The village burned for three days.
By the fourth, there was nothing left but silence and the smell of melted iron.
I did not weep. The tears had dried long before the flames did. My father's forge had become his pyre; the hammer he'd held since before I was born lay cracked beside his bones, half-buried under soot and memory.
I took it anyway. Not because I believed I could use it—but because I was afraid of what would happen if I left it behind. The gods had taken everything else; they would not have his hammer too.
When dawn rose on the fourth day, I began to walk.
The ash fell like snow. Each step carried the crunch of bone and burnt timber. I did not know where the road led—only that every direction away from the village felt like treason, and yet staying meant joining the dead.
"Run, Kael."
"Run, before the priests return."
Those were my mother's final words, whispered through cracked lips as the light faded from her eyes. I had promised her I would survive. Survival, I found, was its own kind of punishment.
The road wound between blackened hills and petrified trees, once green and full of crows. Now even the crows were gone.
I walked without rest, following the thread of smoke that drifted toward the mountains—where rumor said the old city of Vareth still stood, untouched by the holy war.
By the second night, hunger gnawed at me. I found a stream and drank from it, the water tasting of rust and rain. When I saw my reflection, I almost did not recognize the face staring back: a boy of nineteen, eyes hollow as if something had reached inside and hollowed them out.
And then I heard it
A whisper, faint but distinct, curling through the back of my mind.
"Ash clings to ash. Fire calls to blood. You carry both."
I froze. The forest was still. No wind, no birdsong. Only the quiet murmur of the cursed thing that had lived in my blood since the night my father died.
"Who are you?" I asked aloud.
No answer—just a warmth in my chest, slow and spreading, like molten metal filling a mold. My heartbeat matched it, heavy and deliberate.
"You will know, when the gods remember you."
The voice faded.
I fell to my knees, trembling. Madness—that's what it had to be. My father had warned me about the sickness, the metal curse that twisted our family's minds. He had called it the price of defiance. I had thought it a myth.
But myths have a way of clawing themselves into the present when no one is watching.
By the time I reached the outskirts of Vareth, the rain had begun. It fell in sheets, washing the soot from my clothes but never the scent of fire from my skin. The city rose before me, half in ruin, half in denial of ruin. Great statues of the gods lined the gates—stone faces chipped and blind.
A guard stopped me. He saw the hammer at my back and the forge-burns on my arms.
"You're from the lowlands," he said. "Another refugee?"
"Something like that."
He didn't press further. Refugees were as common as corpses these days. He waved me through.
Inside, Vareth was a contradiction—its streets alive with merchants and children, yet beneath the surface, fear festered like rot. Every alley whispered of disappearances. Every temple rang hollow prayers to gods that no longer listened.
I found work in a blacksmith's shop by lying about my name. The man who hired me, Orin, was too tired to care. His forge was small, his temper smaller. But the rhythm of the hammer gave me something to hold onto.
Day after day, I beat steel into shape. The sound reminded me of home—and of everything I had lost.
Until one night, the whisper returned.
"You forge what you cannot forgive."
The hammer slipped from my grasp, striking the anvil with a spark that flashed gold instead of red. The metal beneath it glowed—not from heat, but from within. Symbols I had never learned bloomed across the blade's surface like molten veins.
Orin stumbled back. "By the gods—what did you—"
The light died as quickly as it came. I stared at the sword. Perfectly forged. Flawless. Impossible.
"The curse," I whispered. "It's real."
Orin saw my expression and stepped away slowly, as if I'd suddenly become something dangerous. Maybe I had.
That night, I left the forge behind. I took the sword. I didn't ask permission. The road was calling again
Outside the city, the world was quieter—too quiet.
Then came the sound of bells. Holy bells. The kind used by the Order of the Sun, the same priests who had burned my village.
They found me before dawn. Three of them, dressed in gold-stitched robes, masks gleaming with divine symbols.
The one in front raised his staff. "You bear the mark of blasphemy," he said. "Kneel."
I didn't.
The sword hummed in my hand, faint but alive.
"Kneel, and perhaps the gods will grant you mercy."
I laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "The gods already cursed me. How much more mercy could they offer?"
He lifted his staff higher. "Then burn as your father did."
I moved before he finished speaking. The sword sang—a sound that was not steel, but a low, resonant roar. Light exploded from the blade, tearing through the first priest's chest. He didn't bleed. He simply…disintegrated, turning to ash before my eyes.
The others screamed prayers, swinging their staves in blind faith. I didn't remember killing them. Only the aftermath—the smell of ozone, the blackened grass, and the way the serpent's voice purred in my skull.
"You forge well, little god."
I dropped the sword. My hands shook. My reflection in the blade's sheen looked nothing like me anymore—eyes burning faint gold, veins shimmering beneath the skin.
I was becoming what they feared
When the dawn finally broke, I stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the valley. The priests' corpses lay behind me, smoke rising from them like incense.
I should have felt guilt. I felt only a hollow kind of calm.
The voice stirred again, softer now.
"You cannot return to who you were, Kael."
"Then I will become what I must."
The wind shifted, carrying with it the scent of rain and ashes. Somewhere beyond the mountains, the gods waited—fat and silent on their thrones of gold.
And I swore, under that bruised sky, that I would drag every one of them down to the dirt.