They say a Deviant is born broken.
Not sick. Not cursed. Just... wrong.
When the other children lit candles with their breath or summoned sparks from their veins, Deviants were silent. Their cores stayed dormant. Hollow. Cold. Useless.
Most were forgotten. Hidden. Some were killed.
But a few lived long enough to awaken something else—something darker.
Not magic.
Something older than it.
Something the world had tried to bury.
They called it the Soulbrand.
It was never the same twice. One Deviant carved holes in space and walked through them. Another could fold her voice into someone else's skin. One man tore time like parchment. They didn't learn it. They didn't cast it. It just happened—when the pain became too much to hold.
When the body gave up… but the soul didn't.
That was the cost.
Not everyone survived the awakening. Most didn't. But those who did—
They were no longer just broken.
They were feared.
Hunted.
Named.
And one of them… was about to change the world.