Chapter 1: The Ashen Streets
Dorian Keil had never known a world without shadows.
The Underrealm was a city of filth and forgotten souls, a place where the sun seldom touched the cobbled streets, and the air hung heavy with the weight of unspoken dreams. It was a place for those who had no power to speak of, where magic was a rare luxury and wealth a distant myth. The rich and powerful lived high above in the Spire, their gilded lives shielded from the grime below, a constant reminder to Dorian and others like him that they were nothing.
Each day, he trudged along the narrow, filthy alleys, his hands calloused from the constant labor that sustained him and his family. The work was grueling—scrubbing the muck off the walls, fixing broken stones in the roads, collecting refuse for the waste pits. But it was all they had. They were no better than the rats that scurried through the darkness, surviving only because the city allowed them to.
Dorian wiped the sweat from his brow with a ragged sleeve, pausing for a moment to stare at the far-off Spire. Towering over everything like a monument to a god no one could reach, its gleaming spires and floating platforms seemed to mock him. His gaze narrowed as he watched the banners fluttering from the highest windows, embroidered with the symbols of the Haves—the noble families who ruled with the ferocity of predators.
He didn't belong there.
A deep sigh escaped his lips as he shifted the heavy bucket of grime onto his shoulder. He passed a group of children playing in the muck, their laughter sharp and carefree, a rare reminder of innocence in a world so often steeped in cruelty. They didn't know the weight of their future yet—not like Dorian did. His future had already been written before he had taken his first breath. Born without magic, born in the Underrealm, born to be nothing.
Magic was the currency of power in Aetheris, and Dorian had none. The Haves had their vast estates, their boundless wealth, their ability to bend the world to their will with a mere thought. And then there were the Have-nots like Dorian—those with no magical gifts to claim, relegated to the lowest ranks of society, the ones who would never be more than tools in the grand machinery of Aetheris.
"Another day of misery, Keil?"
Dorian turned to see Galen, a fellow laborer, watching him from the corner of the alley. Galen was older than Dorian, rougher around the edges, with a permanent sneer on his face. Like all those in the Underrealm, Galen had resigned himself to a life of endless toil, though he had no love for it.
"You should join me for a drink tonight," Galen continued, his voice low and grating. "A real drink, not this water you're always slurping. Perhaps it'll take your mind off... the inevitable."
Dorian gave him a faint smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I've got work to do."
Galen scoffed, shaking his head as he walked away. "Aye, work. The one thing that doesn't stop in this wretched place."
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting an eerie orange light across the streets as the shadows grew longer. Dorian paused to watch the sun disappear, its rays struggling to pierce the misty fog that clung to the city. It was a reminder, too—a reminder that no matter how hard you tried, no matter how desperately you reached for the sky, the darkness would always claim you in the end.
As he moved to continue his work, a strange, flickering light caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned sharply, his heart suddenly racing, but there was nothing—just the remnants of old, discarded spellpapers swirling in the wind. The sight was fleeting, and for a moment, he thought perhaps it had been nothing more than a trick of the mind.
But then, a voice. Soft and distant, yet clear as day.
"You are not like them."
Dorian froze. The voice, so soft yet impossibly clear, seemed to come from the very air itself, reverberating deep in his chest. He looked around, his pulse quickening. There was no one here. No one except for the usual dreary streets, the huddled figures, and the faint, ever-present hum of the city's magic flowing beneath the surface.
"You are not like them."
The words echoed again, a pulse of something ancient and distant in their cadence. This time, Dorian's breath caught in his throat, a cold chill creeping up his spine.
He scanned the alleyway again, his eyes narrowing, but still, there was no one. Just the usual drudgery of his world. But the feeling remained—something... different. Something alive in the air around him.
For a long moment, he stood there, a strange mixture of confusion and curiosity swirling in his mind. He had grown up in the Underrealm, where survival was a constant struggle. But this—this felt like something more. A possibility, perhaps. A whisper of something larger, something far more potent than the miserable existence he'd been handed.
His instincts told him to walk away, to ignore the feeling and go back to his miserable existence. But something within him rebelled against that voice of reason. It was small—faint—but growing louder with every passing moment.
You are not like them.
Dorian turned and walked deeper into the alley. The echo of the words continued to reverberate in his mind, a strange, persistent tugging at his soul. As he ventured further into the shadowed passages of the Underrealm, he felt a spark within him—something he couldn't name, but something he couldn't ignore either.
It was then that he saw it.
At the end of the alley, nestled between two crumbling buildings, was a figure. Tall, cloaked in darkness, its face hidden beneath the folds of a deep hood. But what caught Dorian's attention wasn't just the figure—it was the power that radiated from it. The air hummed with energy, and the ground itself seemed to tremble in its presence.
The figure turned to face him, and the voice—the one that had spoken to him moments before—rang out again, not from the air, but from the very depths of his mind.
"I have been waiting for you, Dorian Keil."
Dorian's heart hammered in his chest as he took a cautious step forward. His hand reached instinctively for the knife he carried, though he knew it would be useless against something so powerful. But he had to know. He had to understand why this being had spoken to him, why it had chosen him.
The figure tilted its head slightly, as though studying him, before speaking again.
"You are more than you know."
With a shaking breath, Dorian spoke, his voice raw with uncertainty. "What... what do you want with me?"
The figure paused, and for a long moment, silence filled the alley. The air around him thickened with magic, heavy and oppressive, as though the entire world was holding its breath. Finally, the figure spoke.
"You will change everything, Dorian Keil. You will rise above the ashes."
A flash of light pierced the darkness, and the figure vanished.
Dorian stood alone in the alley, his heart racing, the echo of those cryptic words still ringing in his ears. The world felt different now, as if something had shifted, something irreversibly changed. He had been chosen, it seemed. But for what? And why?
For the first time in his life, Dorian Keil felt a spark of hope—strange, fleeting, and yet unmistakable. The path ahead was unclear, but in the darkness of the Underrealm, he had glimpsed a glimmer of something more.
And he would follow it, no matter where it led.