In the dying hours of the night, beneath the celestial gaze of Navaleon's twin moons—Elara and Varion—the ancient marble towers of House Darsha stood solemnly vigilant. Their tips pierced the mist, veiled in enchantments older than the kingdom itself. The manor shimmered under the pale sapphire glow, its intricate glyphs and arcane symbols flickering softly like the embers of a resting dragon.
Inside, however, the grandiose calm of the ancestral estate was pierced by very human pain.
Cries echoed through the birthing chamber.
A fire crackled weakly in the marble hearth, casting long, wavering shadows across the ornate walls lined with enchanted tapestries. The scent of lavender mixed with iron hung thick in the air—soothing herbs clashing with the raw reality of blood and sweat. Servants and healers bustled about in practiced synchrony, murmuring spells in Eldora, the ancient and lyrical tongue of Navaleon's mages. Each syllable formed threads of light and warmth that circled the laboring form of Lady Ishvari Darsha.
Her face contorted in a mixture of pain and determination. The pain of labor was expected, but this... this was something else. Her entire body felt heavy, as if bearing not just a child but the weight of prophecy.
The windows trembled with each contraction. The air itself seemed to pulse, thickening with unseen currents of magic. The elder midwife, Nala, paused mid-spell, her brow furrowing. She had aided in the births of three generations of Darshas, but never had the air turned this charged, nor the magical winds whispered in such foreign tongues.
Outside, a cold wind rose, unusual for the southern realm of Vel'Aran. Snow began to fall gently, each flake gleaming like stardust. Children of the night paused in their wanderings; owls ceased their flight, and wolves nestled deeper in silence. The very land held its breath.
Then, with a final cry and one last push, the child emerged.
A cry rang out—sharp, defiant, impossibly loud. It wasn't the wail of a helpless newborn but something else. It had resonance, as if the child's voice tapped into deeper chords of the world.
Wrapped swiftly in phoenix silk, the infant was placed in Lady Ishvari's trembling arms. Her breath caught. She had seen many babies in her life, but none with such alertness. The child's eyes were wide open, gleaming a strange amber that shimmered when the firelight touched it. And they stared—not the vacant gaze of infancy—but focused, calculating.
As if the child was observing. Studying.
And in truth, he was.
Within that fragile body lived the soul and memories of a man who had died far away—from another world altogether. A man named Sharath Kumar, who once walked the chaotic streets of Hyderabad, India. A man who had burned himself out as a software engineer, sacrificing sleep and dreams for deadlines and code.
He remembered the exact moment he died.
A thudding heart, blurry vision, the bitter taste of stale chai, the clack of a mechanical keyboard as he tried to debug one final issue. Then darkness.
Now—light.
Now—rebirth.
He could barely move. His body was untrained, senses still connecting. But his mind... it surged with clarity. He knew he was not hallucinating. This was no dream. This body was his new vessel. The language the midwives spoke—Eldora—had a strange resonance, almost Sanskrit-like in grammar and structure. His mind, already sharp from years of linguistic logic, began pattern recognition even in infancy.
As the healers whispered of omens and magic, Sharath listened.
"Born under the twin moons," Nala said in hushed awe. "With the snow of Vel'Aran falling—he carries the blessing of the heavens."
Lord Rajan Darsha, head of House Darsha and now a father, entered the room with controlled urgency. His dark violet robes shimmered with runes that reacted to his heartbeat. A war mage, a noble, and a man not easily shaken—he paused the moment he laid eyes on his son.
"He's... awake," Rajan said slowly. "His eyes..."
"Yes," Ishvari whispered. "It's as if he already understands us."
Rajan stepped closer and extended a trembling finger. The child's hand curled around it tightly. Not out of instinct, but purpose. Rajan's lips parted slightly. "This one is touched by fate."
But fate, as always, was a cruel mistress.
In the following days, news of the unusual birth spread quickly within noble circles. Scholars sent letters requesting glimpses, mages whispered of a celestial alignment, and old seers stirred in their moss-covered towers.
Sharath spent his early weeks wrapped in warm fabrics, attended by the finest wet nurses and healers. But internally, he struggled. His adult consciousness remained intact, but he was imprisoned in a body too frail to act. He could not speak. He could not read. All he could do was observe.
And observe he did.
He noticed how runes reacted to intention, not just voice. How light spells flickered slightly before activation. How people used their will, not just words, to influence reality. Magic here was not only incantation but expression—emotion, logic, belief.
He began silently mimicking the words he heard—repeating them over and over in his mind. Like learning to code, it was syntax, logic trees, recursion. Slowly, Eldora began to make sense.
At night, he would gaze at the glyphs etched in the ceiling, tracing them in his mind's eye. During bath time, he noticed that water responded to vibration. Once, when he cried in frustration, the basin trembled slightly. Coincidence? Or power?
He began testing.
Crying only when specific glyphs were nearby. Staring at candles until their flames flickered. Making patterns in spilled milk. Everything was an experiment.
By the time he was three months old, the household staff began whispering. The child learned faces fast. He seemed to understand commands. Once, when Rajan casually muttered in frustration about a missing brooch, the child crawled toward a hidden crevice in the floor and pointed.
"He's listening," Ishvari whispered that night. "Truly listening."
By six months, he spoke his first word—not gibberish, but clear.
"Light."
Rajan dropped his cup.
Not "mama." Not "papa." But "light." The glyph carved into the window sill, the one that flickered when touched by moonlight.
The Darshas summoned the House Magister, Elandor Veyr, a white-bearded scholar known for his skepticism. Elandor ran his tests, weaving simple spells to observe the child's reactions.
After an hour, he stood, stunned. "He's not merely gifted. He's absorbing. Decoding. Like a mirror that remembers."
By his first birthday, Sharath was already forming basic sentences. House Darsha had no choice but to keep it quiet. They spun a tale of a rare magical intellect, but in truth, no one had ever seen anything like it.
And neither had Sharath. As much as he remembered his past life, this world—this realm of power, politics, and arcana—was thrilling.
He wasn't just given a second chance.
He was born with the keys to rewrite destiny.
But destiny wasn't sleeping. Far beyond Vel'Aran, cloaked figures took notice. A celestial birth under the twin moons, a magical storm during labor, and the tremble in the threads of fate—these were not coincidences.
Somewhere in the obsidian mountains, an ancient being stirred. A seal pulsed faintly on a buried temple. Shadows lengthened.
And far beneath the ocean, a prophecy carved in living coral glowed once more:
"When the soul of flame returns from beyond the veil, House Darsha shall rise—or burn."
Sharath, now wrapped in silk and prophecy, gurgled softly as he stared into the fire.
The path ahead would not be easy.
But it would be his.