The boy did not have a name.
In the underground fortress of Noctharion's Shadow Forge, children were not given names—only numbers carved into their skin. His number, XI, burned across his collarbone like a brand of ownership. Even now, ten years later, that scar still pulsed whenever the shadows in the room shifted.
Tonight, they shifted a lot.
The torches along the stone walls flickered violently, as if terrified of the darkness stretching behind them. Chains rattled from the ceiling. The smell of iron and cold earth clung to the stale air.
The boy—Kael—knelt in the center of the ritual circle, wrists bound, head lowered. His heartbeat was calm, unnaturally calm, for someone about to die.
"You will either ascend," the High Magus rasped, his voice like rocks grinding together,
"or the shadows will consume you."
Kael did not answer. He was not trained to speak during rituals. Only to survive them.
A dozen hooded mages surrounded him, their hands raised, shadows lengthening unnaturally beneath their feet. Black runes slithered across the floor like living serpents, curling toward his skin.
The High Magus pressed a dagger—cold as winter—against Kael's chest.
Blood trickled.
Darkness stirred.
The shadows answered.
They surged forward, swallowing the boy like a wave of black fire. Screams erupted—not from Kael, but from the mages. The circle shattered. Torches blew out. Something ancient and furious awoke inside the boy's ribcage.
Kael lifted his head.
His eyes glowed—two burning embers of void.
Chains snapped like brittle twigs.
The shadows bent to him.
"You wanted power," Kael whispered, voice deeper and colder than it had any right to be.
"Now drown in it."
The High Magus stumbled backward. "No—this isn't possible—! Restrain him!"
But it was already too late.
The darkness exploded outward.
What followed was not a battle. It was annihilation.
Shadows tore through flesh as easily as silk. Screams echoed through the underground halls. Hooded figures collapsed one by one, consumed by the darkness they thought they controlled.
When silence finally returned, only one figure stood in the center of the ruined ritual chamber.
A boy with no name.
A boy reborn from blood and shadow.
Kael stepped over the fallen bodies, unchained and unbound for the first time in his life. His heart throbbed with a strange, hollow ache—freedom, maybe. Or something darker.
Behind him, the shadows curled protectively at his feet.
Ahead of him, the world waited.
He would take it piece by piece.
And anything that stood in his way would break.