In the grand halls of the Von Schwarzenwald estate, where power flowed thicker than blood, there was no room for weakness. Born into one of the most ancient and feared families of Elyria, he should have been destined for greatness. Yet, even as a child, he knew he was different. He had no gifts, no special talent, and his father's eyes passed over him as if he were invisible—a shadow in the corner of the family portrait.
His brothers were prodigies—perfect in every way. They wielded magic with the ease of a breath, commanding the very elements to bend to their will. His sisters were cunning, their beauty matched only by their ruthless ambition. But he, the third son, had been nothing more than an afterthought, a living reminder of the one thing their father couldn't control—fate.
His mother had died the night he was born, her last breath whispered against the bitter winds of a storm that would haunt him for years. They said her death cursed him, that he would never amount to anything more than a burden. His father never spoke of her, never mentioned her name, as if the memory of her life, and her death, were too inconvenient to acknowledge.
Years passed in silence. Years of watching from the shadows, of enduring the mocking laughter of his siblings, their cruel words biting deeper than any sword. He wanted to prove them wrong, to show his father he was worth something—anything. But with each passing day, the dream faded.
Until the night of his sixteenth year.
That night, the beatings were worse than usual. His brothers' taunts turned into fists, and his body could no longer withstand the pain. As he slipped into unconsciousness, his last thought was not of fear or anger, but of surrender. He had given up.
But when he woke, something was different. The world around him had shifted. His family had changed in his absence, and whispers of an unspeakable crime echoed through the halls of the estate. The name Von Schwarzenwald, once spoken with reverence, was now the source of hushed murmurs and mistrust. To protect their reputation, they needed a scapegoat. Someone to cast away.
That someone was him.
Now, banished from the only home he had ever known, shipped off to the distant, mysterious land of Kyrios with nothing but the clothes on his back and the company of his late mother's butler, he stood on the edge of a new life. A life where his name no longer bound him, where the weight of his family's legacy could no longer suffocate him.
And perhaps, just perhaps, in this strange, veiled land of shifting mists and ancient secrets, he would find more than what had been stolen from him.
Perhaps, he would find himself.