The wind carried the scent of scorched wood and quiet memories.
Somewhere deep in the forgotten hills of Yarneth Vale, in a village too small for the maps and too broken for mercy, a boy knelt before a simple grave. His fingers brushed over the carved stone, rough and crooked — carved not by stonecutters, but by calloused, trembling hands.
"Rest well, Father."
Reve Arclight, fifteen winters old, had eyes too heavy for his age. Beneath unkempt black hair and a faded shirt patched a dozen times, burned the kind of silence only those who had seen too much too early could wear.
The grave didn't reply. Graves never did.
Behind him, the sound of playful laughter echoed — his younger brother chasing their sister through the wild grass. Life, cruel as it was, hadn't taken everything.
Yet.
"Reve!" a crackling old voice called from the hut's steps. "Your aura flared again this morning. You'll light the goats on fire if you don't control it."
It was Old Man Eiran — the oddball caretaker of the Arclight orphans. No one really knew who he was or why someone like him chose to live in a village like this. But his eyes? They saw too much. Just like Reve's.
Reve gave a sheepish nod. "Sorry. I was... dreaming again."
Eiran's eyes narrowed, then softened. "The sword again?"
Reve said nothing. He didn't need to.
A few moons ago, while searching for herbs in the forbidden Kareth Woods, he had found a blade — no, it had found him. Rusted, chipped, barely more than scrap... and yet, it hummed when he touched it. Whispered, even.
Since then, the whispers hadn't stopped.
And in the dead of night, in the quietest moments, he could feel it. A heartbeat — not his own.
"You've been marked, boy," Eiran muttered under his breath, staring at the horizon. "The world doesn't like peacekeepers. But it needs them."
Reve's hands clenched. The memories of war, the burning of the fields, the scream that was his father's last breath... they all haunted him.
He didn't want revenge.
He wanted something far more dangerous.
Peace.
And in a world where every breath was tied to power, and every man wanted more than his share of it, peace was the one thing no one could afford.
The wind picked up again. This time, it wasn't gentle. It carried the faintest sound — like metal dragging across bone. And from the shadows of the forest, something stirred.
The blade at Reve's side began to hum.
Something was coming.
Something ancient.
And the ashes... were about to rise.