PROLOGUE
The rain did not wash away the smell of slaughtered men; it only made the scent of rusted iron and charred flesh heavier in the air.
Three hundred years ago, in the valley of Aethelgard, the sky wept ash. The Grand Inquisitor stood atop a hill of broken corpses, his golden armor stained with soot. Below him, a single man knelt in the mud. The man's right arm was wreathed in roaring, unnatural blue flames, while his left arm dripped with freezing, blackened water. Around his neck, a collar of liquid steel pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"It defies the Order of the Cosmos," the Inquisitor's voice trembled, lacking the usual authority of his station. "Fire consumes. Water quenches. They do not coexist. You are a blasphemy against the Gods."
The kneeling man did not look up. He coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the soaked earth. When he finally spoke, his voice was like grinding gears. "The Gods... only built the forge, Inquisitor. They never learned how to use the anvil."
With a sickening crack, the liquid steel around the man's neck expanded, shooting out like razor-sharp whips. In the same breath, the water froze the blood in the surrounding soldiers' veins, and the fire superheated their armor, boiling them alive from the inside out.
The history books of Oakhaven record that the Heretic was executed that day. They lie.
The Heretic wasn't killed. He simply shattered into a thousand fragments of corrupted bloodlines, waiting for a vessel strong enough to hold the paradox once again.
Three centuries later, in the gutters of a dying city, a young boy named Tommy cuts his hand on a rusted gear, and for the first time... the blood dripping from his palm begins to boil.