The empire of Vael'Tor crumbled in a single day.
Not to flame or sword, not to rebellion or siege, but to a boy no older than sixteen, blind and draped in a cloak of ragged red and ash-black thread. His bandaged eyes gazed into nothing, yet saw everything. In his hand, a single card drifted downward like falling ash—the image of a cloaked skeleton atop a pale horse. The Death Card.
By sunset, King Malgareth's citadel was a ruin, his armies slaughtered by shadows that moved like whispers, and his name erased from every stone it once adorned.
The boy stood at the heart of it, untouched, surrounded by the dead.
His name was Tarokai, the last of the Hunter Tarot.
He sat now in the hollowed chapel of a forgotten temple, the rain hissing against broken stained glass and cracked stone. Flickering candlelight illuminated four strangers who had dared come seeking answers.
A swordsman in rusted armor with a missing hand, a scholar clutching forbidden tomes, a rogue with wolf-eyes and blood on her breath, and a young girl who could summon birds of light with her hands.
They stared at him in silence.
"You want to know," Tarokai rasped, voice dry like torn parchment. "Why a king died at the draw of a card."
The scholar nodded first. "They say you're a seer. A killer. A myth."
The girl added, "They say you brought ruin with just a whisper to the cards."
Tarokai slowly reached to the deck of tattered tarot cards bound by a crimson string at his belt. His fingers hovered but did not draw.
"You want the truth? Then you must hear how it began."
His voice cracked, but the storm outside grew quiet, as if the world listened with them.
"I was born in a cult. The Cult of the Final Draw."
He could hear the rogue scoff. "One of those doom-worshipping fanatics?"
"Not one of them," Tarokai whispered. "I was the god they worshipped."
A moment of silence.
"They called me The Deck Incarnate. My brother, Seron, was the Red Mirror. We were born beneath a blood eclipse in the ruins of Gharon. They said we would bring the Last Card to the world."
"And did you?" asked the girl.
He tilted his head, a smile just barely touching his lips.
"I burned the card. And the cult with it."
The world of Veyl is a realm bound by magic—but its law is unyielding. One soul, one magic. A man may call fire, or read minds, or bend iron—but never more than one art. Those born without magic are called the Hollowed. Those with forbidden magic are called the Doomed.
Tarokai's magic was Hunter Tarot.
He did not cast fireballs, nor fly. He drew cards—cards that read the future, saw one's death, and summoned echoes of their destined downfall. With a single draw, he could unravel a man.
His daggers, always hidden beneath his robes, were not enchanted. But they were fast. And they were final.
The four listened as he told them of the Black Deck, the Tower of Sighs, and the Ashfold Wastes, where the cult once ruled. How he killed his brother beneath a sky that rained with eyes. How he abandoned prophecy and chose free will.
The swordsman finally spoke. "Why are you telling us this?"
Tarokai touched the deck.
"Because the cards say your deaths are coming. And I want you to see why I won't stop it."
Outside, thunder cracked.
The Death Card stirred.