Kale sat on the temple step, his bare feet swinging just above the bloodstained stone. He was seven, small, and wordless.
The child was marked, they said - born under black suns, meant to break the world's rhythm. Kale understood nothing. Just that Mira left without a whisper
Yesterday, she was there, laughing, singing with him in the herb garden. Next, she was smoke in the sky.
"You'll forget her," a priest with white eyes said. "You'll serve the gods, and learn balance. Just like us."
Kale remained silent.
But that night, he slipped out of his bed, climbed to the temple roof, and whispered her name to the stars.
The Temple of Equilibrium taught three things: obedience, balance, and silence.
Kale mastered all three before his twelfth birthday. Not because he believed in the gods. Not anymore. But because he learned knowledge was armor, and weakness killed.
The servants whispered about his focus, how he rose faster than boys born of noble blood, how he spent hours in the scroll halls while others trained with blades.
What they didn't understand was that Kale wasn't studying to serve. He was studying to understand, and, in time, to dismantle.
At fifteen, he earned access to the Second Tier of Light, a sacred hall beneath the inner sanctum where divine energy flowed like liquid fire.
On his day of Ascension, he knelt in silence, head bowed before the flame.
A priestess approached. Her voice was soft, but her eyes held no compassion.
"You've come far for one without a bloodline," she said. "Tell me why."
Kale didn't lie, though he only ever told parts of the truth, "Because I refuse to kneel helpless a second time," Kale said.
She studied him. "Ambition is a sin."
"Then may the gods judge me when I'm done," Kale replied, his eyes now locked on the priestess.
In the dark hours between midnight prayers and sunrise chants, Kale trained alone.
Kale's magic was raw, quiet, and cold, unlike the burning light the priests favored.
He focused on manipulating and controlling light through mind.
By seventeen, he had mastered four divine theurgies in secret, something reserved for those twice his age.
By nineteen, he could reshape light into blades sharp enough to cut spirit.
And still, he stayed silent. The only time he laughed was when he climbed the temple roof and whispered Mira's name to the stars.
By twenty-three, Kale was named Anchor of Light, the youngest in temple history.
The position granted him authority over emissaries, rites, and doctrine in four provinces. It came with reverence, fear, and the expectation of silence.
He gave them all but one: obedience.
Kale restructured the training halls, banned prophecy over infants, and forbade sacrifices in his territories. The High Council watched but said nothing.
Publicly, Kale was a reformer, but privately, he was a threat with a good face.
Even Elder Rhenna, once his harshest critic, had grown distant.
One thing Kale believed was, Mira lived in every child he couldn't protect.
But one unfateful morning, Kale found the Sanctum too quiet after returning from his Eastern routine. No voices, no footsteps. Only the scent of smoke. The silence struck him first, but when he saw the ash, everything changed.
They said she had been taken at dawn, under an unrecorded rite. They said she displayed strange powers and might be a future threat to the temple.
She needed to be sacrificed for "balance."
Kale found her bones still warm, laid before the altar flame. His mind flashed to Mira, silenced years ago by this same altar, her bones burned for "balance." He had sworn no other would fall. And yet…
"We restored balance," the priest said, white-robed, hands stained red. "It had to be done."
They expected silence and obedience, but what they received was neither. Kale looked up slowly.
His voice was soft when it came. "What was her name?"
The priest blinked. "What?"
"The girl," Kale said, standing now and louder, "What was her name?"
The priest hesitated.
Another answered, a younger acolyte. "Layla."
Kale nodded. He memorized it.
Then he raised his hand.
Suddenly, the light in the sanctum shifted, soft at first, then sharpened into a blade, a silent blade of white light.
The white-robed priest sensed Kale's fury and stepped back, face paling. "You wouldn't. You're sworn. You're the Anchor of..."
Before he could finish, Kale struck him. The priest couldn't scream. He dropped immediately, cut clean through, blood pooling at the altar's foot.
The other priests froze. Elder Rhenna's voice trembled. "You've doomed us all."
Kale turned, his eyes cold as his light. "There are no gods, only murderers behind flames. No balance should need children's bones. I end it for Layla, for Mira, for every soul you've crushed."
The temple was silent for a few seconds.
But not long. Suddenly, the sanctum shook. Thunder roared. The upper realm split open. The altar flame surged, white-hot, and a bolt of thunderfire struck Kale.
A voice, vast and merciless, shook the temple. "Who dared deny the gods?"
Kale looked up and stood his ground
"From now on, you shall become a wanderer, cast to the lower realms and never be able to ascend again." The voice said
Immediately, Kale's body was wrapped in thunder and clouds. Excruciating pain surged through him. His body trembled at the altar. But he held one thought. He had failed them, Layla, Mira, and countless others trapped in this temple.
He fell into darkness, a cold and endless void, until he landed in a dark world.