
The world looked upon the Duskbanes with admiration. A family of pride, of dignity, of unshakable honor. They were revered, feared, and envied. Their name was etched in history books and whispered in marketplaces. To carry that name was to carry a legacy of greatness.
But behind closed doors, honor had another face. It was the face of chains and commands. Of blood spilled in silence. Of children molded into weapons rather than nurtured into sons.
For Caelum, honor was no gift.
It was a curse.
And deep within his heart, beneath the pain, beneath the obedience forced upon him, a quiet spark flickered. A promise not of loyalty, but of rebellion.
One day, that curse would break.
One day, the Duskbane name would no longer bind him.
But for now, in that chamber of steel and shadows, he remained silent. Enduring. Waiting.
Because even curses had their time.
And far beyond the walls of his father's domain, across the veiled seas and the island shrouded in mist, destiny was already calling his name — along with the friends who would one day stand at his side.