The first time Eirik bled, it wasn't from a blade. It was from a wolf's claw.
He was ten years old when they left him—alone, barefoot, and shivering on the edge of a remote mountain village. His only possessions: a threadbare blanket, a satchel with three days' worth of dried meat, and the memory of the man who once called himself his uncle.
Hroldir.
Once a warm presence in his life, Hroldir had cast him out without a word of comfort. No explanation. No tears. Just a cold look and the heavy silence of the forest closing in around him.
Eirik didn't cry.
Not when his stomach knotted with hunger.
Not when frost gnawed at his fingers.
Not even when the wolves came.
The Struggle
The villagers whispered about him. "The cursed child," they called him. "Son of the fallen king."
None offered him shelter. None dared to draw the ire of the new crown.
So he turned to the forest.
He learned quickly that the wild did not forgive weakness. He hunted with sharpened sticks and stones. He trapped squirrels with roots and stole eggs from nests. He ate what others wouldn't. He slept with one eye open.
His body thinned, hardened. His bones ached under the cold, and his skin bore scars from beasts and brambles alike. But still—he lived.
And in that isolation, something awakened.
Light.
It started as a flicker when a bear cornered him. A sudden flash from his palm, blinding the beast long enough to escape. Days later, a wound he thought fatal sealed with a golden glow. Not from technique, not from training—but instinct.
The Light answered him like it had no choice.
Untrained, he had no scrolls or spells, no tutor to teach him the sacred art of magic.
But he didn't need finesse. He needed survival.
And survive, he did.
The Feral Flame
His magic wasn't beautiful.
It was wild. Brutal. Untamed.
He didn't cast spells with grace. He lashed out like a wounded beast. He'd blind his enemies, then strike low. He'd bite, kick, use the terrain—anything to win. His fists fought as hard as his magic. There was no form. No technique. Only instinct.
By thirteen, he could snap a wolf's neck with his bare hands.
By fourteen, the wolves fled from his scent.
No one remembered that he was once the son of King Alrik, holder of the Light and protector of the realm. No one but Eirik.
He remembered it all.
He remembered the scream of his mother, Queen Yrsa.
The glint of steel in Hroldir's hands.
The way blood stained the snow beneath their bodies.
The man who once smiled at him…
The man who now wore a crown.
The First Step
Eirik no longer wanted to survive.
He wanted answers.
He wanted power.
He wanted revenge.
He would begin where all great warriors of the realm began: Valdrskól, the Grand Academy of Magic. If he was to challenge the king himself, he needed strength beyond the forest. Beyond the wild.
With nothing but a patched cloak over his shoulders and the fire of vengeance in his chest, Eirik began to walk. Through wind. Through snow. Through pain.
Toward destiny.
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