The Wastes were quieter than usual.
Kael never trusted quiet.
In the Wastes, quiet meant something worse was listening. It meant predators stalking just out of sight. Hunger with teeth. Shadows with hands.
The sun had died long before Kael was born. He had never seen a sky that wasn't drowning in ash. The wind scraped through broken towers and the ribs of old machines, howling like ghosts trying to remember their own names. Kael pulled his threadbare coat tighter as he pressed through the wreckage. Every step was slower now. Every breath shallower. He hadn't eaten in days. Maybe more. The Wastes didn't care about time.
But rumors... rumors kept him moving.
They said the Last Sanctum still stood beyond the eastern ridge. A city untouched by decay. A place where the Forsaken like him weren't hunted for sport or enslaved in the corpse-farms of the old warlords. Maybe it was a lie. Probably it was a lie. But lies were better than starving.
Kael kept walking, because walking was all he had left.
As night fell, the sky bled out its last faint streaks of purple. Stars flickered weakly beyond the smog, trembling like they wanted to die. In the distance, a storm of glass rolled across the horizon, scouring the land smooth. Erasing the old scars. Erasing the new ones, too.
Kael found shelter beneath the remains of a colossal statue. Whatever it had once been—a god, a king, a hero—its face had long since crumbled. Only jagged stone teeth remained, jutting from the dirt like a sneer.
He crouched in its shadow and waited for sleep.
That's when the voice returned.
It had been coming and going for days. Maybe longer.
Soft. Patient.
Not quite real.
Like the echo of a story no one had ever told.
"It begins here," the voice whispered. "The fracture. The end."
Kael rubbed at his eyes. He was too tired for hallucinations. Too cold for riddles.
"One day," the voice continued, "you will decide if everything deserves to end... or begin again."
"I can't even decide where my next meal's coming from," Kael muttered. "Come back when I'm not dying."
The voice didn't answer. But the wind shifted, carrying with it the faintest hint of something he hadn't smelled in weeks—smoke. Fire. People.
Kael pushed to his feet and climbed the ridge. Below, in the valley, firelight flickered. Two figures in heavy cloaks moved between the wreckage, rifles slung across their backs.
Hunters.
Kael's fingers closed around the handle of his rusted knife. Useless, really. More rust than steel. But a dull blade still killed if you pressed hard enough.
The hunters hadn't seen him yet. One kicked over a heap of rubble, checking for scraps.
> "Nothing but bones," one said.
> "Better than nothing. Strip 'em clean." The other gestured toward the ridge. "And keep an eye up there. Swear I saw something move."
Kael dropped flat behind the rocks, heart pounding.
There were only two of them. Probably. But two was enough. Two was too many.
He should run.
But hunger gnawed louder than fear.
If they had food… weapons… anything…
Maybe it was time to stop running.
Kael slid down the slope, staying low. The ruins were a maze of metal and stone. Shadows shifted with the wind. He crept closer, watching, waiting. The hunters moved carelessly, as if no one worth fearing had been born in the Wastes for years.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe Kael wasn't worth fearing.
Or maybe they'd forgotten what desperation looked like.
When Kael struck, he aimed for the throat. Quick, silent. The first man crumpled without a sound, his rifle clattering to the ground. Before the second could react, Kael was on him. The man shouted—a short, sharp noise cut off by the knife driving up under his chin.
It was over in seconds.
Kael stood trembling over the bodies. Not from fear. Not from rage.
From the rush.
From the hunger.
And then he noticed the pack.
One of the hunters had been carrying something wrapped in cloth, tied tight with frayed cord. Kael ripped it open, expecting dried meat, or rations, or ammo.
But it wasn't food.
It wasn't even a weapon.
It was a shard.
Glass-like. Iridescent. Pulsing faintly with light, as if it held a trapped heartbeat. The shard was warm in his hand. Too warm. Like it remembered being part of something larger. Something alive.
Symbols were etched along its edges. Spirals. Crowns. Eyes. Threads.
Kael didn't know what it was. But the moment he touched it, the voice returned, stronger than ever.
"You found the first piece."
"The first fracture."
"The first key."
Kael staggered back, gripping the shard tight. Visions flashed behind his eyes—
A crown, broken into infinite pieces.
Legends warring over its remains.
Worlds tearing themselves apart in song and silence.
And above it all, a throne that waited for him… or someone who could take it from him.
Kael shook his head.
"No."
This was madness. Just a scavenger's trinket. A piece of junk worth trading for food. Right?
Except… the shard pulsed again. And Kael realized the hunters hadn't been looking for scraps.
They'd been looking for this.
And now others would come.
Because this wasn't just a relic.
This was the beginning of something.
Kael glanced back at the dead men. Took one of their rifles. Took the pack. Took the shard.
Then he walked east, toward the place the old stories called the Last Sanctum.
Toward the whispers of safety.
Toward whatever came next.
And as the glass storm swallowed the horizon behind him, Kael heard the voice one last time.
"Every legend begins with hunger."
"Yours will end with the crown."
"And between those, boy… there will be war."
Kael grinned.
"Fine," he whispered. "Let them come."
And with that, the boy who was nothing took his first step toward becoming everything.