The sun was a mocking golden coin in the sky above the Narvadios estate. For Finn, it was the day the world was supposed to begin. Instead, it was the day it ended.
The "Awakening" was whispered to be a gift—a divine spark. But as Finn stumbled away from the jubilant roars of the festival, his skull felt like it was being split by a rusted cleaver.
"Finn? You're pale as a ghost."
A voice like silk and summer. Sarah. She stood there with her frizzy ginger hair catching the light, her face etched with a concern that made his heart ache. They had been promised to each other since they were fourteen. She was the only light in a house governed by a father who was a shadow and a mother who was his only sanctuary.
"I'm fine," Finn gasped, clutching the doorframe of his chambers. "Just... the heat."
"Liar," she whispered, stepping closer. Her eyes widened. "Finn, your eye... it looks like it's going to burst. It's bleeding."
She tore a strip of cloth from her gown, her hands trembling as she tied it around his right eye. The pain was a rhythmic screaming in his nerves. Why? his mind howled. Mother said it wouldn't hurt. She said it was a blessing.
He pulled her into a desperate hug, seeking an anchor in the storm of his own senses. Sarah stiffened, then melted against him, a faint blush creeping onto her cheeks.
Then, the world shifted.
A new sense—sharp, cold, and predatory—rippled through the air. Finn's good eye snapped open. Behind Sarah, the shadows didn't just flicker; they birthed a man. He wore a mask that reflected nothing and held a blade that seemed to drink the light.
"Sarah, move—!"
Squelch.
The sound was small. Sickening. Sarah's body jerked. The blade protruded from her chest, the steel coated in a vibrant, mocking crimson. She coughed, the blood staining Finn's shirt.
"I... I don't want to die," she whimpered, her eyes glazing over as she looked at him. "Finn... I want to live..."
The masked man withdrew the sword with practiced indifference. He stepped over her slumped form and placed the blade in Finn's limp hand. Before Finn could even scream, the man was gone. Dissolved into the ether.
The door burst open.
"Finn, the guests are—"
His father's voice died. Behind him, the Narvadios guards froze. They saw a boy with a bloody cloth over his eye, a smoking soul-signature of a fresh Awakening, and a sword in his hand. They saw the heir standing over the cooling corpse of his fiancée.
"Murderer," a guard whispered. The word caught like wildfire. "He killed the girl."
"Mother..." Finn reached out, his voice a broken rasp.
His mother stood at the back of the crowd. Her face was a mask of shattered glass. She didn't scream. She didn't defend him. She simply looked away, her silence more agonizing than the Awakening itself.
CRACK.
His father's fist caught him square in the jaw, slamming his head into the stone floor.
"We were attacked!" Finn choked out through a mouthful of blood. "A man... the sensors..."
"The sensors did not flare, boy," his father hissed, his face contorted in a mask of pure loathing. "You've brought rot to my bloodline."
Another punch. Then darkness.
When Finn woke, the festival was over. The only music was the rhythmic drip-drip of water on cold stone. He was chained, stripped of his finery and his dignity.
The heavy iron door groaned open. His father stood there, flanked by his mother.
"Mother, please," Finn whispered.
"I never thought my own flesh could be a monster," she said, her voice hollow. She couldn't even look at the chains.
"What were your motives?" his father demanded. When Finn didn't answer fast enough, the lash of a whip tore across his back. Finn screamed, the sound echoing off the damp walls. "I have no need for a killer as an heir. You are nothing to me."
They left him in the dark. But he wasn't alone.
"Relax," a voice drifted from the corner. "Move too much and those cuts will never close."
Finn bolted upright as much as his chains allowed. The masked man. The killer.
"I'll kill you," Finn hissed, his voice a jagged edge of hate. "I'll rip your throat out!"
The man leaned against the cell bars, unimpressed. "Trust me, I've been where you are. Tomorrow is your trial. The 'Oldest Warrior Mage' will preside. He's a fan of tradition."
"I didn't kill her!"
"It doesn't matter," the man chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "You're being sentenced to the Other World. The Abyss where the sun never shines and the monsters never sleep."
Finn felt a cold dread settle in his marrow. The Other World was a death sentence. No one returned.
"If you want to survive," the man said, stepping forward to touch Finn's matted hair, "fight with everything. Train until your bones break. Or don't, and die in the dirt. Good luck, little heir."
He vanished like a bad dream.
The execution platform was a jagged finger of rock over a bottomless crater. The wind howled, smelling of ozone and old blood.
The High Mage's voice was a rhythmic drone, pronouncing the sentence: Exile. Eternal.
Finn looked at the crowd. His father stood at the edge of the pit. Sarah's mother stepped forward, her face twisted in grief, and spat on him. The slap echoed louder than the wind.
And there, in the shadows of the pillars, the masked man stood. Watching.
"I will kill you all," Finn whispered. It started as a breath and grew into a roar that silenced the mountain. "Do you hear me? I will kill every single one of you!"
He looked his father in the eye. He expected regret. He found only disgust.
"Die quickly," his father said, and delivered a final, crushing kick to Finn's chest.
As Finn fell into the yawning black maw of the crater, the air rushing past his ears, his life flashed before him. His mother's smile, Sarah's laughter, the warmth of a life he would never have again.
The pain in his eye flared into a white-hot supernova.
"I'll come back!" he screamed into the void, his voice disappearing into the clouds. "I'll come back and burn it all down!"