The twin moons of Athera loomed high above the obsidian towers of Valorhold, bathing the ancestral home of House Valor in a silvery glow. The wind is blowing like silent storm. All of Valorhold had fallen into anxious silence. Only cries and tense echoed throghout the castle.
Within the Grand Solar Chamber—inside the castle—Duchess Lysette Valor labored beneath embroidered sheets of starlace. Her cries echoed through the warded walls, even as a dozen healers, midwives, and magicweavers whispered desperate incantations.
"Keep her steady!" barked Lady Mirell, the court's eldest healer. "The Mist is fluctuating again. It is going to be difficult."
The air shimmered. Mist energy—vivid streaks of blue, red, and flickers of violet—twisted chaotically in the chamber. It was as though the very fabric of the world could not contain what was about to emerge. In this world, noble and powerful mist-wielding families are born like this. They can wield immense and dense mist power upon birth.
And then—
A cry pierced the room. Sharp. Fierce. Unrelenting.
"Our princess!" the midwife gasped, lifting a baby girl whose small hands curled with rippling violet Mist. It shimmered like stormfire, wild and electric. Violate mist evolves around her with shimmering gist.
"She... she's a Violet Wielder," one of the magicweavers breathed. "That's impossible. Violet Mist hasn't appeared in generations."
Everyone's expression is one of disbelief. Valor has given birth a prodigy.
"Violet is very rare," whispered Lady Mirell. "Fated."
A beat later, another cry sounded—this one different. Ragged. Strained. Weak.
The chamber dimmed.
The second child emerged, his skin pale, his limbs trembling. Red and violet mist coiled inside him—fighting, not dancing. Sparks of agony crackled beneath his skin.
"No," Lady Mirell said, taking a step back. "This one... his core is broken. It's clashing inside him. Red and violet... they were never meant to share the same vessel."
A servant's candle snuffed out without warning. Cold crept into the air.
Duke Alden Valor entered then, robes of dark crimson trailing behind him, his gaze as sharp as the blade at his hip. He did not speak. He merely looked, at the girl, coiled in violet glory, then at the boy, flickering between life and death.
"Give him to me," he said at last, voice like thunder cloaked in velvet.
Lady Mirell hesitated. "My Lord Duke... he may not live through the hour. His condition is fatal. A Mist Collapse of this nature—"
"His name?"
"Lorian," Duchess Lysette whispered from the bed, her voice trembling. "Lorian Valor."
The Duke nodded. "Then let him live as Lorian Valor until his last breath. I will not have my son named a corpse."
The child was placed in his arms. Lorian barely moved, his breaths shallow, eyes fluttering but not seeing. The Duke stood motionless for several heartbeats, as if weighing his legacy in the balance.
Then, he turned to his chamberlain. "Summon the vault keepers. Prepare the Genesis Stone."
Gasps erupted. The chamberlain stammered. "My lord, you can't mean to—"
"I can. I will. That stone was not meant to gather dust while my son dies."
"But the Genesis is sacred—it's the root of all House Valor's strength. The empire will call it madness!"
The Duke's voice cut through the protests like a blade. "Let them. Let the empire howl. But I will not bury my son."
---
Far below the Solar Chamber, in the heart of Valorhold, three elder vault keepers opened the sealed chamber. The Genesis Stone hovered in midair—an orb of living green Mist, encased in a lattice of golden script. It pulsed once, as if aware of what it was being summoned for.
Back in the chamber, Lorian's body had grown colder. His red and violet Mists clashed violently now—raw power tearing through his infant veins. Even the floor beneath him had cracked from the pressure.
Duchess Lysette sobbed into her sheets. "Please... please save him. He's just a baby. My baby..."
The Duke stepped forward, stone in hand.
He knelt beside the boy and placed the Genesis against his chest.
Nothing happened.
For a moment, the chamber grew unbearably still.
Then, light.
A blinding green pulse exploded outward, throwing half the room to the floor. The chaos in Lorian's body didn't vanish—but it slowed. Soothed. The violent conflict of red and violet began to dim, cocooned in green.
Lady Mirell gasped. "It's working. The Genesis is... he's being healed."
Lorian's breaths deepened. His limbs stopped twitching. His eyes opened.
Not like a newborn. Not confused or soft.
They were aware.
He saw chandeliers of crystal, faces cloaked in magic, and a man with fire in his eyes holding him.
And deep inside, Adrian Skye's soul screamed.
No. Not again. Not another world.
He remembered dying. The stage collapse. The panicked screams of the director. The echo of applause he never got to hear. And now—he was in a baby's body, in a palace of stone and magic, surrounded by people treating him like he was fragile glass.
"What... is this place?" he thought, or tried to think. His voice wasn't real. But he felt the thought vibrate.
"Who are you?"
The voice that answered wasn't his own.
It came from the Genesis Stone.
You are the bridge. The broken-born. The sealed flame.
Lorian blinked. Or perhaps, Adrian did.
The green Mist wrapped around his heart, not erasing the damage but containing it. His body remained frail. Mistless. But no longer dying.
The Duke looked down at him, a strange tightness in his jaw. "You've inherited more than my blood, Lorian. You've inherited a future full of teeth."
Beside him, the newborn girl began to stir. Violet Mist cracked around her like lightning.
The Duchess whispered, "Her name is Aerial. Aerial Valor."
The Duke nodded. "And she will be his sword."
Lady Mirell stepped forward hesitantly. "The boy... he will never wield Mist, my lord. Not like the others. The condition—Mist Depletion—it has no cure. He'll be weak. A target."
The Duke's voice lowered, firm and certain. "Then he will become stronger in other ways. House Valor does not discard its own. And the empire would do well to remember: power is not always born from force."
He turned to the scryers hovering nearby. "Let it be known. Two heirs were born tonight in Valorhold. One wields the storm. The other, the stone."
---
As the chamber cleared and the healers left, Lorian was placed in a crib of silverleaf wood beside his sister. She stirred, even in sleep, her magic flickering outward in dreamy arcs.
Lorian—Adrian—watched her through newborn eyes.
"Great," he thought. "My twin is a living weapon and I'm a magical paperweight."
But even as the thought formed, something else stirred in him. Not power. Not mist.
Conviction.
He had been many things: a hero on-screen, a rogue, a tragic king. Now, for the first time, he would play the role of himself. A boy with no magic in a world of endless magic. A prince with no strength in a court of warlords.
******
Darkness.
Then breath.
Not the easy breath of sleep or rest, but the kind pulled from the edges of existence—tight, raw, and desperate. Cold air scraped through Lorian's lungs like broken glass. His skin itched with unfamiliarity, and every sound felt distant, as though underwater.
He blinked.
The world above was carved stone, lit by lanterns that hummed with strange energy. Magic. Mist. Voices spoke in whispers around him—some soothing, some shaken—but Lorian, or rather Adrian Skye, couldn't focus on them. Not yet.
Because the memories were rushing in like a flood.
He had died.
It hadn't been dramatic—not in the way fans imagined it. There was no final monologue, no fade to black with orchestral strings. Just the shriek of snapped metal. The dull roar of something massive giving way.
And the stage—his stage—collapsing beneath him.
Adrian had been in the final scene of The King's Final Hour, a live performance meant to be broadcast to millions. He remembered the spotlight warming his face, the roar of the crowd just beyond the curtains, the weight of a plastic crown that had always felt far too real on his head.
Then—crack.
The scaffold above him buckled. Screams tore through the theater.
He remembered locking eyes with the director, panic painted across her face. Someone yelled for the emergency rig to drop. Too late.
He fell. Not far, but far enough.
Metal crushed bone. Light became shadow. Applause turned to chaos.
Adrian Skye died with a script still in his hand.
Not glamorous. Not heroic. But so very human.
And now… he was here. In this castle. In this world where babies were born with lightning and mist in their blood. Where swords glowed and fathers spoke like kings from ancient tragedies. He had been reborn as Lorian Valor, twin to a living miracle and son to a house that shook empires.
But Adrian wasn't comforted by nobility.
He was mourning.
Not for the world he'd left behind—but for who he was in it. The life he'd built. The people who had cheered his name. The ones who had fallen in love with the characters he played. He had been a star. Not the kind that burned across skies, but one that flickered through screens and onto hearts.
Now?
Now he couldn't even lift his head.
He couldn't speak.
He couldn't act.
"Is this my punishment?""Or is this... a second chance?"
Lorian lay in the silverleaf crib, his tiny body heavy and useless, his mind a whirlwind of grief and disbelief. He hated the helplessness. Hated the weight of silence. Even his breaths felt like betrayal—he should not be alive.
And yet... he was.
"The Genesis Stone," he remembered.
That strange green orb. Its pulse. Its voice.
You are the bridge. The broken-born. The sealed flame.
It hadn't healed him, not truly. It had contained him—caged the chaos that was tearing his new body apart. Red and violet Mist still churned inside him, their power incompatible. They marked him as unnatural. Damaged. Cursed.
Worse, they marked him as weak.
In this world, that was almost as good as dead.
He heard people whispering beyond the stone crib.
"...never wield Mist…""...fragile…""...he won't survive training.""...pity he's the son of Valor."
Adrian—Lorian—was not used to being pitied.
In his old life, he had conquered stages with presence alone. His name had been synonymous with brilliance. He owned the roles he played. Kings. Rogues. Revolutionaries. Even that last one—The King's Final Hour—had been called his "career-defining" work.
How ironic.
Now he was a background character in his own story.
Then, a sound.
Soft. Subtle.
A cry.
He turned his head—barely. There she was. His twin. Aerial.
Even asleep, her presence filled the room. Mist curled from her like breath in winter, violet arcs dancing along her skin. She was the storm incarnate. Power incarnate. Her very existence shook the world.
His sister.
And someday… his shield. Or maybe, his rival.
He didn't know yet.
But something inside him stirred—not jealousy, not fear.
Resolve.
"You always played kings, Adrian," a memory whispered. "But maybe this time, you'll have to play the pawn. For now."
He knew the arc. The rise-from-nothing story. The fragile prince. The broken twin. The weakling that no one believed in. It was the stuff of drama.
But this time, the script was his to write.
And he would not fade into the background.
Not this time.
The door creaked open. Someone entered—the Duke, his father. His footsteps were measured. Heavy. Regal.
He stared at Lorian with a look Adrian had seen before in critics, in producers, in desperate playwrights.
Expectation.
But also something softer.
Hope.
The Duke knelt beside the crib, placing a hand near Lorian's tiny fingers. "Live, boy," he said quietly. "I hope you will overcome it"
Adrian wanted to smile, but he couldn't.
Instead, he closed his eyes.
Not to sleep. But to dream.
To plan. To understand.