Chapter 1

Power. Unlimited power.

Then my eyes opened.

A sharp inhale, like surfacing from the depths of an endless sea. My body felt cold—an unnatural cold that gnawed at my bones, as though I had been buried in ice for an eternity. The air was thin, unfamiliar. I was lying on hard ground, its texture rough beneath my fingertips. I turned my head slowly, forcing my vision to focus.

Darkness.

Above me stretched an endless sky, deep and vast, speckled with stars I did not recognize. It was not my sky. The constellations were wrong, twisted in unfamiliar arrangements, as if the heavens themselves had been rewritten. A distant mountain range loomed on the horizon, jagged peaks cutting into the night. Snow surrounded me, untouched and silent.

Pain surged through my body as I pushed myself upright. My limbs trembled, my muscles sluggish and aching. It was as though I had been torn apart and stitched back together—but imperfectly. I gritted my teeth. My robes were in tatters, barely more than ruined fabric clinging to my frame. My hands, pale and trembling, pulsed with a lingering energy.

Power.

I could still feel it coursing through me, but something was wrong. The magic within me roiled, chaotic and unrestrained, as if the very nature of my being had shifted. I clenched my fists, willing the energy to settle, but it refused to obey like it once had. A faint spark flickered between my fingers—then fizzled out like a dying ember. Fantastic.

Then I remembered.

The circle. The experiment. The surge of power beyond comprehension. The moment my own magic turned against me, tearing me apart, atom by atom. And then—nothing.

I was supposed to be dead.

Yet, I was here.

Panic flickered through my thoughts. My fortress—where was it? More importantly, where was the kingdom it overlooked? The very kingdom I had once served?

I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the throbbing in my skull. The height, the shape of the land—it felt right. But everything else… wrong. The landscape stretched before me, familiar in shape but barren where there should have been settlements. No flickering torches. No towering spires. No roads winding through the valleys below.

The kingdom was gone.

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold air. There should have been people, a city bustling with life. If my experiment had caused an explosion strong enough to wipe out everything—

No. There were no ruins, no smoldering remains. No smoking craters, no conveniently placed ancient ruins. Just… nothing. Like the kingdom had been politely erased.

My breath hitched as I turned in place, desperately searching for something, anything familiar. The realization hit me in waves—

The kingdom wasn't destroyed. It had never been here at all.

I exhaled sharply, trying to make sense of the impossible. If the kingdom never existed, then where in the void was I? My fortress remained, yet the world around it had changed.

I dragged a hand down my face, forcing my thoughts into some semblance of order. There had to be an explanation. There had to be—

A cold gust of wind cut through me, and something flickered in my peripheral vision. I turned my head.

Around me, my quarters and study room lay in ruins—what little remained of them. The upper half had simply ceased to exist, as if the universe had taken a bite, grimaced, and spat it back out. No roof, no walls—just fractured pillars standing against the night like the ribs of some long-forgotten beast.

My mighty fortress, my sanctuary of knowledge and power, now had all the structural integrity of a particularly ambitious gazebo after a bar fight.

Brilliant.

Not even a lone farmhouse. Just boundless, indifferent wilderness stretching as far as the eye could suffer. No food, no supplies, no people—just me, the cold, and the looming certainty that, at this rate, my legacy would be a particularly well-preserved corpse in an unsolvable mystery.

I rubbed my temples. "I hate everything."

Then I sighed, looking over the eerie, foreign landscape. "Well… at least the view is nice."