PROLOGUE
The world does not reward those who endure.
It merely allows them to continue.
The child who would survive this world would learn that lesson before he ever learned hope.
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ARC 1 Before Power, There Was Survival
Chapter 1 The Child Who Should Not Exist
Before The Road Opens
The fire had already died when the child woke up.
Cold had crept in sometime before dawn, settling into his bones with practiced familiarity. The thin hide covering him did little more than slow it. He did not move at once. Waking was dangerous. The moment between sleep and awareness was when mistakes happened.
The air was wrong.
Not colder. Watchful.
He lay still, counting breaths, letting his senses stretch outward before his body followed. The forest was quiet, but not in the way that meant safety. Silence here was never empty. It meant something was listening.
And whatever it was, it had come closer than last night.
His fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of the small blade beside him. Stone shelter first. He traced the rough wall with his eyes, then the ceiling, checking for gaps, shadows, signs of disturbance. Nothing obvious. No claw marks. No forced entry.
Safe. For now.
He pushed himself upright in a single controlled motion. Cold bit into exposed skin, sharp enough to demand attention but not panic. Panic wasted energy, and energy was survival. He checked his bindings, the small pouch of dried roots and bark, the strip of cloth he used to keep blood from soaking into his sleeve when necessary. Everything was where it should be.
Outside, dawn struggled through the trees, pale light filtering through frost covered branches. Mist clung low to the ground, obscuring distance and sound alike. The forest looked unchanged, but he knew better.
A branch lay snapped near the shelter.
He stopped moving.
His eyes followed the break in the wood. The angle was wrong for wind, too clean for rot. He was certain it had not been broken yesterday. He had memorized this place without meaning to. Memorization was another form of defense.
Something had passed through here.
Not close enough to tear the shelter apart.
Not careless enough to leave more than that.
He adjusted the strap of his worn pack and stepped out anyway. Staying was worse than moving. Staying meant becoming predictable.
Ahead lay distance, hunger, and things that hunted both man and monster alike and did not miss twice.
He began to walk.
Each step was measured. He avoided soft ground and avoided breaking frost where possible. The forest did not forgive noise. He moved until the shelter vanished behind mist and trees, then moved some more. Only then did his shoulders ease, just a fraction.
He did not remember his birth.
Survival had kept him alive.
It would not be enough forever.
Memory began later, with cold and hunger and the understanding that pain was information. But sometimes, when the cold pressed too close, he dreamed of a room that smelled of blood and wet wood, and of eyes that looked at him as if he should not have been alive.
Those dreams never lasted long.
The village from them was a wound that refused to heal.
Its buildings leaned inward, wood swollen and split by years of damp neglect. Smoke lingered even after fires died, clinging to the air like a habit the place could not break. Inside a narrow shack at the edge of the settlement, a woman lay dying.
Her breathing was shallow and uneven. Blood soaked the bedding beneath her, dark and already cooling. No one screamed. Screaming cost strength, and there was none left to waste.
The child lay between her and the wall.
He did not cry.
He did not squirm.
He simply lay there, eyes open, breathing steadily, alive in a way that felt wrong.
A dwarf knelt nearby, hands clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. He had seen death before. Too much of it. But this felt different. The infant's gaze met his without fear, without confusion.
Aware.
Empty.
A man stood in the dark corner of the room.
He had not entered through the door.
"You will raise him," the man said.
The dwarf swallowed. "No one asked."
"If he is not tempered before the age of ten," the man continued, voice even, "this world will break him, or he will break it."
The words settled heavily, like a sentence already carried out.
"The first year," the man added, "will decide whether he even reaches that age."
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. The woman's breathing faltered, then stilled. The man stepped back, shadow folding over him like water closing around a stone.
He was gone.
Only the child remained, watching without blinking.
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The forest accepted the boy's return without comment.
By the time the sun had climbed higher, the cold had retreated just enough to be replaced by hunger. He stopped once to chew on a strip of root, forcing himself to swallow despite the bitterness. Food was fuel. Taste did not matter.
The sense of being watched did not leave.
It never did.
And in a place that had no right to endure, something far more dangerous than a monster had begun to grow.
Somewhere beyond the village, something had already noticed.
He did not know it yet, but the forest would not keep him forever.
Survival had taught him how to endure cold, hunger, and fear..but it had taught him nothing about debt, obligation, or the systems that decided who was allowed to live quietly.
Those lessons would come later.
And when they did, survival alone would no longer be enough.
End Of Chapter 1