The truth of the Godmarked

The world shattered. For a single, breathless moment, the air itself twisted, warping around Kian like ripples in a pond. The Shadowguard lunged—but they did not reach him.

Because the world folded. And Kian was somewhere else. The void between worlds. Darkness.

But not the kind found in the night, or the alleyways of Eldrinth. This was deeper. Older.

Kian floated, weightless, his breath stolen from his chest. There was no ground beneath him, no sky above. Only an endless black expanse, shifting like a liquid shadow.

Then came a voice. Not spoken aloud—inside his mind. "You are awake." The words rumbled through his very bones, ancient and powerful.

Kian turned sharply, searching for the speaker—but there was nothing. No, not nothing. Something. Far ahead, within the swirling void, a figure stood.

It was not human. Its shape shifted—tall and thin one moment, monstrous and vast the next. A being of pure shadow, draped in the remnants of something old, something long forgotten.

But its eyes…

Its eyes were golden. Burning, endless, like twin suns caught within the abyss. "You have finally begun to see," the voice whispered.

Kian's pulse roared. "Who—what are you?" The figure tilted its head. "I am what you will become."

Eldrinth had always feared the Godmarked—those born with power beyond mortal understanding. But Kian had never known why. Until now.

The golden-eyed figure lifted its hand, and the void around them shifted. Suddenly, Kian was not in the darkness anymore.

He was standing in a vision of the past. A massive city, larger than anything he had ever seen, stretched before him—not Eldrinth, but something older.

Its towers gleamed beneath a sky of violet and gold. A city of gods and men.

"This is Solmira," the voice whispered. "The first city. The place where it all began."

Kian turned in awe. The people walking the streets—they were not ordinary.

Some had eyes that glowed like fire.

Others had veins of silver, humming with power.

Some left footprints of light with every step they took.

"The world was not always as it is now," the figure continued. "Once, magic was not feared. It was life itself. It flowed through all things. But men are creatures of greed."

The vision shifted. The golden city burned. Flames roared into the sky, pillars of black smoke rising like funeral pyres. Screams filled the air.

Kian staggered back, eyes wide. "The kings of men sought to claim what was never meant to be theirs," the figure murmured. "And in their hunger for power, they angered the gods."

At the center of the chaos, a great war raged. On one side stood men with weapons carved from starlight, wearing crowns of burning gold.

On the other…

Kian's breath caught.

The Shadowguard.

Not as they were now—but as they had been before. Their cloaks rippled with living darkness. Their weapons drank the very light from the air.

And above them, towering over the battlefield, stood a being unlike any other. A god.

Its eyes burned with the same golden fire as the figure in the void. Its hands crackled with raw, untamed power. And with a single word, it ended the war.

The city collapsed. The sky split apart. And magic—true magic—was shattered.

The vision faded.

Kian gasped, his heart hammering. He was back in the darkness, the golden-eyed figure standing before him once more. "You are the last of them," it said. Kian swallowed hard. "The last… of what?"

"The blood of Solmira still runs through you. The power of the lost gods. That is why you were born different. That is why they hunt you."

Kian felt a chill creep into his bones. The Magi, the king, the Shadowguard—they weren't hunting him because they feared magic.

They were hunting him because he was proof of the world they had tried to erase. Because he was meant to bring it back.

Kian's hands trembled. "I don't— I can't—" You are afraid," the figure murmured. "Good. Fear is the beginning of understanding."

The void around them shuddered. "But you do not have time to doubt."

Kian's breath caught as pain surged through his skull—not an attack, but something unlocking deep inside him.

Memories that were not his flooded through him. Visions of the lost magic, of spells that could tear mountains apart, of secrets buried beneath Eldrinth itself.

Power.

Not stolen. Not borrowed. His. For the first time, Kian understood. He had never been a beggar. Never been a mistake. He was a relic of a forgotten age. He was a living weapon. And he was not done yet.

The void collapsed. Kian's eyes snapped open. He was back in the alley. No time had passed. But everything had changed.

The Shadowguards were still there, their blades drawn, their movements sharp as they lunged toward him.

But now, Kian saw them for what they truly were. Pale echoes of something greater.

Kian lifted his hand. The air hummed. The shadows around him moved. And for the first time, he reached into the power that had always been his.

The first Shadowguard's knife never reached him. Because Kian willed it to stop. And it did.

The blade froze mid-air, suspended by unseen forces. The Shadowguard's eyes went wide. Fear flashed across his face. Kian clenched his fist.

The air rippled outward like a storm, and the Shadowguard was thrown back, slamming into the wall with a force that cracked stone.

The second assassin hesitated. Kian took a slow breath, his pulse steady. For the first time in his life, he wasn't running.

And the city of Eldrinth would never be the same.