Kael Thorn had learned long ago that places like Greyhaven never welcomed men like him.
Small villages carried an instinctive caution, honed by generations of survival. They noticed the weight of a stranger's step, the way his hand rested too close to a weapon, the scars that told stories no one wanted to hear aloud. Kael felt their eyes on him as he dismounted in the village square, their glances flickering away the moment he met them.
He didn't blame them.
He hadn't come seeking shelter or company. He had come because the mark on his chest had burned for the first time in years, flaring awake like a wound torn open by memory. That mark—etched into his skin since birth—had not reacted to rumor or prayer or prophecy. It had remained dormant, silent.
Until last night.
The gods were supposed to be gone. Kael had built his life on that certainty. He had fought wars, buried friends, and learned to survive without divine interference. If the gods were waking, it meant one thing.
Everything he had run from was catching up.
He tied his horse to a post and scanned the square. Greyhaven was unremarkable—stone houses, a central well, the faint scent of bread and smoke. Ordinary. Safe.
And then he saw her.
She stood near the well, her posture tense, one hand wrapped around her wrist as if guarding a secret. She did not look extraordinary at first glance—no crown of fire, no radiant aura—but there was something about the way the air seemed to bend toward her, subtle and unmistakable.
The mark on Kael's chest flared again.
His breath caught.
Impossible.
Yet the pull was undeniable, tugging him forward with the insistence of fate long deferred.
Lyra saw him before he reached her. She had felt his presence like a ripple through water, disturbing the fragile calm she had tried to hold onto all morning. Her instincts screamed caution, though she did not know why.
Up close, the stranger looked weary in a way that went beyond travel. His dark hair was streaked with silver too early for his age, his face etched with lines of restraint rather than time. His eyes—sharp, searching—settled on her wrist almost immediately.
"Show me," he said quietly.
Her heart raced. "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do." His voice held no threat, only urgency. "The mark. It's awakened."
Lyra took a step back. "Who are you?"
Kael hesitated. Names had power, and his had never brought anything good. "Someone who knows what happens next if you don't listen."
That was not comforting.
A few villagers lingered nearby, pretending not to watch. Lyra swallowed, then slowly lowered her hand from her wrist. The symbol gleamed faintly in the daylight, intricate and unmistakably ancient.
Kael's face drained of color.
"It's worse than I thought," he murmured.
"Worse?" Lyra echoed. "You don't get to say that and walk away."
"I wasn't planning to." He met her gaze, something like regret flickering in his eyes. "That symbol is a Name. A true one. And it should not exist anymore."
Her chest tightened. "You're saying the gods—"
"Are stirring," Kael finished. "And they don't stir without consequence."
They spoke in hushed tones as they moved toward the edge of the square. Lyra's thoughts raced. Every answer he offered raised more questions. He spoke of myths as if they were memories, of divine wars as if they were history rather than legend.
"You believe this," she said, searching his face.
"I've lived it," Kael replied.
He explained that some were born with divine echoes—fragments of the gods bound into mortal flesh. He was one of them. A warrior forged by power he neither asked for nor trusted. He had spent his life outrunning destiny, suppressing the pull of his bloodline.
"You don't look like a monster," Lyra said softly.
A bitter smile crossed his lips. "Neither do most monsters."
Their eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them—recognition layered with resistance. Lyra felt it in the tightening of her chest, in the inexplicable sense that this man would change her life in ways she was not ready to face.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Kael's gaze shifted toward the distant hills. "Now? You leave Greyhaven. Because once a Name is spoken by the world, it draws attention. From creatures, cultists, and gods who never truly died."
Fear surged through her—but beneath it, a strange, steady resolve.
"I'm not running blindly," she said. "If this is my fate, I'll face it awake."
Kael studied her, then nodded once. "Then you're braver than most."
As dusk settled over the village, Lyra packed what little she owned. She stood at the edge of Greyhaven, looking back at the life she had known, feeling the weight of a future she could not yet see.
Kael waited beside his horse, silent, watchful.
"You don't trust me," she said.
"No," he admitted. "But fate does. And that worries me far more."
Together, they turned toward the road—two souls bound by a name the world was never meant to remember, stepping into a story that had been waiting centuries to be told.