The blood moon hung low, swollen and bruised, as if the heavens themselves labored with pain.
Far from the burning fields of men, hidden beyond the gnashing woods and the salt-choked rivers, a woman knelt in the ruins of an ancient shrine. Her breath came in shuddering gasps. Blood soaked the stone beneath her — not the blood of battle, but the blood of birth.
Lysenna.
Once courted by kings, once whispered of in prophecy — now forgotten, broken, nameless.
Around her, the old gods watched with hollow eyes, their statues cracked and moss-eaten. No priest tended these altars anymore. No prayers reached these bones.
Only the wind spoke here — a thin, keening thing that rattled through the broken teeth of the shrine, whispering secrets no living soul dared keep.
Lysenna screamed once — a raw, tearing sound — and the child slipped into the world.
He did not cry.
He opened his eyes.
They were grey — not the grey of storm clouds or steel, but the grey of ancient things, the grey of mountains that had seen the rise and fall of empires. A gaze too old, too steady, for a newborn.
For a long, trembling moment, Lysenna could only stare at him, her heart a thundering ache against her ribs.
"You were never meant to be," she whispered, tears carving clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. "And yet here you are."
The child reached out a hand, small and perfect, and touched the curve of her face.
Above them, the moon wept red.
In the dark beyond the shrine, shadowed figures moved.
Not beasts.
Not men.
Something older.
The Silent Order — watchers, recorders, keepers of broken truths — had come. Cloaked in ash and bone, they knelt in the trees, heads bowed, mouths sealed. None would touch the child. None would aid or harm him. Their law was simple: Observe. Record. Never intervene.
And so they watched.
They watched as Lysenna, with trembling hands, cut a strip from her ruined cloak and wrapped it around the child.
They watched as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, leaving a smear of blood and a silent blessing.
They watched as she whispered the name meant to be forgotten:
"Caelan."
Kael.
The boy born not of throne or altar, but of broken vows and dying dreams.
The boy the prophecy spoke of:
One born outside the twin thrones shall carry the crown of neither, but the burden of all.
By dawn, Lysenna was dead.
Her body lay cradled in the roots of the shattered shrine, her arms still curled protectively around the child.
The first light of the sun crept over the horizon — pale, hesitant — and touched the boy's face. He blinked, once. Not against the light. Against the future.
Footsteps approached.
Two figures emerged from the mist — a knight with rusted armor and a scribe with ink-stained fingers. Both bore the scars of old wars, both had buried too many dreams.
They knelt beside the child, and without a word, took him into their arms.
A new oath was sworn then — not in glory, not in song, but in the soft, terrified hearts of two broken souls.
Protect him. Teach him. Keep him hidden.
The world would not know him yet.
Not as king.
Not as savior.
Not as destroyer.
Only as a boy — raised in shadows, chased by omens, shaped by the cold hand of fate.
And somewhere deep in the marrow of the world, the gods stirred uneasily.
For the boy who would one day defy them had drawn his first breath.
[End of Chapter 1]