Prologue:
The Crack in the Storm
Rain hammered the frontier like the gods themselves were trying to drown the world. Lightning clawed across the sky above the remote hills of Valoria's Borderlands Province, illuminating a jagged scar that had never existed before.
A vertical tear in reality, no wider than a man's arm span, shimmered with violet-black light. From it stepped an old man—tall, silver-haired, cloak drenched yet somehow untouched by the downpour. His left sleeve hung empty, pinned at the shoulder. In his right arm he cradled a one-year-old boy wrapped in cloth the color of midnight smoke.
The fabric refused the rain. Not a single drop touched it. Instead, a gentle warmth radiated from the weave, keeping the child's cheeks rosy even as thunder shook the ground. The boy slept on, tiny fist curled around the old man's finger, breathing slowly and trusting.
The old man—Zen—looked back once. His eyes, sharp as broken glass, carried the weight of a realm far above this one. "They will not follow us here, young master," he whispered, voice raw from whatever battle had cost him his arm.
"Not yet."
The crack flared once, then snapped shut with a sound like a dying star. The storm swallowed the echo. Zen and the child vanished into the trees, leaving only footprints that the rain erased with
in moments.