The forest groaned beneath the weight of the wind.
Branches scraped against one another in slow, pained arcs, like bones grinding in tired sockets. Somewhere high in the trees, a crow gave a solitary cry. No others answered.
They walked in a line.
One hundred children. Barefoot. Blindfolded. Silent.
Their feet sank into damp soil, stepping over roots they could not see. Some stumbled. None cried. Each one held a frayed rope, threaded through small, pale hands, binding them together like beads on a string.
Behind them marched the soldiers.
Not men in shining armor or cloaks of honor. These wore patchwork steel and leather gone stiff with age. Their tabards were stained. Their faces hidden beneath hoods or helms that gleamed with frost. They spoke in murmurs when they spoke at all.
No names were called. No orders were barked.
The children knew not where they were going. They had only been told to walk. And walk they did—for hours, perhaps days. The trees offered no sense of time. Only the cold that deepened with every step.
A girl near the front, no older than six, tripped. She made a small sound, just a breath, a faint gasp. A soldier stepped forward. A hand gripped her by the back of the tunic, lifted her roughly to her feet, and placed her back in line.
Still, no one spoke.
They emerged from the trees at dusk, into a hollow of black stone.
It sat like a wound in the land, deep, circular, unnaturally smooth. The rock underfoot was scorched, veined with crimson lines that pulsed faintly beneath the surface. Old symbols etched by hands no longer alive, stretched outward in perfect, agonizing symmetry.
The children were led to the center of the circle.
The rope was cut.
One by one, they were placed on their knees. Still blindfolded. Still silent. A hundred little bodies, each bowed to the ash-stained ground like an offering.
The soldiers stood back.
And from the far side of the hollow, they came.
The Ashen Circle.
Cloaked in charred robes and bone-wrapped chains, their faces were veiled, their skin pale as unlit candles. They moved without sound, each step heavy with age and purpose. At their center walked a figure in robes stitched with obsidian thread, hands clasped around a black, iron staff etched with runes that shimmered red.
"Begin," said the figure, voice rusting with time.
No gesture was made. No fire lit.
And yet the glyph beneath the children breathed.
It pulsed once. A low, humming thrum, like distant thunder, vibrated through the stone. Then again. Louder. The lines grew brighter, crawling like blood across the circle.
One child twitched.
A boy. Seven, perhaps eight. He tried to stand.
The runes screamed.
It was not fire that took him, but light. A blinding white that swallowed him whole, leaving nothing but air and the faint smell of burnt cloth.
No one else moved.
One by one, they were taken.
Without sound. Without warning. A flicker of light, a snap of pressure in the air, and gone. Another. Then another. Dozens reduced to nothing in seconds. And the glyph grew brighter with each soul claimed.
Until one child remained.
A boy.
Still blindfolded. Still kneeling. His hands at his sides, relaxed. The light burned all around him, but he did not flinch. Not even as ash swirled past his face, carried on an unseen wind.
The Circle grew quiet.
And the lead warlock, his staff now glowing with inner heat, approached. He knelt before the child. Lifted the blindfold.
The boy's eyes were not frightened. Not empty.
They were simply… watching.
"He does not weep," one of the Circle whispered.
"He has no scent of sorrow," said another.
The lead warlock studied the boy.
Then he nodded.
"The flame has chosen."
Far above them, the clouds began to burn.
The sky wept fire.
Crimson streaks split the clouds, burning a slow, silent arc across the heavens. Embers danced in the air, caught in the stillness like insects frozen mid-flight.
The child stood alone in the center of the ruined circle.
The other ninety-nine were gone.
And he barefoot, small, and unflinching watched the warlocks through eyes that were not his own. They were black. All black. No whites. No color. As if the fire had consumed everything inside him and left only coal.
"He lives…" muttered one of the soldiers.
"Is he alive?" asked another, whispering behind an iron helm.
The commander didn't answer. He only nodded once, sharply, and stepped back. Even his breath caught in his throat as the child turned toward him slowly, unnaturally. The boy's gaze passed through the man like ice through bone.
"He is dead," one soldier murmured. "That boy is dead inside."
"No," said a voice behind them.
It was the head warlock. His robes still glowed faintly with the heat of the ritual. Ash clung to his sleeves, to the iron crown circling his brow. His eyes white, veined with glowing red stared only at the child.
"He is not dead," the warlock said. "He has not yet begun to live."
He stepped past the soldiers. Past the other warlocks who stood silent and distant now, their roles finished. The flame had chosen. Their purpose here was done.
But the head remained.
He approached the child, slowly, carefully, as one might approach a lioness guarding its cub. Though the child stood still, there was a weight in the air, an unspoken pressure, like a storm that had not yet decided whether to fall.
He stopped a pace away. Stared down at the boy.
"You hear me?" the warlock asked.
The boy did not respond.
"I know you can. You feel everything. You just don't know what to call it yet."
Silence. The boy's breathing was shallow. Steady.
The warlock squatted, robes pooling in the blackened soil, and raised a hand. Then, without warning—crack—he struck the child across the face.
The sound echoed across the circle like a whipcrack.
Still, the boy did not move. Not a twitch. Not a blink.
The warlock did not speak. He waited.
And then just barely the boy turned his head. Slowly. Deliberately. His empty eyes lifted to meet the warlock's.
And the warlock… smiled.
"Yes. There you are."
He stood, brushing ash from his sleeve, and reached out.
The boy didn't resist as the warlock took his hand.
"Come," he said, turning. "There's nothing left here but dust."
They walked. Slowly. The other warlocks did not follow. The soldiers stepped back, not from command—but fear. They watched the boy pass, his small feet trailing fire-warmed soil.
Only when they were halfway up the slope did the warlock speak again.
"You don't have a name yet. But that will change. You'll earn one."
He glanced down. The boy stared forward, expressionless.
"You'll be Ravyn. The 46th Hellspawn. A monster raised to kill monsters."
The warlock's voice shifted—low, gravelly, heavy with fate.
"You will be hated. Feared. Hunted. There will be those who spit at your feet and pray for your death."
A beat.
"And there will be others who kneel."
Another beat.
"One day, the world will call you something else—hero. Not because of what you are, but in spite of it."
He stopped walking. Turned.
The boy looked up.
"You will protect them. Even when they beg you not to. Even when they would rather burn you than praise you. You will protect them."
The wind stirred.
"You are the weapon the gods buried beneath the earth," the warlock whispered. "And we have unearthed you."
They walked again.
Into the trees. Into the dark.
And the fire behind them slowly died.