The sky above the Kingdom of Virel was a bruised gray, as if the heavens themselves mourned. Smoke curled from the distant village, carrying the acrid scent of burning wood, and the faint cries of the terrified echoed through the wind. Among the chaos, a boy ran. He was small, thin, and trembling—not from fear alone, but from the knowledge that the world had already marked him.
Lucien had no magic. Not a spark, not a flicker. In a kingdom where magic determined worth, status, and life itself, he was… nothing.
The villagers didn't just see him as powerless. They saw him as cursed. Forsaken by the gods—or worse, a spawn of some infernal force. Whispers spread like wildfire, growing into shouts. When the night came, those whispers turned to action.
They came for his family first. Torches flared against the walls of his modest home. Shouts of accusation filled the air. "The boy brings doom! The Devil's spawn!"
Lucien's parents had known this day would come. His father grabbed his hand, his mother clutching his shoulder as they pushed him toward the hidden trapdoor beneath the floorboards.
"Go! Run and survive!" his father urged, his voice cracking with both fear and love. "No matter what, live!"
Lucien hesitated. "But—what about you?!"
His mother's eyes, filled with both sorrow and defiance, held him fast. "We are your shield. Go! Your life… your future… it belongs to no one else."
Moments later, the front door splintered under the force of torches and axes. Screams erupted as his parents fought to hold back the mob. Lucien pressed himself into the shadows, the muffled sounds of death echoing above him. Flames licked the ceiling. Smoke filled his lungs. And the last thing he saw before the floorboards gave him cover was the silhouettes of the villagers tearing through the home that had been his sanctuary.
He did not cry. Not yet. Not now.
Outside, the world had already begun its cruel lesson. Villagers danced and jeered around the burning ruins, celebrating the "purging" of what they believed to be evil. And Lucien… Lucien had nothing. No magic, no protection, and no one left.
He stumbled into the forest beyond the village, bloodied, scorched, and alone. Night pressed around him, yet he felt a strange clarity amidst the pain. A thought as cold and sharp as the steel that had taken his parents cut through the haze:
The world abandoned me. And one day… it will pay.
He pressed his hands to the dirt, feeling the rough earth beneath him, imagining the laws that bound magic to those who wielded it. He didn't yet know how to grasp it, but he would. He had to. The gods, the villagers, the entire kingdom—they had all betrayed him. And betrayal demanded reckoning.
As the first light of dawn broke across the forest, painting the world in pale gold and blood-red shadows, Lucien—once a helpless child—made his silent vow.
I will learn their secrets. I will bend magic to my will. And I will show the world the price of forsaking me.