The child was born without crying.
The midwife noticed it the moment the infant slipped into her hands.
She had delivered children for most of her life, in border villages where medicine was scarce and death was familiar. She had heard every kind of newborn cry, thin and weak, loud and desperate, sometimes barely there but always present.
This child made no sound at all.
He opened his eyes instead.
They were black.
Not dark brown like polished wood. Not shadowed by the dim light of the hut. They were black in a way that felt unnatural, like staring into ink that swallowed reflection.
The midwife froze.
Her hands trembled slightly as she stared down at the infant. The candle beside the bed flickered violently, its flame bending sideways as though a sudden wind had passed through the sealed room.
The woman on the bed stirred weakly, her face pale and damp with sweat.
"My child?" she whispered.
The midwife swallowed hard. She forced herself to breathe, to move. Whatever fear crawled up her spine had no place here.
She wrapped the infant in cloth and stepped closer, placing him gently into his mother's arms.
The moment their skin touched, the air thickened.
It was subtle. A pressure that pressed inward rather than down. The candle flame dimmed, then flared, casting long shadows across the wooden walls.
For a single heartbeat, the midwife felt as if something unseen had drawn a breath.
Then everything returned to normal.
The candle steadied. The pressure vanished. The silence remained.
The child stared upward, unblinking.
His mother smiled weakly.
"He is quiet," she said softly. "A good child."
The midwife nodded, though unease lingered in her chest long after she left the hut.
Outside, thunder rolled across the village.
The sky was clear.
Kael did not understand words.
But he understood sensation.
Cold air burned his lungs. The world pressed down on him from all sides, heavy and unfamiliar. Pain flared in places he did not yet have names for. Hunger twisted his small body.
Instinct urged him to cry.
Instead, something else responded.
A warmth stirred deep within his chest, faint but unmistakable. It spread outward slowly, like embers glowing beneath ash.
The pain dulled.
The cold receded.
The instinct felt wrong and right at the same time.
Consume.
The word was not spoken, yet it echoed clearly within him.
Kael relaxed, his small body going still once more.
His mother held him close, unaware that anything had changed.
Far above the mortal realm, beyond clouds and prayer, a palace of golden light shuddered.
A figure seated upon a throne of radiance opened his eyes.
They were ancient eyes, filled with authority that had never known challenge.
"That presence…" he murmured.
At his side, another figure stiffened. "It should not exist. The devil race was erased at its root. Their bloodlines devoured. Their laws broken and scattered."
Silence stretched across the hall.
The throne creaked softly as the sovereign leaned forward.
"Search the lower realms," he said at last. "Quietly. Leave no trace."
"Yes, Heavenly Sovereign."
The light dimmed, just slightly.
Years passed.
Kael grew like any other village child.
Thin, quiet, and watchful.
His village rested on the edge of the Blackwood Forest, a place the elders warned children never to enter. Monsters were rumored to dwell within. Hunters spoke of twisted beasts and paths that led nowhere.
Kael listened more than he spoke.
By the age of five, he realized something was wrong with him.
He remembered too much.
Not memories of another life. Not dreams of another world. Something subtler and more unsettling. He remembered how to breathe before anyone taught him. He knew hunger before his stomach twisted. He understood fear without knowing the word for it.
At six, he discovered he could sense things others could not.
Blood.
He felt it moving beneath skin, warm and rhythmic. He could sense its pace and its strength, the way it changed with emotion.
When villagers argued, their blood rushed violently. When afraid, it slowed and trembled. When sick, it stagnated, heavy and foul.
At first, the sensations overwhelmed him. He avoided crowds. He stayed quiet.
Then came the first death.
An old man collapsed near the well one afternoon. The villagers rushed to help, shouting and panicking.
Kael felt it before anyone else.
The blood slowed.
Then it stopped.
The sudden absence made him dizzy. He ran behind his home and vomited until his throat burned. He cried until his chest hurt and his body shook.
That night, he dreamed of warmth.
The second time it happened, he did not cry.
The boy died behind the granary.
They called it an accident.
Kael stood among the villagers, small hands clenched at his sides. The body lay on the dirt, eyes wide and unfocused.
The blood had already begun to cool.
Yet something lingered.
A presence. A faint pull.
Consume.
The whisper brushed against his thoughts, gentle and insistent.
Kael's heartbeat quickened. His chest burned, hotter than it ever had before.
He took a single step forward.
No one noticed.
The air around the corpse warped slightly, bending inward. A thin thread of crimson light slipped free from the body and flowed into Kael's chest.
He gasped.
Heat exploded through his veins. Not pain. Power.
His legs gave out and he collapsed into the dirt, breath ragged. The sensation was overwhelming, yet intoxicating.
Inside him, something shattered and reformed.
A symbol burned itself into his soul.
A dark crown shaped of horns and shadow.
Kael pressed his hands into the ground, shaking.
No one saw.
That night, Kael dreamed of fire.
Not wild flames, but controlled ones.
He stood upon a plain of black stone beneath a broken crimson sky. Shadows knelt before him in endless rows, their forms indistinct yet reverent.
A presence watched him.
Ancient. Amused.
"So," the voice echoed. "Another survived."
Kael looked down at his hands. Dark veins traced across his skin like living marks.
"What am I?" he asked.
The presence laughed softly.
"You are what heaven failed to erase."
Kael woke drenched in sweat, his heart pounding violently.
Beneath his skin, just above his heart, a faint mark pulsed once.
Then vanished.
Far above, in the palace of light, the Heavenly Sovereign frowned.
The sensation was gone.
But the unease remained.
The first devil had returned.
And the heavens had not yet realized where to look.