The mud of Ashveil Village clung to Arin's bare feet like a shroud, cold and utterly final. It was the same mud his parents had worked, the same mud that now seemed eager to swallow him whole.
He didn't struggle. To struggle was to acknowledge the verdict, to admit he was the Ill Omen, the Cursed Child. Instead, Arin let the two Temple Guards drag him toward the crumbling stone block in the square. His hands were bound with rough hemp, digging painfully into his wrists, but the deeper ache was the silence of the villagers. They stood in a half-circle, shoulders slumped, eyes fixed on the ground—not out of pity, but fear. Fear that to meet his gaze was to invite the curse.
The source of their fear, the black, crescent-shaped birthmark that spanned his left collarbone, felt strangely cool today. It usually burned, a metaphysical scar that had been the first thing people saw and the last thing they forgave. It was the brand of a fallen god, or so High Priest Kaelor Vynn had spent seventeen years preaching.
Kaelor Vynn stood waiting, his heavy robes of ivory wool pristine against the grime of the village. The High Priest was an imposing man whose eyes carried the pinched conviction of a true fanatic. In his hand, he held the execution tool: a ceremonial iron sword, dulled by age and embossed with the symbol of the Celestial Tribunal—seven interlocking circles representing the Order Arin was accused of defying simply by existing.
"Arin Solmere," the Priest's voice was a gravelly boom that echoed off the few dilapidated buildings. "You were born under an eclipse. Your mark is a stain upon this pure land. It is the residue of Seliora, the Banished One, the goddess who sought to shatter the Law of Order. By the authority of the Tribunal, we excise this blight."
The Temple Guards roughly shoved Arin's shoulder onto the cold stone block. The shock of the cold on his neck was a harsh, final confirmation of his fate. He caught a flash of movement in the distance—Lyra. His childhood friend, the only person in this wretched village who hadn't flinched from his curse, stood rigid by the baker's stall, tears tracking clean paths through the soot on her cheeks. She was his mortal anchor, the fragile, pure reason he had fought to stay alive all these years.
I won't die. Not here. Not like this.
His mind, calculating even in the face of death, spun wildly. He had no cultivation, no magic, nothing but the iron will forged in seventeen years of abuse and isolation. He was barely at the Flesh-Touched stage of existence, the most basic level of reinforced mortality, and that was just from sheer stubborn survival.
Kaelor Vynn raised the iron blade high. The metal caught the meagre midday sun, casting a brief, blinding glare.
"May the Tribunal receive your corrupted soul," Vynn intoned, bringing the sword back for the downward stroke.
Arin closed his eyes, not in resignation, but in concentration. He did not pray. He did not beg. He willed himself to live.
In that microsecond before the edge touched his skin, it happened. It was not a gentle awakening. It was a shattering, a metaphysical violence that wrenched a choked cry from his throat.
The crescent mark on his collarbone did not just burn; it ignited. A cold, silver fire radiated from the skin, not hot, but like being submerged in liquid moonlight. It felt as if a thousand tiny, crystalline shards were being forced beneath his flesh, violently rewriting the structure of his soul. His breath hitched, his vision flashing white.
*SERATH.*
The sound wasn't auditory; it resonated inside his skull, a single word spoken in the Divine Tongue—Lunari. It was a voice of endless, aching starlight, laced with betrayal and ancient power.
In that instant of excruciating pain, Arin saw her. Seliora. She was only a fragment, a reflection. Ethereal moonlight, cold, broken eyes that held the sorrow of a lost millennium. Her face was beautiful, devastatingly so, but marred by crystalline cracks, as if she were a statue shattered by a thunderbolt and barely held together by sheer will.
"You are mine, little anchor," the fragmented voice whispered, the mental pain so intense that Arin's vision swam. "Do not yield the price I paid to brand you."
The word SERATH—BIND was an instruction. It meant: bind the nascent power to your will.
The executioner's iron sword smashed down.
It did not find Arin's neck. It met a sudden, dense field of pure, cold energy radiating from his collarbone.
CRACK.
The ancient iron sword, meant to cleave flesh, did not simply stop. It exploded outward in a shower of rusted, brittle fragments. A piece of shrapnel tore a deep gouge into the cheek of the nearest Temple Guard, who screamed and stumbled backwards, clutching his face. The other guard was thrown to the ground, rolling in the mud.
Kaelor Vynn froze, his wide eyes fixed on Arin. The pure shock in the High Priest's face was more satisfying than any revenge Arin could have hoped for.
Arin's head lifted, the pain in his neck receding, replaced by a dizzying exhaustion. His vision was still blurred, but he could see the mark. It wasn't just black now. It was pulsing with a soft, ethereal silver light, the crescent signature glowing with the raw, terrifying power of a sealed goddess.
This was the first Divinity Mark. It had cost him nearly his life and a piece of his sanity.
"Blasphemy!" Kaelor Vynn shrieked, his composure shredded. "He is not merely cursed! He is a Divine Vessel! A host for the Banished One! Kill him now!"
Vynn scrambled back, but the guards, shocked and bleeding, hesitated. Arin had a window, impossibly narrow, but present.
The initial burst of divine energy—the raw, untamed power channelled from Seliora's first touch—was already fading. The silver glow dimmed. Arin was suddenly hollow, weak, and shaking, but his mind was crystal clear. The primal fear was gone, replaced by the calculating ruthlessness of a survivor who had just stared into the abyss and walked back carrying a piece of it.
He lunged.
Not toward the guards, but toward the remnants of the broken iron sword. He snatched a jagged fragment of the blade, his bound hands making the movement awkward but effective. He spun, driving the makeshift shrapnel deep into the knee joint of the closest, still-stunned guard.
The guard howled, dropping his crude spear.
Arin didn't wait for the second guard to recover. He took the spear and, in one desperate, fluid movement, slammed the butt of the shaft down onto the neck of the first guard, knocking him out cold.
The second guard, the one whose cheek was bleeding from the shrapnel, finally roared and rushed Arin with his fists. The man was a brute, relying on strength. Arin, fueled by a single, divine command, didn't fight back with strength. He fought with instinct. He ducked, using the guard's momentum against him, slamming the blunt end of the spear into the man's solar plexus. The guard wheezed and fell forward into the mud.
In less than ten heartbeats, the square was no longer an execution ground; it was a scene of chaos.
Arin didn't look at Kaelor Vynn, who was still screaming invectives, nor did he look at Lyra, though he knew she was watching. He didn't have time for fear or sentiment. He had to run. The villagers, witnessing a Divine Vessel resisting the Tribunal's judgment, were beginning to scatter in terror.
He kicked the iron fragment free from the fallen guard's knee, grabbed the keys from the man's belt, and quickly sawed through his hemp bonds. His wrists were raw, but he was free.
The silver light of the crescent mark was now no more than a faint shimmer, a residual coldness that settled deep into his bone marrow. It was a promise, a burden, and a curse.
Arin Solmere, the Cursed Child, was no more. He was now something else: the unwilling Emissary of a banished goddess, forced onto a path of cosmic defiance. The world saw a fugitive, but in the reflection of a nearby puddle, Arin saw a shadow of broken moonlight, cold and compelling.
He turned his back on Ashveil Village, his fate irrevocably rewritten by a single, desperate, divine touch. The road to the Duskwind Sect—a place of ambition, arrogance, and danger—was his only viable escape.
Kaelor Vynn's furious, desperate cry followed him like a physical blow: "HUNT HIM! HE IS AN ENEMY OF ORDER! FIND THE VESSEL OF SELIORA!"
But Arin was already gone, running toward the horizon, the pain of the Soul Engraving still fresh, an agonising reminder that he hadn't just survived death; he had just inherited a war against the heavens themselves.