Seventeen Years After the Godfall
The godborn child was now a young man, he had a tall and slender physic with barely any fat on him. He had two beautifull azur eyes that seem to shine with a pure flamme, and with that he had the whitest hairs imaginable as if they were made out of silver.
The boy had always known silence.
Not the kind found in quiet fields or lonely rooms, but the kind that hums behind your ears, a type of silence that anyone would think twice before breaking it. It clung to him, like a shadow beneath his skin, and it never left.
He lived in the kingdom of Lilvia on the edge of the Vale of Greyroot , in a crumbling stone cottage nestled at the foot of a soot covered hill.
Beyond that hill to the east layed the glrasslands, miles of luscious forest where a few creatures born from the blood of the dead god roamed. Luckily the one that lived there were rather weak, they could still kill a normal human easily but they were no match for someone who had awakened his mark.
Beside the hearth of his house sat an old man in a worn chair of bentwood and rusted bolts. His legs hadn't moved in seventeen years. But his hands were still strong, and his eyes were sharper than a hunter's blade.
That was his father.
The only one who knew the truth.
The world believed Cael was just another orphan of a broken age. That his mother died sometime during the year of the Godfall. That his father a crippled war-survivor and recluse had adopted him afterward. They knew he was one of the Marked, yes, like many his age, born in the years after the divine clash. But not of the day.
That part was a lie.
In truth, Cael had been born in the final second of the divine war, his first breath drawn as a god shattered the sky. The moment the brighter god died, a piece of him entered Cael like a falling star. And with it came the first mark a golden scar, shaped like an open flame, just beneath his collarbone. It shimmered faintly now, pulsing with a warmth only a few could feel.
But the second mark was different.
Hidden.
Older.
Darker.
It wrapped low around his ribs, around five centimeters in size it's shape was like the broken arc of a crescent moon. Unlike the first, it did not glow. It did not hum or burn. It waited. Cold. Watching. His father had found it the night Cael was born etched into his skin like a brand from the void itself.
That mark did not belong to the fallen god.
It belonged to the one who lived.
The god who vanished, whose name was never spoken, whose silence still bled into the world.
Cael had never shown anyone the second mark. His father warned him never to. "It's not just power," he once said, voice low and distant. "It's a signature. If they see it, they'll come for you. Not to question. To destroy if you're lucky or to use if you're not"
So Cael lived in silence.
He lived in shadow.
He waited.
A new day started and it was snowing again.
Cael stood in the trees at the edge of the woods, axe resting on his shoulder. He hadn't chopped anything yet. He was watching the sky the way it refused to settle. Even now, all these years later, the sky still mourned. No sun or moon ever rose quite the same way. No season arrived when it should.
He felt the mark stir beneath his shirt. The first one.
It was beginning.
He would turn eighteen in three weeks.
And the godlight inside him was waking up.
He placed a gloved hand over his chest, hoping to smother the glow. No one could see. Not yet. Not until he was ready. Not until he understood what the second mark meant.
He took a deep breath and raised the axe.
Behind him, the wind whispered through the trees and made him shiver, he could have sworn it said his name.
Later that night, the fire cracked low as Cael sat sharpening his blade. His father watched from his chair, wrapped in a worn blanket, eyes reflecting the flame.
"You felt it again today," the old man said.
Cael didn't answer.
"It's getting stronger," he said after a moment. "The first one."
The old man nodded, slow. "And the second?"
"Quiet. But it… it pulls when I sleep."
His father's hand twitched.
"Then it's listening."
Silence. Then the old man leaned forward, voice thin and sharp.
"When it wakes, it won't give. It'll take. That mark was left behind for a reason. It's a tether, not a gift, so be wary."
Cael met his gaze. "Why me?"
"I don't know" the old man said. "But gods don't leave pieces of themselves in just anyone."
As he went to sleep the dream came again.
A sky of dark glass. A plain of scorched stone. A figure of light shattered across the earth like a million pieces of stained glass made by the best craftsman. Out of that million one small piece that shined with a golden light floated toward him.
At the same time another piece as dark as night that looked like a piece of polished obsidian flew towards him. This one came from a severed part of the somber body of the dark god.
He woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. The flame-shaped mark burned hot beneath his collarbone. And the crescent, cold as ice.
They pulsed once, together.