The Sigeur clan's estate loomed like a mausoleum against the starless sky of the backwater continent, its obsidian spires clawing desperately at the heavens. Kai, barely ten years old, pressed his cheek against the cold stone of his chamber window, watching the courtyard below where servants bustled about their evening duties. Their lanterns cast fleeting glows across the hourglass statues that marked the clan's ancient pride—each monument to soul essence a silent mockery of his uncertain future.
Tomorrow, his own hourglass would manifest in the coming-of-age ceremony, that sacred rite of passage that would render final verdict on his worth to the clan and the world beyond.
"Kai!" a sharp voice cracked like a whip, slicing through his anxious thoughts. His stepmother, Lysara, stood framed in the doorway, her silk robes shimmering with an almost serpentine quality. Her lips curved in a smile that never reached her calculating eyes. "Stop your pathetic daydreaming. You'll embarrass us all tomorrow."
She called herself his mother, though Kai's heart recoiled from the word like touching flame. He knew the brutal truth that shaped his existence: Alfred, his father, harbored deep resentment toward him for causing the death of his beloved first wife—Kai's mother—during childbirth. Lysara wielded that resentment like a master swordsman, her every word calculated to deepen the wound.
"Yes, Mother," Kai mumbled, lowering his gaze to avoid her piercing stare. His small frame tensed involuntarily, bracing for her usual venomous assault. Lysara's eyes glinted with malicious satisfaction as she savored his discomfort. She understood Alfred's tortured heart perfectly—how he buried himself in clan duties to avoid facing his son, how Kai's very existence was a festering wound that refused to heal. She exploited this knowledge ruthlessly, making his mistreatment a daily ritual.
"Clean those filthy robes," she hissed with contempt. "You look like a beggar, as always." She swept from the room like a dark cloud, leaving a chill that seemed to seep into the stone walls themselves. Kai's small fists clenched until his nails bit into his palms. Filthy. Worthless. The words echoed in his mind like a curse, stoking the bitterness that burned perpetually in his chest.
The door creaked open again, and Kai braced himself for another verbal lashing. Instead, a soft, familiar voice called out, "Little brother?"
His sister Elyse slipped inside like a ray of sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Her auburn hair—so heartbreakingly similar to their late mother's—framed a face lit by genuine warmth. At thirteen, she was already the clan's golden child, her coming-of-age ceremony the previous year having revealed a stunning Level 12 soul essence—the mark of a true prodigy. Kai's heart eased at her presence, this rare light in his shadow-filled world.
"Elyse," he said, forcing brightness into his voice despite everything. She knelt beside him gracefully, her eyes soft with the concern that only she ever showed him.
"Why are you still awake so late?" she asked gently.
"Couldn't sleep," he admitted, the words tumbling out. "Tomorrow's... tomorrow's my ceremony."
Her hand ruffled his dark hair with sisterly affection, and Kai leaned into the touch like a flower seeking sunlight, craving any scrap of warmth in his cold world. Elyse was his anchor, the only person who saw him as more than just his father's shame or Lysara's target. She reminded Alfred of their mother—his lost love—which earned her his complete adoration. Kai envied her position as the apple of their father's eye, yet loved her fiercely for never letting that favoritism change her kindness toward him.
"Will it hurt?" Kai asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Elyse looked momentarily surprised. "The ceremony, I mean. When the hourglass forms."
Her smile faltered slightly, but she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "A little, at first. But when your hourglass finally manifests, you'll feel... alive. Like all the world's possibilities are suddenly open to you." Her eyes sparkled as she recalled her own transformative ceremony.
Kai nodded eagerly, clinging to her words like a lifeline. He desperately wanted to be like her—strong, respected, worthy of love and pride. Her Level 12 essence had transformed her entire existence; their emotionally distant parents now showered her with praise and attention, their coldness toward Kai becoming even more pronounced by contrast. Yet through it all, Elyse never changed, her fondness for him remaining constant as the northern star.
"Now go to bed," she teased gently, nudging him with her elbow. "You'll need all your strength for tomorrow."
Kai hugged her tightly, her warmth becoming a shield against the gathering darkness of his fears. As she left, closing the door softly behind her, his resolve crystallized into something harder than steel. He would prove his worth to them all, no matter what his hourglass might reveal.
Morning arrived with the inevitability of fate. The grand ceremonial hall buzzed with dozens of clan elders, their formal robes adorned with intricate hourglass sigils that seemed to pulse with contained power. At the chamber's heart stood a massive obsidian altar, its surface etched with ancient runes that glowed with accumulated soul essence from centuries of ceremonies.
Kai stood before this monument to tradition, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.
Alfred Sigeur—clan leader, his father, and a formidable Mid-Stage Grandmaster—loomed beside the altar like a statue of judgment itself. His mere presence dominated the entire hall, and as he raised his hands, a magnificent brass hourglass clock materialized from wisps of golden energy flowing from his palms. The temperature in the room surged upward with the artifact's appearance, a testament to his tremendous power that left even the elders wide-eyed with anticipation.
"Indeed, worthy to lead this esteemed clan," one elder muttered in reverent tones.
Alfred's gaze deliberately avoided Kai, instead fixing on Elyse, who stood among the elders resplendent in her prodigy's ceremonial robes. Whenever he looked at Kai, memories of his beloved wife's death came flooding back, filling his heart with a resentment he knew was irrational but couldn't overcome. He understood it wasn't Kai's fault—the boy had been innocent—yet the bitter thought persisted: if only he had never been born, the love of his life would still be here.
Lysara smirked from the sidelines, whispering conspiratorially to Mara, the cruel housemaid whose mocking laughter often followed Kai's every misstep and humiliation.
"Begin," Alfred commanded, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority.
The elders began their ancient chant, their combined essence stirring the very air until it thrummed with power. Kai stepped onto the altar with trembling legs, feeling the carved runes flare to brilliant life beneath his feet. Suddenly, pain seared through his chest like a white-hot blade carving directly into his soul. He gasped and collapsed to his knees as a vision bloomed within his consciousness—a vast spiritual space, empty and echoing like a cosmic void.
Sand swirled in impossible patterns, slowly coalescing into an hourglass shape. Its obsidian frame stood stark against the endless emptiness, and within it, black sand began to trickle in a pitiful, barely perceptible stream. Each grain seemed to carry the weight of judgment itself.
The altar's mystical glow gradually faded, and Kai's hourglass materialized in the physical world, hovering before the assembled crowd like a verdict made manifest. A collective murmur rippled through the hall, carrying undercurrents of disappointment and barely concealed disdain.
"Level 1 soul power," an elder declared, his voice dripping with contempt that made Kai's skin crawl.
Alfred's face darkened like a thundercloud. A Level 1 soul power was weaker than most commoners possessed—worse, it was practically an insult to the clan's ancient bloodline. The Eclipse Order demanded perfection from its members, and this... this was the opposite of perfection.
The sand's meager flow confirmed the devastating truth: Kai's potential was the absolute lowest possible, capping him at Initiate rank, perhaps Awakened with impossible effort and a lifetime of struggle.
Lysara's laughter cut through the stunned silence like a blade, sharp and deliberately cruel. "What a disgrace," she announced loudly enough for every person present to hear clearly. Mara, the housemaid, snickered with malicious glee, her eyes sparkling with spite. She had long tormented Kai with petty cruelties—spilling his meals, tripping him in hallways, destroying his belongings—all emboldened by Lysara's tacit approval and protection.
Alfred's face remained stone, but his clenched jaw betrayed the depth of his shame and rage. Kai's birth had stolen away his beloved wife; now his son proved to be a failure, utterly unworthy of bearing the proud Sigeur name.
Kai's chest constricted as bitterness flooded through him like poison. He looked desperately toward Elyse, hoping for her usual warmth and support, but even she stood frozen in place, her eyes wide with pity that cut deeper than any insult. The clan's collective rejection burned like acid in his veins, a wound that went deeper than Lysara's calculated cruelty or Mara's casual malice.
*I'll be like you,* he had promised Elyse in his heart, but his Level 1 essence mocked that naive dream with brutal finality. He was nothing—a shadow cast by his sister's brilliant light, a permanent stain on his father's legacy.
"Enough," Alfred snapped, turning away as if the very sight of his son caused him physical pain. "Take him to his chambers."
Mara grabbed Kai's arm with bruising force and dragged him from the hall like a sack of grain. Lysara's voice followed them, dripping with false pity that fooled no one. "Poor child. He'll never be anything like Elyse."
In the solitude of his chamber, Kai sank to the cold stone floor, the image of his pathetic hourglass haunting his mind's eye. Its black sand, dark as the void between stars, stirred something deep within him—a flicker of defiance burning bright amid his ocean of despair. Elyse's ceremony had shown him what strength could mean, what respect and love looked like. Her Level 12 essence and their parents' adoration had illuminated a path he desperately wanted to walk.
He would prove them all wrong, not for Alfred's approval or Lysara's acceptance, but for himself. For Elyse, who still believed in him when no one else would.
The door creaked open, and Mara entered carrying a tray of cold, watery gruel. "Eat up, worthless boy," she sneered, shoving the tray toward him with deliberate carelessness. It clattered to the floor, spilling its meager contents across the stone in a spreading puddle of humiliation.
Kai's fists clenched as his bitterness flared white-hot. The hourglass image in his mind pulsed with sudden intensity, and a faint void-like hum echoed through his consciousness. Mara froze mid-sneer, her cruel expression faltering as if she had sensed something fundamentally unnatural.
The air grew heavy and oppressive, the room's shadows seeming to deepen and writhe with their own malevolent life.
"What... what was that?" she stammered, backing toward the door with genuine fear creeping into her voice.
Kai stared in confusion, his heart racing. The hourglass's pulse faded back to normal, but its echo lingered in his mind like the memory of thunder. Had his despair somehow awakened something within him? Or was it the void of his accumulated resentment, finally clawing its way toward the surface, seeking release?
As Mara fled the chamber, Kai remained on the floor, surrounded by spilled gruel and the growing certainty that his story was far from over.