Marn froze where she stood, her frail hands trembling around the edge of the crib. Her old, bleary eyes, still heavy with sleep, stared down at the child before her, at Orion, like she had just seen a ghost claw its way into the world.
"How… how is this even possible?" she whispered, though her voice came out louder than she intended.
The room was dark except for the dull orange light of the lantern she was carrying. The light trembled against the walls, dancing across the worn wood and casting long, quivering shadows that made the small house feel even smaller.
She blinked, rubbed at her eyes once, twice, as though she could scrub away what she'd seen. But no matter how many times she looked again, the sight didn't change.
Marn had lived with them long enough to believe she'd seen everything. Lord Kael had ordered her to move into this humble cottage on the outskirts of the Varyn estate to care for Selene and her child.
It was meant to be a quiet post, one of pity and inconvenience. She also wasn't given much choice in the matter. Lady Selene had grown too weak to tend to herself, and the boy… well, the boy was odd. Too still. Too aware.
And yet nothing, not even her unease, had prepared her for this.
Orion's usually black, gloomy eyes were faintly glowing golden, just like when he was born, and the impurities released from his body were indicative of one thing.
"He's become… an Ascendant?" Marn muttered to herself, her hand flying to her mouth. She stumbled back from the crib, nearly tripping over her own robe. "He's formed an Ether Core at barely one year old!"
Her voice cracked. She could hear her own disbelief echoing back at her.
"Even the talented can only begin to sense Ether in their early teens," she continued, as though speaking might help her make sense of it. "Most never manage at all. Even Lord Kael, Lord Kael Varyn himself, was said to have formed his core at ten years old. And he's one of the most gifted men in Elyndra!"
'Elyndra, huh?' Orion thought, his small face turned toward her with that same eerie composure. 'So that's the city that Frostveil Town is in. And my deadbeat father's one of the strongest around. Great.'
He couldn't move much, not with his stubby arms and chubby legs, but his mind was astute, humming with quiet amusement.
'And I've become what they call an Ascendant already? That was surprisingly easy. It's these eyes… and that ether I absorbed. Those golden eyes I saw before being reborn must be tied to this. The prophecy, too.'
It couldn't be a coincidence.
As Marn stood frozen, the familiar words that had haunted his dreams began to whisper again - an echo that curled like smoke inside his mind.
When the heavens darken and the sun surrenders its crown to shadow,
The Eyes of Dominion shall awaken once more.
Born beneath the shroud of an eclipse,
The soul of two lives shall take form anew.
He shall bear the gaze that pierces all things,
And the colours of Ether shall bend before his sight.
Through his eyes, the world shall tremble and yield,
For with his awakening begins the Age of Dominion.
At first, he didn't ponder the prophecy he had heard while suspended in darkness too deeply.
But there was no mistaking it now.
'So I'm the soul of two lives,' he mused, almost amused by the absurdity of it all. 'Those golden eyes from that void, they must be the Eyes of Dominion. And they're mine now?'
It should've sounded insane. Reincarnation, prophecy, divine eyes that could bend Ether - it was the kind of nonsense he would've mocked in his old life. But then again, he'd been reborn, hadn't he?
In a world that practically bled magic, in which he had just formed an Ether Core as a baby, nothing was impossible anymore.
'The Eyes of Dominion,' he thought, tasting the name like fine wine. 'It has a nice ring to it. But this "Age of Dominion" thing… sounds ominous. If it really begins with me, what exactly am I supposed to become?'
Despite everything, Orion felt no fear. His tiny body might be weak, but his mind remained sharp, unshaken. He'd faced death once before, and whatever this new life had in store, he'd face it the same way - by observing, adapting, and surviving.
However, there was one big problem he now had...
-
He had been a surgeon once. A man who understood anatomy, who'd wielded precision like a weapon. But his medical career had only ever been a mask. A convenient lie. By day, the golden boy of modern medicine. By night, something else entirely.
If he'd learned anything from that double life, it was that power hid best behind stillness. The less attention he drew, the easier it was to move unseen. To cut cleanly. To kill when necessary.
'Keeping a low profile,' he thought firmly. 'That's how I survive here, too. At least initially, while I get my bearings.'
But even as he resolved to remain hidden, Orion found his thoughts drifting uncontrollably to death. He hadn't thought about it much since his rebirth. Maybe it was the innocence of this body, or perhaps the distraction of this strange new world.
Or maybe he was changing, in ways he couldn't yet see.
Still, he remembered the thrill of it - the fine line between life and the end, the fascination of watching that line snap. Every death had taught him something about what it meant to be human. What it meant to be... alive.
But Marn's trembling gasp snapped him from his dark thoughts. She seemed to shake herself out of her daze, her expression hardening into something determined.
"I have to inform Lord Kael," she said, her voice trembling but resolute. "This… this cannot be hidden. He must know what's happened here."
Orion's eyes, still faintly glimmering gold in the lamplight, narrowed ever so slightly.
'Perfect,' he thought grimly. 'Exactly what I didn't want.'
The last thing he needed was attention from the entire Varyn estate. He'd spent the entire first year of his new life watching, waiting, blending in - and now, because of one flare of uncontrolled power, that fragile peace was about to shatter.
If he drew this much attention as a one-year-old, he would never be able to live it down.
But what could he possibly do to stop her?
'I'm just a damned baby!'