Infancy was a prison.
Not of iron bars or chains—Kael had known those before. This was different. A quieter sort of captivity. The betrayal of his own body.
He'd once commanded armies. Ended gods. Carved ruin across worlds. But now, trapped in a child's shell, he couldn't even hold his own head upright.
His muscles betrayed him. His balance mocked him. His attempts to speak resulted in babbles and squeals. His frustrations echoed in silent tears and clenched fists far too small to do any damage.
And the silence... gods, the silence was worse.
He remembered entire languages. He could recite war chants and spellcraft incantations in a dozen tongues. Yet the moment he tried to speak, the infant's body betrayed him. His words were muffled by underdeveloped vocal cords and a tongue too clumsy to articulate anything meaningful.
Kael, reborn, was silent not by choice, but by limitation.
Still, he waited.
Time was a resource. And he had more of it than ever.
---
His new home was modest—a small stone cottage on the edge of a thickly wooded valley. Moss clung to the old roof tiles, and ivy curled around the window frames. It wasn't much, but it was a world away from blood-soaked battlefields and shrines desecrated by war.
Lira, his new mother, was a quiet soul with a tired grace. She smelled of herbs and always had dirt under her nails from tending to her garden. Her hands, soft yet worn, cradled Kael as though he were the most precious thing in the world.
Dren, his father, was built like a mountain, but moved with care. A craftsman. A builder. He repaired roofs, carved furniture, and mended tools with steady hands and a laugh that rumbled from deep within.
They were... kind.
Kindness, to Kael, was unfamiliar territory. Foreign. Suspicious. Love, even more so.
But it was real. Honest.
And it terrified him.
---
By the age of one, Kael could crawl across the wooden floor like a scout through enemy terrain. He'd memorized every creaking board, every loose nail, every shadow that moved when the wind shifted the trees outside.
He listened to his parents talk—about neighbors, the harvest, the quiet chapel no one visited anymore. About the strange seasons. About how the stars looked different some nights.
Magic lingered in the world, but subtly. Faint echoes. No glowing swords or flying beasts in the sky. No temples to gods or warlocks dancing with forbidden knowledge.
A sleeping world.
He would wake it. One day.
---
At two, he walked. Unsteady, but determined.
And when he fell, he did not cry.
At night, he would sit by the hearth and listen to Lira's soft humming as she crushed herbs in a bowl. Her voice soothed something deep in him. A part that had never known peace. She sang of stars and rivers, of wind and time and the way seasons turned.
Dren, meanwhile, taught him the names of tools. Let him hold a chisel once—Kael gripped it like a dagger and nearly cut himself. Dren laughed. Ruffled his hair.
"Steady hands, little star. We'll get you there."
Little star.
He didn't know why the nickname struck something within him. Maybe because, in his last life, he had been a star falling in the wrong direction.
---
By three, the mana called to him.
He could feel it now. Not the dense, weaponized mana of his past life. This was... thinner. Raw. Undisturbed.
He spent hours in the woods when his parents weren't watching. Fingers pressed to bark. Bare feet in cold streams. Eyes closed, breathing in.
The world pulsed with energy. Slumbering power, just beneath the surface.
He tried to reach for it. Whispered incantations in a tongue no one remembered.
Nothing happened.
No flame. No spark.
But he felt it notice him.
---
Kael turned four under a crescent moon, standing barefoot in the backyard. His parents had gone to bed. He watched the stars shift overhead, the breeze dancing through the tall grass.
He raised a hand to the sky.
"I remember you," he whispered.
Not the sky. Not the stars.
The feeling. The war. The end.
He remembered a god bleeding out under a violet sky, spitting curses as its divine light faded. Its words still echoed:
"You think you've won? You've only delayed it."
Kael clenched his tiny fist.
"Then let it come. This time, I won't be a weapon forged by others. I'll forge myself."
The wind picked up.
Somewhere, deep in the valley, something stirred.
He felt it.
A presence. Not divine, but watching.
Waiting.
And deep beneath the roots of the forest, something opened an eye. Not entirely awake, but no longer asleep.
Kael was not alone.
Not anymore.