Snow fell like ash.
It drifted through the high arches of House Virelandt's ancestral hall, coating the stone like it meant to bury it. The cold inside was no different than the cold outside. Maybe that was the point.
The boy lay motionless beneath a black mourning sheet, the fire in the hearth untouched. At the edge of the room stood the Duchess, tall and straight as the mountains behind their domain, her gloved hands folded before her. She did not weep. Her eyes were fixed on the body. Or perhaps not the body— perhaps the shame of it.
He had failed to awaken sword aura at six. Failed to form a mana core at eight. Failed to be anything but a stain on their name by fourteen.
Now, he was dead.
Or so they believed.
He opened his eyes.
The pain that followed wasn't physical. It was the soul - pulling weight of awareness. The kind that came when a man who had long wished to die realized he had not, in fact, died—but awakened in someone else's skin. He could feel the dead boy's final memories like blood in his throat. Cold water. A silent corridor. A hollow scream.
His first breath burned.
A servant shrieked.
The Duchess turned, her composure cracking for the briefest of seconds. Her gaze met his, and for a flicker, something passed between them.
Then her voice: calm, distant. "Get him out of my sight."
The snow was relentless as they strapped him into the carriage.
He said nothing. He didn't yet know how.
The soldier beside him bore no crest—only the rough furs of a man long removed from court. Sir Garric Vale, he would later learn, a loyal knight of the duchy tasked with escorting him north—nothing more. The boy was being sent as a baron, exiled to the furthest reaches of the empire—not in title alone, but in shame. It was not a posting. It was a burial. His face was impassive, his silence heavier than armor.
The ride began without farewell. No sister to wave. No mother to hold back tears. No one to ask if the boy remembered his name.
The boy did. But the man did not claim it.
They rode northward, into the white.
It was two days later he spoke. His voice cracked with disuse.
"What is the name of the place we're going?"
Garric didn't look at him. "Frosthold. Edge of the world." The name rattled like a rusted gate in his mind.
Frosthold. Yes. He remembered it—from a novel.
A web novel he had read religiously in the final year of his old life. A fantasy world of blood, ambition, war. Five great duchies, one empire. Relics older than gods. Characters destined for greatness.
He had liked the story. Even though its beginning was cruel. Even though its beginning was this.
Each mile north made it clearer. He knew where he was. He knew what would happen. And more importantly—he knew what was possible.
He closed his eyes and remembered the lore.
Frosthold had once been a First Age outpost, buried under snow, seated above ruins none dared explore. The main characters in the novel had passed it by, dismissing its value. But he had remembered the hints. The side notes. The whispers in the margins.
And now, he would begin there. Not as a forgotten baron.
But as something else.
He turned his thoughts inward.
He would need a name.
Not the one this body was born with. That name was stained by failure. By abandonment.
Something simple.Unclaimed.
Caelan.
It meant "fallen rock" in Old Northern script. And it fit. A fallen soul in a forgotten land.
And for family name?
No family name. Not yet. He would earn one of his own, unchained by bloodlines.
The territory? Frosthold was a grave. He would not rule a grave. He would rebuild it. Reforge it.
Gravenreach.
A reach beyond the grave. A promise that he would not be buried. He whispered it aloud.
"Caelan of Gravenreach."
Garric looked up from his half-doze but said nothing.
Later that night, as they camped on the edge of a frozen cliff, Caelan stared into the dark. He began planning.
What power could he claim?
Conventional magic—mana cores—were closed to him. He couldn't use magic like others—he had no mana core to hold or shape spells.
Sword aura? Impossible without being born wiith it.
But this world held more than just the obvious. He remembered the ancient texts mentioned in the novel, tales buried in lore and side chapters. Legends. Myths.
Relics.
Relics were ancient artifacts from the time of the First Sovereign, powerful beyond conventional understanding. They transcended schools of magic or combat. Each was unique, said to be bound to will, purpose, and sacrifice. Most scholars dismissed them as fairy tales, and even the nobility whispered of them only in riddles. But Caelan remembered. He had read everything. Remembered every line, every hidden entry.
And three stood above the rest.
First, a relic used by the First Sovereign himself—a crystal tablet called Runestone of Veritas, capable of absorbing raw mana and embedding it directly into the bearer's heart. The mana takes form as coiled runes that grow and twist around the heart itself—living glyphs that store energy and serve as an artificial core. It could not cast spells, nor catch lies, but it was a wellspring—essential for anyone without a natural mana core. Most had forgotten it existed at all—buried as myth, a story of millennia ago. But he knew where it was said to lie: beneath Frosthold itself, in the ruins long left untouched.
Second, a dark power—called Soulforge, long forgotten and deliberately sealed. It did not kill. It did not break. It molded—altering the soul of any being weaker than its wielder. It shaped personality, desires, even memories. The power was aslo hidden beneath in the ruins beneath Frosthold, locked by First Sovereign himself. Forbidden. Dangerous.
He would unseal it.
Third, a healing power known as Lumenhart,a light- based gift hidden deep with in the Elven Empire to the south. Even the elves did not realize its dormant presence beneath one of their ancient temple- cities. It could mend flesh, steady minds—even restore lost limbs. Rare, sacred, powerful. He would claim it. When the time was right.
These would be the stones of his empire.
Sir Garric broke the silence. "You're different."
Caelan didn't respond.
"Same face. Different eyes. That girl who broke the engagement—she do something to you?" Caelan smiled faintly.
"No. She did what they all wanted."
"Didn't want to marry a cripple, huh?"
Caelan didn't correct him. The term didn't sting—it didn't belong to him. Not anymore.
"She is smart," he said instead. "Too smart."
The engagement had lasted until he turned fourteen. A full six years after he had failed his sword aura, and even longer after he failed his mana core. Why wait that long? Why break it now?
There was more to it. He was sure. A prophecy? A vision? A threat?
The old Caelan had loved her. Trusted her. The new one didn't have that luxury.
He watched the stars that night, letting their cold light fill him.
Theyexpectnothingofme.Good.ThatmeansnoonewillnoticewhatIbuilduntilit'stoo late.
This wasn't a game.
It wasn't a second chance. It was a conquest.
And he would not stop at Frosthold.
Not the Empire.
Not even the continent.
He would reach beyond it all.
He looked up into the dark, snow swirling across the sky like ash over flame. His voice, soft but firm, cut through the wind.
"They made world forgot me. So I'll remake it in my name."
And the snow kept falling.