The field was a butcher's table. Rain fell in slanting sheets, turning mud to slurry beneath the corpses of men who'd followed Kairus Varkaine to this wretched end. Their banners—a silver wolf on crimson, the sigil of a dead county—lay trampled under the boots of Vasco soldiers.
[Year 1489 of the Imperial Calender]
Kairus knelt, his mercenary king's armor split open at the ribs, blood pooling black in the crevices of his cuirass. Above him, Edric Vasco loomed, his sword a tongue of polished obsidian licking at Kairus' throat.
"Stand down, Varkaine," Ed drawled, his voice oiled with the arrogance of house Vasco. "Your rebellion dies here..."
Kairus' laugh was a wet, broken thing. "Rebellion? Is that what they call justice now?"
Lightning forked across the sky, bleaching the battlefield bone-white. In that frozen instant, Kairus saw it all again—the memories, sharp as a shard of Valatium to the gut.
Liora's hands had trembled as the Verris mage placed the crystal orb in her palms. The great hall of Varkaine Keep was stifling, summer heat pooling beneath the tapestries of wolves and wheat. She was twelve, small as a sparrow, her magic so raw it made the air taste of ozone.
"Remarkable," the mage murmured as the orb ignited, threads of gold and violet swirling like captive storms.
"A prodigy, Lord Varkaine. The Verris Family will hone this gift."
Kairus, Sixteen and already taller than his father, had gripped his sister's shoulder. "She's just a kid. Let her stay."
His father's eyes—pale blue, perpetually weary—flickered with doubt. But the Verris emissary leaned close, her smile a sickle. "Would you deny her destiny, boy? Or your house the honor?"
Honor. A word that stank of lies.
Ed's blade bit into Kairus' collarbone, yanking him back to the present. "Treason against the Empire demands death."
Rain sluiced down Kairus' face, mixing with blood.
"You're… a Monster who looks past everything that happens.."
The Vasco Patriarch's grin didn't reach his eyes.
"And you're a corpse who forgot his place."
Another lightning strike. Closer this time. The air reeked of burnt metal.
Five years. Five years of letters penned in Liora's looping script—"I'm learning fire sigils! Master says I'll be a knight-mage!—"before the truth cracked open.
Upon becoming suspicious of the letters authenticity.
Kairus had bribed a Verris guard with a pouch of silver, slipped into the bowels of their obsidian citadel. What he found…
Rows of cells. Children—gods, they were all children—shackled to slabs, their skin carved with glowing runes. Liora's once-bright eyes were milky, her arms mottled with scars. When she whispered his name, her voice was a rasp, as though her throat had been scoured by screams.
"brother... save me...," she wept. "But it hurts, Kair. It always hurts."
He'd killed twenty guards before they dragged him out. The next day, the Verris declared Varkaine County in rebellion. The Emperor's legions arrived at dawn.
Ed pressed his boot to Kairus' chest, leaning in. "You should've stayed . But no—you had to play the avenger. Had to claw your way up just to die at my feet."
Thunder boomed, shaking the earth. Kairus' vision blurred. He tasted copper, regret, the acid tang of failure. Liora. Father. The villagers swinging from the Chronos' gallows.
"Not… yet," Kairus snarled.
Ed raised his sword. "Oh, you are."
The blade arced down—
CRACK.
A bolt of lightning struck the ground between them, searing Kairus' retinas. Ed recoiled, swearing, as the air sizzled. The rain stopped mid-fall, droplets hanging like glass beads.
Kairus' breath fogged in the sudden cold. Above, the storm clouds parted, torn asunder by a presence that made his bones vibrate.
A constellation hung in the void—not stars, but eyes, countless and cold, arranged in the shape of a gauntleted hand. When it spoke, the words were not sound but truth, drilled directly into his skull.
[You have piqued the interest of a constellation]
[The Star-Eater Sovereign offers a contract.]
Kairus' mouth filled with static. "What… are you?"
[A spectator. A gambler. Your last patron.]
[Your story amuses me, Kairus Varkaine. Do you want to rewrite it?]
Memories surged—Liora's laugh, his father's last stand at the burning keep, the Vasco banners raised over his people's graves.
"What's the price?" Kairus spat blood.
[Your pain. Your rage. The weight of every death you've caused.]
[Become my Hero, and I shall grant you the sword of time.]
Ed staggered to his feet nearby, shouting orders to his men, but his voice was muffled, distant. The world had narrowed to Kairus and the thing beyond the sky.
"Do it," Kairus said.
[Contract accepted.]
The constellation's hand closed into a fist. Lightning lanced down, enveloping Kairus.