The ash never stopped falling in Greylot.
It clung to the stone walls, seeped into the threadbare clothes of the poor, and danced in the breath of the dying. Kael leaned against the broken frame of the tavern's back door, one hand wrapped around a rusted dagger, the other idly tracing the burn mark on his forearm—shaped like nothing.
No Brand. No fate. No value.
At seventeen, he had already killed twice. Once for food. Once to prove he could.
The corpse from the second still stared at him in his dreams, eyes wide with disbelief. It had been a noble's son, too drunk to see the danger, too arrogant to understand Kael's calm silence as anything but fear. A single slash across the throat. The dagger had slipped through flesh like parchment.
Kael didn't regret it. He only regretted how loudly the body fell.
"You're late," came a voice from the shadows. Marra, a fence and frequent buyer of "reclaimed" goods, stepped into the alley with her hood up, gloved hands folded across her chest.
"I'm always late," Kael replied, tossing a small velvet pouch at her feet. Inside: two silver rings, a bone-carved comb, and a vial of crushed wyrmroot. Loot from the drunk noble's pockets. It wouldn't sell for much, but it would keep him fed.
Marra scooped up the pouch. "This from the merchant's boy?"
Kael raised an eyebrow. "He wasn't a merchant."
She caught the tone and didn't ask further. That was something Kael liked about her—no questions if the job was done.
"You know," she said as she pocketed the goods, "one of these days someone's gonna put a bounty on your head. Nobles don't like losing their sons."
Kael gave a humorless smile. "Then I'll kill whoever collects it."
Marra whistled. "Cold little bastard, aren't you?"
Kael didn't reply. His gaze had shifted to the plaza beyond, where the town's annual Binding Ceremony had just begun. Dozens of boys and girls, all sixteen, knelt in the circle of engraved runes. Priests in white robes chanted as glowing threads of light wove through the air—Soulbrands manifesting above the chosen.
A spear. A bow. A whip of flame. All brilliant and shining, each a destiny locked in steel and magic.
Kael watched with dead eyes.
He had never received one. The priest had called it an error—said he would return the next day and be re-tested. But the result was always the same: nothing.
No Soulbrand. No light. Just the hollow sting of rejection.
"Fate doesn't want me," Kael had said once to his dying mother.
She had coughed blood and laughed. "Then you carve your own, boy."
That was the only lesson he ever needed.
As the ceremony ended and cheering broke out, Kael turned away. He had no interest in bright-eyed warriors drunk on the illusion of divine purpose. Soulbrands weren't holy. They were chains with prettier names.
He walked the alley until he reached the abandoned forge at the edge of Greylot. It was his shelter now—roof half-collapsed, chimney cracked, but warm enough. He lit a small fire and pulled out a scrap of paper from beneath the floorboard. On it was a sketch of a weapon—his weapon.
Not granted. Designed.
A blade curved like a crescent moon, jagged at the edge, with no emblem or mark of godly origin. It was something darker. Something older. Something he had seen once in a dream, when the sky was bleeding and a voice whispered in his bones.
"Not all Brands are given," the voice had said. "Some are earned. Some… stolen."
Kael didn't believe in gods. But he believed in power.
A gust of wind swept through the forge, snuffing the fire. Kael stood instantly, hand on his dagger—but the room remained empty.
Until the shadows shifted.
And something crawled out of them.
It wasn't human. Bone-thin, with elongated limbs and a face like cracked porcelain, eyes burning with ancient light. It moved without sound, stalking forward until it crouched at the edge of the firepit.
Kael didn't flinch. "You followed me."
The creature smiled—if it could be called that. "You seek the Soulbrand that does not belong."
"I don't want a gift," Kael said, voice low. "I want a weapon."
The thing tilted its head. "Then take it."
Darkness surged from its chest, coiling like smoke around Kael's wrist. He didn't resist. Pain lanced through his arm, but he bit down on his tongue and forced himself to stand still.
When the smoke cleared, a mark was burned into his skin—a brand, but not of light.
It bled shadow.
Kael exhaled slowly. His heartbeat steady. No divine light. No chanting choir. Just silence, and power.
"What is it?" he asked.
The creature's voice was barely audible now. "A blade to cut fate. A key to doors sealed before the gods learned fear. But it comes with a price."
Kael drew the curved shadow-blade from the air like pulling it from a grave. "Everything does."
The creature vanished.
Kael stood alone in the dark, weapon in hand, and smiled for the first time in years.
Let the world come for him.
He would carve his place in blood.