The night he was born, the skies mourned.
A tempest raged above the desolate world, winds howling like grieving spirits. Lightning scarred the heavens, illuminating the lone figure of a woman drenched in rain, her breath ragged, her body trembling.
In her arms lay a child--silent, unnervingly still. His golden eyes, unnatural for a newborn, glowed faintly in the dark. He was not meant to exist. She had seen it, Visions of ruin, of a lone figure standing amidst corpses and crumbling stars. His hands, tainted with power beyond comprehension. His fate was carved in the fabric of reality itself.
And she could not bear it.
The woman stumbled forward, the towering gates of the church before her. It was the only place he might be safe. From the world. From himself.
Her fingers hesitated as she unwrapped the cloth that held him. A single thought gnawed at her mind:
If I leave him here, will he curse me? Will he seek me out?
Would fate allow her to escape?
She pressed a final, trembling kiss to his forehead, whispering words that only the rain bore witness to.
"Forgive me."
Then she was gone.
---
The priests took him in without question. A nameless child abandoned at the gates of divinity--what cruel irony.
They called him Zerathis.
From the beginning, he was different. The other children instinctively avoided him. The elders spoke in hushed tones when he passed. His golden eyes carried an unsettling weight, something primal, something not meant for a mortal.
Yet he did not lash out. He did not hate them. He simply watched
He listened.
The whispers of his bloodline followed him like ghosts. The fallen hero--the man who betrayed his own kind for power. The one whose name was erased from history. His father, the weight of a past he never chose clung to him like a curse.
And then fate tested him.
A fire broke out in the town. The inferno spread with merciless hunger, consuming wood, stone, flesh. The night was filled with the screams of the helpless.
But it was no accident.
Somebody had started the fire.
And they had done it deliberately.
Zerathis ran. Not away--but toward the flames.
A child--one of the orphans from the church--was trapped beneath the wreckage. She screamed his name, her tiny hands reaching for him as the fire closed in. He reached out, his heart pounding. Something inside him stirred.
For a single, fleeting moment, he thought--maybe fate had not abandoned him. Maybe he could change it.
Maybe--
But nothing happened.
His hands grasped at nothing. No divine power came to his aid. No unseen force lifted the debris. No hidden strength surged within him. He was just a boy. A powerless, pathetic boy.
The fire consumed her.
The scream cut through the night, then silence.
Zerathis stood frozen, his hands trembling, his vision blurred. He did not move, even as the smoke choked him, even as the heat scorched his skin.
He had failed.
Not because he had hesitated. Not because he had been too slow. But because fate had never intended for him to succeed.
And someone had ensured it.
Somewhere in the shadows, unseen eyes watched. The fire had not been random. It was planned.
But why?
Zerathis did not know.
But he would find out.
It was in that moment--standing amidst the ashes of his failure--that something inside him cracked.
"If fate dares to forsake me..."
His golden eyes burned as he clenched his fists, nails digging into flesh.
"Then I will defy it myself."
And so, the path of Zerathis began.