The chapel of Château de Foncé was a modest place, its stone walls plain compared to the grand cathedrals of the south. Yet on this night, when the storm howled like a wounded beast outside, it felt like the very heart of the keep. Colored light flickered across the floor from stained-glass windows, red and gold shapes twisting and fading each time lightning split the sky.
The chapel was full. Servants packed the far end of the chamber, their heads bowed, though many could not help but lift their eyes toward the altar. There, beneath the watchful image of the Sun God carved into stone, lay the child of Baron Henri and Baroness Céleste de Foncé.
Rogue.
A swaddled infant, small and helpless, yet already a figure of whispered prophecy.
Priests of the Sun God had traveled through mud and storm to be present for this rite. Their robes of white and gold seemed dulled beneath the trembling candlelight, and their faces were pale. Even among the holy, fear clung tonight. The world had grown darker since the collision of realms, and omens were no longer dismissed as easily as they once were.
Father Armand, eldest of the priests, raised a bronze bowl filled with sanctified water. Steam curled faintly from it, glimmering with a faint golden hue. His voice trembled as he began the rite.
"By the Light of the Sun God, we consecrate this child. May purity dwell within him, and corruption fall before him."
He dipped his fingers into the water, then pressed them to the babe's brow.
The child stirred. For a moment, Henri braced himself for a wail — but instead, the boy's tiny chest rose, and the air seemed to still.
A glow began to spread across his skin.
First faint, like the shimmer of dew beneath sunlight. Then brighter, until every servant gasped, and even the priests stepped back in awe. White light seeped from the child's body, pulsing gently as though a second heart beat within him.
Henri froze. Pride swelled within him, fierce and wild, but it was chained by unease. His grandmother's words clawed their way back into his memory: "A child with hair of flame will bear light and shadow both. Blessed or cursed, you will know him by blood."
Father Armand's voice broke the silence. "By the heavens… Such affinity—" He turned to Henri and Céleste, his eyes wide and almost fearful. "My lord, this child… I have seen baptisms across the land, but never have I witnessed the Light so eager to dwell within flesh. It is as though the Sun God himself has chosen him."
The younger priests began muttering prayers, their tones both reverent and shaken. One knelt on the cold stone floor, pressing his forehead against it as if unworthy to stand in the child's presence.
At the far end of the chapel, a maid whispered too loudly, "He shines! He truly shines!" Her words rippled outward, igniting a buzz of awe among the gathered servants.
Henri straightened his shoulders, forcing composure, though his heart thundered as loudly as the storm outside. He looked down at his son. The baby's tiny fists clenched in the air, his lips parted, his glowing skin casting gentle light across the linen. His eyes remained closed, as if the effort of being born into this broken world was enough for now.
Henri's voice was low, yet firm. "He is mine. And he will grow strong."
The declaration silenced the chapel. For a moment, even the storm seemed to recede.
But outside the walls, the rain lashed harder, as if the world itself objected.
Word of the glow spread through the keep before dawn.
In the kitchens, scullery maids whispered that the boy was destined to be a saint. In the stables, squires spoke of how the child's light would one day cut through the darkness of the forests. Guards told one another in low voices that no creature of shadow would dare approach the château so long as the heir lived within its walls.
Yet with every hopeful murmur came another, darker one. The world was changing. Monsters grew bolder with each passing season. Whole villages had been swallowed in the night. If the child was so blessed, then surely his birth was no accident. Surely it was an omen of trials yet to come.
The years that followed blurred together, but the memory of that glow lingered in every corner of the château.
By the time Rogue was four, priests still came, crossing mud-choked roads and half-abandoned villages to reach the keep. They no longer treated him as a noble child but as a sacred vessel to be studied. Their hands trembled when they guided his small fingers to relics, their eyes shone with zeal each time his aura flickered at their command.
"Breathe in the Light," Father Armand urged during one visit, placing a sun-engraved pendant in the boy's hands. "Focus, child. Let it flow into your chest, then outward."
Rogue's crimson hair fell across his brow as he squeezed his eyes shut, lips pursed in concentration. His chest rose, fell, rose again — and then the glow returned. A faint shimmer danced across his arms and cheeks, like moonlight on a river.
The priests gasped. One clapped before quickly silencing himself.
Henri, watching from the shadows of the chapel, felt pride swell once more. Yet beneath it stirred dread. For every glow, every spark of power, seemed to draw the boy further from being his son and closer to being something claimed by the Church.
When Rogue opened his eyes, wide and bright, he looked down at his glowing hands with delight. "Did I do it?" he asked, turning to Henri.
Henri allowed the barest smile. "You did."
Armand bowed low. "My lord… there is no doubt. This child will surpass all others. His affinity is… unnatural." His tone quavered at the last word.
"Unnatural?" Henri repeated softly, but the priest did not answer.
Life bent around the boy. Servants adored him, their fear softened by his laughter. When he darted through the halls, crimson hair blazing and wooden sword in hand, even the stern steward Étienne held his tongue. Guards indulged his endless questions. Maids pressed sweets into his hands. To live in a world that grew darker with each passing year, the boy was a spark of hope.
Yet hope was brittle.
Outside the castle walls, roads emptied, villages thinned. More and more peasants fled to fortified towns. Travelers spoke of shadows that walked by day, of beasts that no hunter could kill, of witches gathering in secret covens. The land itself seemed weary, forests stretching black and twisted where once they had been green.
The priests whispered it quietly when they thought Henri could not hear: the Light waned. With each year, the balance of Light and Dark tilted further. And though Rogue glowed like a blessed flame, flames burned out.
Henri told himself he would not let that happen. Yet when he stood at the window at night and watched lightning crawl across the horizon, the thought came unbidden: Why would the Sun God gift such power to a child, unless the days ahead were meant to devour us all?
Rogue himself knew nothing of such thoughts. He was a boy, and the world was still wondrous to him. His glow amused him. His swordplay with sticks filled him with pride. He laughed at the storm, pressed against the shutters to watch the rain, and dreamed of the forests beyond the keep.
But the world pressed closer each year, dark and hungry. And though the castle's walls stood strong, Henri felt it: the cracks had begun.