The world was ending, and Kael Thornwood could do nothing but watch.
He stood at the edge of the slum district, his hand gripping the hilt of his worn dagger as crimson light bled across the sky. The ancient seals—those mystical barriers that had protected Eldoria for a thousand years—were cracking. Everyone could see it now. Jagged lines of darkness spread like spider webs across the heavens, and through those cracks, something watched. Something hungry.
"Get inside, boy!" An old woman's voice cut through his thoughts. She hobbled past him, clutching a bundle of rags to her chest. "The night terrors will be worse tonight. Mark my words."
Kael didn't move. He was twenty-two years old, but the streets had aged him beyond his years. Orphaned at six, he had learned early that survival meant being faster, smarter, and more ruthless than everyone else. The slums of Astoria, the great capital of Eldoria, didn't forgive weakness. They didn't forgive anything.
But tonight was different. Tonight, even the hardest criminals had abandoned the streets. The taverns were silent. The brothels were dark. Fear had settled over the city like a funeral shroud, and Kael felt it in his bones—a primal warning that something fundamental was changing.
A scream shattered the evening air.
Kael's body moved before his mind caught up. He sprinted toward the sound, his boots pounding against the cobblestones. Years of running from city guards had given him speed, and years of fighting for scraps had given him courage—or perhaps just recklessness. Either way, he couldn't ignore someone in danger. Not tonight.
He rounded a corner and froze.
A creature stood in the middle of the alley. It was wrong. That was the only word that fit. Its body was twisted and malformed, as if someone had taken pieces of different animals and fused them together with no regard for logic or nature. Three eyes glowed with sickly green light. Its mouth—mouths? Kael couldn't be sure—dripped with black ichor that hissed when it hit the stone.
And beneath it, pressed against the wall, was a girl. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, her clothes marking her as a merchant's daughter. Her eyes were wide with terror, her mouth open in a silent scream.
The creature hadn't noticed Kael yet. It was too focused on its prey, savoring the fear like fine wine.
Kael's dagger felt pathetically small in his hand. What was he supposed to do? Stab it? He'd seen men die from wounds smaller than what this thing probably considered a scratch. But he couldn't just stand here. He couldn't just—
"Hey!" His voice came out steadier than he felt. "Over here, you ugly bastard!"
The creature's heads—yes, there were definitely two heads now that he looked closer—swiveled toward him. Its eyes fixed on him with an intelligence that made his skin crawl. This wasn't just some mindless beast. It was thinking. Calculating.
It charged.
Kael dove to the side, rolling across the dirty cobblestones. The creature's claws raked the wall where he'd been standing, gouging deep furrows in the stone like it was butter. Chips of masonry exploded outward.
"Run!" Kael shouted at the girl. "Run now!"
She didn't need to be told twice. She scrambled to her feet and fled down the alley, her footsteps echoing into the distance.
The creature turned back to Kael, and he could have sworn it smiled.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
Kael backed up slowly, keeping his dagger raised. His mind raced through his options. Fight? Pointless. Flee? The thing was faster than him. Hide? Where? The alley was a dead end behind him, and the creature blocked the only exit.
He was going to die here. After everything he'd survived, after every beating, every hungry night, every close call with the law—this was how it ended. Torn apart by a monster that shouldn't even exist.
The creature tensed, preparing to lunge.
And then light exploded between them.
Kael staggered back, throwing his arm up to shield his eyes. The light was pure white, blazing with such intensity that it drove away every shadow in the alley. He heard the creature shriek—a sound like metal scraping against metal—and when he lowered his arm, it was gone. Not dead. Just... gone. As if it had never been there at all.
In its place stood a man.
He was old—ancient, really—with a long white beard and robes that might have been expensive once but were now tattered and stained with blood. His left arm hung useless at his side, and crimson seeped through his fingers where he clutched his ribs.
"You," the old man said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You're the one."
Kael's grip tightened on his dagger. "I don't know what you're talking about, old man. But thanks for the save. I'll just be—"
"Kael Thornwood." The old man took a step forward and nearly collapsed. "Born twenty-two years ago in this very district. Parents killed when you were six. You don't remember them, but they knew. They always knew."
Kael's blood ran cold. "How do you know my name?"
"Because I've been looking for you." The old man's legs gave out, and he crumpled to the ground. Kael, against every instinct screaming at him to run, moved forward to catch him. The old man weighed nothing, as if he were made of paper and air.
"Easy," Kael said, lowering him to the ground. Up close, he could see that the wound was deep. Fatal. The old man was dying, and they both knew it.
"Listen to me." The old man's hand shot out with surprising strength, gripping Kael's wrist. "The seals are breaking. The Void Lords are returning. Eldoria needs its Guardian."
"Guardian?" Kael tried to pull back, but the old man's grip was like iron. "What are you talking about? I'm nobody. Just a street rat trying to survive."
"Your blood says otherwise." The old man's other hand reached into his robes and pulled out a small crystal. It was beautiful—perfectly clear, about the size of a walnut, and it pulsed with inner light. "The bloodline of the Thornwood family. The last of the Guardians. Your parents died protecting this secret, and I've spent two decades keeping you safe until you were ready."
"Ready for what?"
"To save the world. Or doom it. The prophecy was never clear on that part." The old man pressed the crystal into Kael's palm. The moment it touched his skin, it flared with brilliant light, and Kael felt something surge through his body. Power. Raw, untamed, terrifying power.
He tried to drop the crystal, but it had already sunk into his palm, merging with his flesh. He watched in horror as lines of silver light spread up his arm, branching like tree roots under his skin.
"What did you do to me?" Kael demanded.
"I gave you a choice." The old man's voice was fading now, his eyes losing focus. "The Codex of the Guardians is hidden in the Sanctum of Whispers, beneath the capital. Find it. Learn what you are. Learn what you must do. Or don't. The world will burn either way, but at least... at least you'll have tried."
"Wait!" Kael grabbed the old man's robes. "I don't understand any of this! What Codex? What Sanctum? Who were my parents?"
But the old man was already gone. His final breath escaped in a long sigh, and his hand fell limp. The light in his eyes faded to nothing.
Kael sat there in the alley, cradling the corpse of a stranger who claimed to have known his parents. The silver lines in his arm pulsed with each heartbeat, and he could feel something new inside him. Something vast and ancient and powerful. Something that terrified him more than any monster.
Above him, another crack split the sky. Wider this time. Darker. Through it, he could see eyes. Hundreds of eyes, all watching. All waiting.
The seals were breaking.
And whether he wanted it or not, Kael Thornwood had just become the world's last hope.
He looked down at his palm, where the crystal had disappeared beneath his skin. The silver lines had faded, but he could still feel them, just beneath the surface. Waiting.
"Sanctum of Whispers," he muttered. "Beneath the capital."
He had no idea what he was supposed to do. He had no training, no knowledge, no allies. Just a dead stranger's cryptic words and a power he didn't understand.
But he did know one thing: the old man was right about one part. The world was ending. He'd seen it in that creature's eyes. He'd seen it in the cracking sky.
And if there was even a chance—even the smallest possibility—that he could stop it...
Kael Thornwood rose to his feet, leaving the old man's body in the alley. Someone would find him eventually. Right now, Kael had more important things to do.
He had a Sanctum to find. A Codex to read. A destiny to either embrace or reject.
The night terrors howled in the distance, their cries echoing across the capital. More of those creatures, drawn by the breaking seals. And there would be more tomorrow. And more the day after that. Until there was nothing left but monsters and ruins.
Unless someone stopped them.
Unless he stopped them.
Kael touched the spot on his palm where the crystal had entered. It tingled, warm and strange.
"Alright then," he said to the empty alley, to the dead man, to the cracking sky above. "Let's see if this Guardian thing comes with instructions."
He turned and walked toward the heart of the capital, toward whatever destiny awaited him in the darkness below the city. Behind him, the old man's body began to glow with soft white light, dissolving into particles that drifted upward like fireflies, returning to whatever mystical force had animated him.
The last Guardian of Eldoria had awakened.
And the Void Lords were waiting.