Inside the lavish yet suffocating halls of the noble mansion, a young boy lingered, his small frame bathed in pale moonlight that slipped through velvet-draped windows, trembling with each roar of thunder outside.
It was the year 1729, and the Human Empire held dominion over all known lands—its banners flying over kingdoms, its law etched into stone and blood. But tonight, beneath a sky torn by lightning and wrath, power meant nothing.
Above, in a chamber veiled in shadows and scented with blood and sweat, a woman fought not just for life, but against death itself. Her screams, muffled by thick walls and tradition, echoed faintly through the mansion's stone bones. Lady Elira of House Viremont, once the empire's radiant jewel, now lay broken on silk sheets, her body convulsing, her strength failing. Servants trembled outside the door, physicians whispered of omens and curses, and yet she held on—not for herself, but for the child the world was not ready to meet.
Lightning cracked again—closer now. Louder. Furious.
With one final, agonizing cry, she gave everything. And in that instant, he was born—not with the empire's blessing, but with the universe's silence.
No fate. No prophecy. No path carved in stardust.
Just... zero.
Now, years later, that boy stood by the grand staircase, where ancient portraits seemed to recoil in oil-painted horror. The storm outside raged like a divine tantrum, each flash illuminating the broken fragments of destiny at his feet. Born into privilege, raised behind walls of power and tradition—yet never truly belonging.
And tonight, something changed.
His breath no longer trembled with fear, but with something older—freedom.
His eyes, once dull under noble weight, now burned with defiance.
He was not chosen. He was not meant to be.
And yet... here he stood.
A boy with no fate. A child born from struggle. A storm's answer to silence.
He did not cry like other newborns.
Instead, the room fell into a hush the moment he entered the world—as if even the storm outside paused to bear witness. The midwives, hardened by years of service, froze mid-motion. What they saw was not just a child, but something that felt like a question the universe had no answer for.
The boy's skin was pale and flawless, almost translucent, like moonlight pressed into flesh. No blemish, no mark of inheritance—only purity that felt unnatural, untouched by lineage or labor.
His hair, soft as breath, was a striking white, not the pallor of sickness, but the radiant hue of fresh-fallen snow. It shimmered faintly under candlelight, defying the warmth of the room with a cold, quiet defiance. He looked nothing like his noble bloodline, nothing like any babe in the empire's long history.
But it was his eyes—still opening for the first time—that unsettled everyone most.
They were not the dull, cloudy orbs of the newly born.
No.
They were clear. Too clear.
A glacial silver, like mirrors that reflected not the world around him, but something beyond it. To meet his gaze was to feel seen—not by an infant, but by something ageless and ancient, as though a star had fallen and chosen to watch, silently, from behind those tiny eyes.
No one spoke for a long time. A midwife wept without knowing why. A maid crossed herself and backed into a corner. One of the healers whispered, "This is no ordinary child. The gods will not ignore this."
He brought with him no fate, but an unmistakable presence—heavy, solemn, and utterly impossible to ignore.
Even swaddled in silence and linen, he radiated a strange majesty, not loud or commanding, but still enough to bend the air around him. People didn't look at him; they beheld him.
And somewhere in the distance, the thunder returned—softer now, almost like applause.