The stars burned bright above the kingdom of Veyrund, casting silver light over the thatched roofs and cobblestone paths of the hillside village of Caervall. Smoke curled peacefully from chimney tops. Dogs barked in the distance. A lute played softly from a tavern down the road, its melody drifting lazily on the wind like a lullaby offered to the night.
Inside a modest cottage tucked near the edge of the woods, laughter echoed gently through the walls.
"Say 'da-da,' little flame," crooned a man with windswept copper hair and tired eyes that brimmed with love. He held a baby no older than six months high in the air, the child giggling and flailing its pudgy arms.
"He's too young, Korrin," said the woman beside him with a soft laugh. Her dark curls were pinned beneath a linen shawl, and her hands worked gently at a small cloth doll. "Let him learn to breathe before you teach him poetry."
"He's not just any boy," Korrin whispered, lowering the child and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "He's ours. That makes him something more."
The child gurgled happily and reached out, grabbing a lock of his father's hair. The man winced playfully.
"You'll be a warrior, won't you?" he chuckled. "Or a king. Or... maybe a poet like your mother."
"Hush," she murmured, smiling and running her fingers across the child's chest. A birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon rested just above his heart. "Let him be a child before the world decides what he must become."
Outside, the wind turned cold.
.
The bells in Caervall rang thrice.
Midnight.
The moon, full and radiant, cast an ethereal glow over the forests beyond. But within those woods... something stirred. Shadows lengthened unnaturally. Birds fled. A low hum began to rumble across the ground like the trembling of a heartbeat.
Then came the horns.
Low. Deep. Unholy.
Korrin paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. His wife's eyes lifted slowly from the hearth.
"No," she whispered, clutching the baby tighter. "Not now..."
But it was already too late.
The front door exploded inwards.
A blackened claw emerged from the smoke, grabbing Korrin and throwing him across the room. The creature that followed was ten feet tall, its body wrapped in oozing, writhing shadow. Horns curled from its skull like a crown of bone, and its mouth split open vertically, revealing rows of teeth like broken glass.
Korrin scrambled up, blood on his brow. "Run, Arya! Take him-"
Arya held the child close to her chest, her lips whispering a lullaby even as tears streamed down her face. She turned toward the back door, but another figure dropped from the rafters, a smaller demon, thin and twitching, its eyes glowing like lanterns.
It hissed and lunged.
Arya screamed.
Korrin roared and drove a fire iron into its chest, but it was too late. The first demon struck him across the back, sending him crashing into the table.
Blood soaked the floors.
Arya, still holding the child, ran.
Out the back door. Into the night.
The woods were ablaze with flickers of red light now. More demons, moving like smoke. But one figure stepped from the shadows in front of her-a man in white robes lined with golden thread. His beard was silver, and a single crystal dangled from a chain around his neck.
"Priest Elisar!" Arya sobbed. "Please- take him. Please."
The priest took the child gently, his eyes full of sorrow. "Go back. Fetch your husband."
She hesitated.
"Arya," he said more firmly, "go."
She turned back toward the cottage.
The scream that followed was short, sharp, and final.
Elisar did not flinch.
He held the child close and began to chant.
Words older than the kingdom itself fell from his lips. Holy syllables, etched into the language of stars and ash. The air around him shimmered. The demons charged and slammed into an invisible wall.
Somehow, he walked calmly through them, the barrier following him like a divine cloak. The creatures howled and snarled but could not breach it.
He walked through the burning village, past slaughter and ruin, into the high temple that rested above Caervall, the Temple of Aenon, god of mercy.
He moved quickly, descending the spiraling stairs into the catacombs.
Candles flickered along the stone walls. Dust thickened the air.
He reached a chamber lined with ancient runes. In its center was a cradle made of bone and gold. It hummed with power.
He placed the child in it.
The baby was crying now, the soft wail echoing through the chamber like a prayer unanswered.
Elisar bowed his head. "Let no blade find you. Let no demon claim you. Let your soul wander in darkness, until the curse is broken."
The runes flared. The door slammed shut.
And silence reigned.
.
Above, in the village, the fires raged.
Demons gathered in the town square, forming a circle around a single figure—tall, cloaked, and wearing a crown of thorns.
A voice spoke, calm and cold:
"The child has escaped. But not forever."
The demons knelt.
"Mark him. Hunt him. And when he returns... we will finish what the gods could not."
The winds howled. The bells cracked.
And far below, in the cradle of bone and gold, the child slept—marked by fate, shielded by holy lies, and doomed to be hunted across six more lifetimes.
His name was not yet known.
But the world would remember it.
One day.
Soon.
⛧[† The First Life Marked in Blood †] — sealed.