The memory of the body was gone. There was only the Light—a glowing, pulsating orb of consciousness hovering in the silence of a ruined sanctuary.
The place was a graveyard of divinity. Massive stone pillars, cracked and weathered by aeons of time, reached up toward a sky that held no clouds, only a blinding, singular Sun that stared down like an unblinking eye. The roof was long gone, leaving the sanctum exposed to the raw cosmos.
In front of the soul stood the Arbiter.
He was colossal, a figure draped in flowing white robes that rippled as if caught in a non-existent wind. His face was obscured by the blinding brilliance of the sun above, leaving only the lower half visible—a jawline chiselled from marble, set in a grim, unyielding line. In his hand, he gripped a staff of terrifying power: a heavy, golden shaft topped with a three-pronged spear, humming with the destructive resonance of a Trishul.
The vibration of the weapon rattled the soul's very core.
"You have lingered in the silence long enough," the Arbiter spoke. His voice was not a sound, but a tremor that shook the dust from the broken pillars. "The scales must be balanced. You seek to keep a promise, but the universe demands payment first."
The soul pulsed—a flicker of blue light—acknowledging the truth.
"Go," the Arbiter commanded, raising the Trishul. The points of the spear gathered the light of the sun, turning into a singularity of power. "Descend to the mortal realm. Atone for the sins etched upon your spirit. Only then shall you rise."
The staff struck the ground.
The floor of the temple shattered, dissolving into a whirlpool of starlight. The soul fell. It did not fall through air, but through the Cosmic Ocean. Stars blurred into streaks of neon violet and icy blue. Galaxies spun past like coin tosses. The sensation was agonizing; the freedom of being pure energy was being stripped away, replaced by the heavy, crushing weight of matter.
Gravity took hold. The soul screamed in silence as it was compressed, squeezed, and molded. Bones formed from dust. Blood formed from ancient rivers. Skin knit together from the fabric of the night.
The first thing he felt was the cold.
It wasn't the freezing cold of the void, but the damp, biting chill of air against wet skin. The cosmic roar faded, replaced by the rustle of leaves and the chirp of unseen insects.
He tried to expand his consciousness, to see in all directions as he once did, but he hit a wall. He was trapped. Confined.
He opened his eyes.
Above him, the sky was not the golden expanse of the Divine Realm, but a canopy of alien leaves, glowing with faint bioluminescence. He tried to stand, but his limbs were heavy, useless things. He looked down at himself.
He was small. Fragile.
He was lying on a bed of moss in the center of a dense forest, wrapped tightly in a coarse white cloth. His hands—tiny, pale as milk—grasped at the air. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a dew-slicked leaf nearby.
He was one of them now. A Sylvarian.
His skin was stark white, contrasting sharply with the tuft of jet-black hair already present on his head. Even as an infant, his limbs were long, hinting at the unnatural height he would one day reach. His ears were not rounded like the humans of old Earth, but swept back into sharp, elegant points, twitching at the sound of a snapping twig.
He was on the planet Aethelgard.
He tried to speak, to utter the name of the one he had promised to find, but all that came out was a soft, helpless cry. The reality of his punishment settled in. He was a King without a crown, a God trapped in the body of a baby, abandoned in the wild.
And he was not alone.
The transition was violent, but the arrival was silent.
As the soul collided with the mortal vessel, the vast library of his memories—the wars he had fought, the powers he had wielded, and the face of the one he loved—shattered into dust. The "God" was gone. Only the biology remained.
He opened his eyes, but there was no recognition in them. There was no "I am." There was only light, color, and the overwhelming confusion of being alive. He was small. He was cold. He was hungry.
He was a child of Aethelgard now, a Sylvarian infant with skin as pale as moonlight and a tuft of midnight-black hair. His pointed ears twitched, overwhelmed by the sudden rush of sound. He tried to reach out for the warmth he had felt moments ago, but his tiny hands only grasped empty air. He let out a soft, confused whimper.
He was lying in a natural cradle formed by the massive, gnarled roots of an ancient tree. The bark was warm against his back, and the canopy above filtered the sunlight into dancing motes of gold and emerald.
It was a place of vibrant, aggressive beauty. Bushes heavy with sapphire-blue berries clustered around the roots, and the air was thick with the sweet perfume of wildflowers that bloomed in impossible shades of crimson, soft pink, and luminous green.
The infant's cry did not go unanswered. But it wasn't a mother who came.
First came the rustling.
From the fern brakes, a small nose twitched. A rabbit hopped into the clearing, its fur mottled brown and green to match the forest floor. From the center of its forehead, a single, spiraling horn protruded—a Horned Hare. It sniffed the air, hopping closer to the strange white bundle, its eyes wide with curiosity rather than fear.
Above, the canopy shook. A troop of Two-Tailed Monkeys swung effortlessly through the branches. They chirped and chattered, hanging upside down by their twin tails to get a better look. Some sat perched on the thick boughs, tilting their heads in unison, wondering what this pale, hairless creature was doing in their domain.
Then, the heavy crunch of hooves silenced the chatter.
The bushes parted, and a magnificent beast stepped through. It was a Unicorn, its coat shimmering like pearl dust. It did not look like the gentle beasts of fairy tales; it was muscular and wild, its single horn glowing with a faint, rhythmic pulse.
The Unicorn lowered its massive head, sniffing the infant. The Horned Hare froze, and the monkeys went silent. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
The baby stopped crying. He looked up at the giant beast, his dark eyes wide, reflecting the glowing horn. He reached out a tiny, shaking hand and brushed the creature's velvet snout.
The forest was not attacking him. It was welcoming him.
The mystical truce between the infant and the beasts was broken by a sound far more human.
"Is someone there?"
The voice was faint, sweet as the nectar of the forest flowers, but it carried enough presence to shatter the moment. The Horned Hare's ears swiveled, and with a thump of its powerful legs, it vanished into the ferns. The Two-Tailed Monkeys shrieked and scrambled higher into the canopy. Even the Unicorn gave a low snort, shaking its mane before turning and melting back into the shadows.
The baby, suddenly alone and cold again, let out a sharp, piercing cry.
The bushes parted. A woman stepped into the clearing.
She was a Sylvarian, possessed of an ethereal beauty that seemed to glow in the filtered sunlight. Like the infant, she was tall and pale, her skin flawless like porcelain. Her hair fell in long, silken waves, framing a face defined by high cheekbones and those distinct, elegant pointed ears.
She carried a woven wicker basket hooked over one arm, brimming with the day's harvest—plump blue moon-berries and bright red star-fruits.
She froze, her eyes widening as they landed on the white bundle amidst the tree roots.
"By the ancestors..." she whispered, setting her basket down. The berries spilled slightly as she rushed forward, her long robes trailing over the moss.
She knelt beside the roots, looking frantically left and right. "Hello?" she called out, her voice rising in pitch. "Is anyone here? This child is alone!"
The only answer was the rustle of leaves and the distant caw of a bird. The forest was vast and silent.
She looked down at the boy. He was red-faced now, wailing with the lung capacity of a creature fighting for life. She gently touched the coarse white cloth wrapped around him. It was high quality, but torn.
She looked up at the sky. The twin suns were dipping lower, casting long, stretching shadows across the clearing. Her heart tightened. The forest of Aethelgard was a paradise by day, but a graveyard by night. When the light faded, the real predators woke up—beasts that did not marvel at babies, but devoured them.
"I cannot leave you here," she murmured, a frown creasing her smooth forehead. "To leave you is to feed the darkness."
Decision hardened in her eyes. She reached down, scooping the infant into her arms. He was surprisingly heavy, warm, and alive. As soon as he felt the warmth of her embrace and the rhythmic thrum of her heartbeat, his crying ceased. He blinked, looking up at her with eyes as dark as the void he had come from.
She smiled, a soft, sad thing. She adjusted the basket on her arm, holding the child close to her chest.
"Come, little one," she whispered, turning back toward the path she had come from. "Let us get you out of the shadows before they bite."
She walked for what seemed like an hour, her steps light and sure against the uneven terrain. The deeper forest began to thin, the suffocating canopy opening up to reveal patches of the twilight sky, now painted in strokes of violet and bruised orange.
They reached the edge of a high ridge, and the woman stopped. She shifted the weight of the basket and the baby, turning her body so the child faced outward.
"Look," she breathed, the word escaping like a prayer. "This is where the path ends."
Below them, nestled in a vast, bowl-shaped valley within the heart of the forest, lay the village.
It was not a settlement of simple mud and thatch. The structures spiraled outward in a perfect geometric pattern, built from a material that mimicked the grain of timber but shone with the dull, metallic luster of burnished copper. It was smooth, seamless, and grew directly from the earth, as if the buildings had been sung into existence rather than built.
But the houses were merely the court; the King sat in the center.
A colossal tree pierced the sky in the middle of the village. Its trunk was so wide it could have housed a castle, and its bark was silver, pulsating with a faint, rhythmic blue light that traveled up its veins like a heartbeat. Its branches spread out like a protective umbrella over the entire settlement, dropping glowing spores that drifted down like soft, warm snow.
The baby, who had been on the verge of tears again, went silent. His dark, ancient eyes widened. He stared at the Great Tree, mesmerized by the blue pulse. Somewhere deep in his locked memories, a spark recognized the flow of energy. It was beautiful.
The woman felt the change in him. She looked down, seeing the wonder on his tiny face, and her worry melted into a warm smile.
"It is beautiful, isn't it?" she whispered, stroking his cheek with her thumb. "The World Tree watches over us all."
She adjusted the white cloth around him, securing him against the evening chill.
"You are safe now, little one," she said softly, stepping off the ridge and beginning the descent toward the glowing lights below. "For the time being, you will stay with us. You have a home."