Blood rained down on the battlefield.
Lightning split the black sky, and for an instant, shadows of dying men flared across the ground. Steel clashed, men screamed, and the air reeked of iron and burned flesh. In the midst of it, Kael stood tall. His cloak hung in tatters, his crown smeared in gore. Three spears pinned him like a beast, yet his eyes those of a king stared, unyielding.
Kael the Conqueror. The king who once shook the continent. Now he knew the end had come.
All around, the last of his soldiers collapsed, one after another. The enemy pressed in from every side, but the wound that cut deepest stood before him.
"Why…?" His voice was raw, blood spilling over his lips.
General Alvar met his gaze with eyes colder than steel. The spear in his grip dripped red.
"I'm done fighting for your dream, Kael," Alvar said. His tone was flat, deadly, a whisper that carried louder than any battle cry.
"You took kingdom after kingdom. And what's left? Ashes. Ruins."
Kael said nothing. He heard the clang of steel, the dying screams of his men, the enemy's roar of victory echoing across the field.
But no blade, no spear, cut as deep as betrayal.
A bitter smile crept across his face.
"If the world rejects the throne I carry… then I'll take it back. No matter how many times I have to be born again."
The vow left his lips, and the world broke apart.
Blinding white swallowed the field. The din of war faded, leaving nothing but silence.
****
Rebirth
Kael woke with a ragged breath. His body shook, chest rising fast, but the air he drew in was warm, clean untainted by blood.
He lay on a straw bed beneath a low wooden roof. Morning light slipped through the cracks of a shuttered window. Somewhere beyond, birds were singing.
Slowly, he sat up. His body felt light—too light.
He looked down at his hands. Not the calloused hands of a king, forged by war. These were the hands of a boy—thin, untested, never raised a sword.
A faint reflection in the water trickling from a clay jar caught his eye. He froze, Shoulder-length black hair. The same gray eyes—the eyes of a ruler—but set in the face of someone far younger.
He had died.
Yet the world had given him flesh anew.
---
The door creaked open. A woman, middle-aged, stepped inside carrying a bowl of steaming broth.
"Oh, you're awake!" Relief softened her voice as she set her eyes on him.
"Poor child, you collapsed at the edge of the forest three days ago. You must be starving."
Kael said nothing. His gaze lingered on her, steady, too steady for a boy his age.
Her smile faltered for a breath, but she pressed on, setting the bowl down on the rough wooden table.
"Eat. You'll need your strength."
Kael gave a small nod.
The broth was bland, nothing more than thin vegetables and salt. But with each spoonful, the truth settled deeper.
He lived.
He had returned.
*****
Grayfall Village
The village was little more than a scatter of houses pressed between golden fields and the looming dark of the forest. Wooden fences leaned under their own weight, patched with rope and straw. Smoke rose from crooked chimneys, carrying the smell of boiled grain and dung. Chickens scratched in the mud. A thin dog slunk across the path, ribs showing through its skin.
Kael walked the dirt road in silence, his bare feet sinking into ruts carved by cart wheels long gone. Every sight, every sound gnawed at him. Farmers bent their backs in the fields, their shoulders stooped from years of toil. Women carried buckets from the well, their laughter muted, the kind born not of joy but survival. Children shrieked as they chased each other barefoot through the dust, their games interrupted by the barking of a mangy hound tethered to a post.
It was all alien to him. And yet, beneath the strangeness, he felt a weight pressing in: peace. Not the peace of treaties, nor the silence after slaughter. This was the quiet of lives too small to matter to kings. A kind of life he had never allowed to exist in his reign.
He paused near the well, where two men stood speaking in hushed tones.
"…they say the Arcanum Academy is opening early this year," one muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Pah. What of it? That place is for lords and their brats. No man from Grayfall will ever walk its halls," the other spat into the dirt.
Kael's steps faltered.
The name struck like a blade between his ribs. Arcanum Academy.
Memory surged—of grand halls filled with light, of sorcerers weaving fire and shadow, of whispered promises of power that had once set him on the path to conquest. Long before crowns and betrayals, before his name was spoken with fear, there had been the Academy.
He turned his gaze away, but the thought gnawed at him. If he was to rise again, it would not be with swords and legions. Not yet. He would need knowledge, power that could not be broken by treachery. He would begin where it all had once begun.
A gust of wind swept through the street, carrying dust and the faint scent of bread baking in clay ovens. Kael stood there, watching the villagers as they went about their lives. To them, he was no one—just a boy with thin arms and an empty stare. They had no idea who he was, nor what kind of storm he carried inside him.
And that suited him. For now.