"Azareal, come to mama."
Reheil lifted her son from the cold stone floor, smiling softly. "You're getting better at walking… a little more and you'll walk like your mother."
The boy's amethyst eyes were dull — too quiet, too distant. At a year old, he still couldn't walk or cry like others. Some in the village whispered he was cursed, others said he was possessed. Reheil only held him tighter.
She turned back to her pot, the scent of burning herbs filling the small room.
Then — a loud crash.
Her heart stopped. She ran into the room.
Azareal lay flat on the ground, face pressed into the earth. She screamed, lifting him, shaking.
"Azareal!—"
But the child was calm. Too calm. His eyes opened — no longer dull, but gleaming with a depth that didn't belong to a child.
Reheil froze. For a single moment, she saw herself reflected in his eyes… but behind her reflection was something else — a vast, endless void.
Reheil's body trembled. Her mind dimmed to silence, as if someone had turned the world off.
Azareal gasped. His body jolted upright — but this wasn't his body.
He was standing in the temple, the scent of blood heavy in the air, and his hands… weren't his hands.
The body beneath him was that of the sacrifice — pale, trembling, soaked in sacred blood.
He looked down in horror, eyes wide. "What… what am I?"