The night he was born, the sky bled.
It wasn't the gentle crimson of a sunset, nor the warmth of dawn stretching its light across the horizon. No — this was a violent red, a shade that painted the clouds like fresh blood spilled across a battlefield. The villagers whispered that it was an omen, a curse set loose upon their forgotten hamlet nestled between forest and stone.
The boy's mother screamed inside the small wooden hut, sweat soaking through her linen as the midwife barked orders. Outside, the men refused to look at the sky. Their gazes were fixed on the trees, on the unnatural silence that had fallen over the forest. No crickets. No owls. Not even the restless rustling of branches. The world seemed to hold its breath.
When the child came into the world, the silence deepened.
The midwife flinched. She had delivered dozens of children in her years, but none like this. His eyes were open — far too early — and they glowed faintly in the candlelight, a molten amber that should not belong to a newborn. He didn't cry. Instead, his tiny chest rose and fell with a strange calm, as though he were studying them.
"He is… wrong," the midwife muttered before she could stop herself.
The mother, pale and trembling, clutched her son to her chest. "He is mine," she whispered hoarsely, daring the world to take him away.
But the village heard of it soon enough. By morning, rumors spread like wildfire. The boy was a demon. A changeling. A monster born of that blood-red moon. Some swore they saw scales glimmer faintly beneath his skin. Others claimed the child's breath fogged like winter air, even in the warmth of the hearth.
The father — a blacksmith hardened by years of war — stood at the door with his hammer in hand, daring anyone to touch his son. No one tried. Not then. But whispers were seeds, and seeds grow into thorns.
The boy was given the name Kael.
Kael grew like any other child, or so it seemed on the surface. He learned to walk, to stumble, to laugh at his father's rough jokes and cling to his mother's skirts. He played with sticks and stones, dreamed of wielding his father's hammer one day. To the casual eye, he was normal.
But there were cracks.
At night, he would wake screaming, though not in fear. His tiny nails would gouge splinters from the wooden crib, his teeth clenched tight as though he were fighting to bite through steel. His mother soothed him with lullabies, but her arms often came away streaked with faint scratches, as though his very skin burned to lash out.
By the time Kael turned six, the hunger began. He didn't understand it, not then. It was a gnawing in his chest, a twisting in his belly that food could not satisfy. Bread, meat, honeyed milk — none of it was enough. He would sit at the hearth, staring at the veins in his father's forearms as he worked the forge, imagining… something. Something warm. Something red.
The first time he killed was by accident.
A stray dog had wandered into the village, ribs sharp beneath its mangy fur. Kael found it cornered near the well. The hunger roared inside him, louder than it had ever been, drowning out reason. His hands shook, his chest burned, and before he knew what he was doing, he lunged.
When the villagers found him, the boy was crouched over the animal's lifeless body, his mouth stained with blood he could not explain. His amber eyes glowed brighter than the forge-fire.
That was the day the village began to fear him in earnest.
The years crawled forward, but the hunger never left.
Kael's father forced him into work at the forge, hammering iron into shape, hoping the labor would burn the restlessness out of him. It didn't. If anything, the rhythm of the hammer only echoed the beat of the hunger in his veins.
By ten, Kael had learned to hide his cravings, though barely. He smiled when expected, spoke little, and walked with his head bowed. But inside, the hunger gnawed with every passing hour. Every night, he would creep into the forest under the cover of darkness, teeth clenched, fists tight, searching for animals to still the beast within. Each kill brought a fleeting calm… followed by deeper hunger.
It was only a matter of time before animals were not enough.
One winter evening, when snow clung to the thatched roofs and the village huddled close to the fire, Kael felt it — the hunger stronger than ever before. It clawed at his ribs, burned his throat, screamed in his skull. He stumbled from his home, breath heavy in the frost, and found himself wandering to the edge of the forest.
A man was there. A traveler. Cloaked in furs, carrying a bundle of firewood. The stranger looked up, meeting Kael's eyes. For a moment, Kael thought of turning away. Of running back into his home and locking the door.
But the hunger was stronger.
When dawn came, the snow was no longer white.
The villagers never found the traveler's body. They assumed wolves. They always did. But one man — a knight passing through on his way north — heard the whispers. He studied Kael with a hunter's gaze, noting the boy's unnatural stillness, the way the shadows seemed to cling to him.
And that was when Kael's fragile mask began to crack.
The bloodlust had taken root. And blood, once tasted, never truly lets go.