🌒 *Emberwake*
He died choking on ash.
The sky above the *Godspire* was torn in half, a bleeding rift where stars used to live. Magic, long since twisted by death and divine decay, cracked the world like glass. Lightning ran black. Rivers boiled. The dead rose screaming, and the living envied them.
*Thorne Blackwood*, last of the Arkan Guard, knelt in the ruin, his body broken and soul unraveling. His left arm was gone—devoured by a voidborn monstrosity that once wore the face of his childhood friend.
Blood leaked from his mouth in slow bubbles. He tasted copper and regret.
Before him stood *Eira*—the Ashborn Queen. White hair matted with blood, hands trembling around the obsidian dagger she had just driven into his heart. Her once silver eyes were now ringed in red, flickering with madness and mourning.
> "You weren't supposed to survive," she whispered. "You should have died in Ashfall, with the rest of us."
> "And leave you alone to ruin the world?" Thorne coughed. "Never."
She stepped closer, shaking. Her voice cracked like a dying fire.
> "You don't understand. You were the key. You still are. I had to stop you—before *he* took control."
> "Then you should've aimed for the head," he growled—and collapsed into the ashes.
The Godspire shuddered. The skies bled. The Ash surged up like a tide, swallowing Thorne whole.
And then—
---
🌑 *Ten Years Earlier*
*Blackmoor Orphanage | Winterhold Province*
Thorne's eyes snapped open
Cold. Mud. Rot.
The ceiling above him was rotted wood, damp with mold. The air smelled of sweat, piss, and mildew. He lay in a pile of straw with three other boys, all curled in on themselves like dying animals. One whimpered in his sleep. Another didn't breathe at all.
*Blackmoor Orphanage*.
A dumping ground for war bastards and magical accidents. A place where survival was earned, not granted.
He was back.
A boy again. Thirteen. Frail. Forgotten.
But his soul still bore the scars of a man who had watched the world die.
Thorne sat up slowly, every muscle stiff with cold and malnourishment. He felt the hunger, the fever. But beneath it all—burning inside his chest like a coal—was *power*. Not magic. Not yet. But knowledge. Memory. Strategy. Hate.
> "This is where it starts," he whispered.
He looked around. The future monsters of the world lay sleeping. Some of them would die in weeks. Others would become soldiers, cultists, corpses. But this time?
He would change the rules.
He clenched his fists.
> "I'll forge a blade from this place."
________
*End of prologue