The Cry That Wasn’t Mine

The last thing Raizel remembered was the sound of metal bending in on itself. Not screaming, not pain—just the cruel, mechanical crush of a world that didn't care whether he lived or died.

He hadn't expected to die that day. But death didn't wait for plans.

There had been rain. Lights. A slick road. His hands still on the wheel, eyes still locked on the red light that refused to change. And then—

Impact.

Not darkness.

Silence.

A silence so vast it felt like falling into a void.

Then sound again, distant and wrong. Muffled. Shrill.

Crying.

No—screaming.

It wasn't from fear. It was the instinctual, involuntary shriek of a newborn pulled from the womb. The moment Raizel understood that, his mind buckled.

Why am I screaming?

Then the cold hit him.

Not the chill of a hospital bed. This was raw, open-air cold—like stone walls, ancient drafts, and no technology in sight. Someone lifted him, wrapped him in coarse fabric that reeked of iron and incense. The scent of blood was everywhere—old, dried, permanent. Embedded in stone.

Voices echoed in this foreign place. Deep. Commanding. Dangerous.

"The heir lives."

"He bears the mark. Just like his father."

"Praise the Dark Lord Valthorr. His bloodline endures."

Then a different voice—hoarse, mocking, colder than the rest.

"Let's hope the boy survives his first winter."

Raizel should have cried. Instead, he watched.

It took days—maybe weeks—before his new body could coordinate itself, but his mind remained intact. Fully formed. His memories from his past life—his childhood, his education, his disillusionment with modern life—all returned with razor-sharp clarity.

He remembered everything.

And yet nothing could prepare him for this place.

A castle of obsidian and shadow, where the torches burned green and the wind howled like something alive. The walls were etched with runes of blood-magic, and even the servants—gaunt, wide-eyed things—walked with a limp or missing a hand.

His new name was whispered with reverence and dread:

Raizel Valthorr.

Son of the Dark Lord.

His father was a myth made flesh.

Kael Valthorr, the Lord of Black Iron, the Tyrant of the North, the Butcher-King.

He stood nearly seven feet tall, his armor fused to his skin, his right arm a twisted gauntlet of bone and steel that pulsed faintly with life. His face was handsome, if statues could be handsome—sharp angles, eyes like dead suns, and a smile that never reached them.

Raizel met those eyes for the first time when he was still swaddled in black cloth. There was no warmth. No welcome.

Only calculation.

"So… the gods sent me a son with the stare of a wolf. Let's see if your fangs match."

Years passed. Slowly. Painfully.

There were no lullabies. No warmth. Only lessons—and every lesson came wrapped in cruelty.

His tutors taught him how to read, how to summon, how to command. When he made a mistake, they didn't correct him—they bled him. Just enough to scar. Just enough to teach fear.

But Raizel didn't break.

He watched.

He listened.

And he learned how fear shaped men more than love ever could.

One night, when he was no older than six, he walked in on a servant being tortured for stealing a bottle of wine. His father had personally ordered the punishment—slow and ritualistic. Raizel stood quietly in the doorway, eyes blank, as the man screamed and begged.

Kael Valthorr glanced at him once and said, "Would you do it differently?"

Raizel answered without hesitation.

"I'd start with his hands. If you crush the fingers first, he'll confess before the teeth come out."

His father smiled for the first time.

But Raizel wasn't his father.

Not entirely.

He wore cruelty like armor, but inside him, the memory of another world remained—a world with order, reason, laws. It didn't make him weaker. It made him sharper.

He learned to read people as easily as books.

He saw the cracks in his tutors' performances. The way they flinched when his father passed. The way the generals whispered of rebellion. The way the castle was not a fortress—it was a cage.

Every night, he sat by the window of his chamber, staring at the three moons above the mountains, and planned.

His magic came late—but when it came, it was violent.

He had been locked in the northern tower for speaking out of turn—just a game, really. A show for his father's court. Three days in the dark, with no food, no fire.

But on the second night, something awoke.

It wasn't rage.

It was clarity.

A rat had crawled too close to his foot. Raizel looked at it—not in fear, but in focus. He thought about hunger, about decay, about emptiness.

And the rat withered.

Not burned. Not torn.

It simply unraveled into ash and wind.

His heart didn't race. His breath didn't hitch.

He just sat there, alone, and smiled.

"That's better."

When the guards came to retrieve him, he was already waiting by the door. His skin pale, his hands clean, his eyes wrong.

His magic was not loud or fiery. It was quiet, patient, absolute.

He didn't chant.

He didn't scream.

He commanded.

And the world began to listen.

By his eighth birthday, the castle feared him more than they feared his father.

Not because he was crueler—but because he was controlled.

He didn't hurt for fun. He hurt for purpose. He asked questions no child should ask. He found pleasure not in power, but in mastery.

And still, deep inside, something stirred. A memory from the old world. A feeling he couldn't name.

Loneliness.

He tried to understand his father, once.

He asked him, "Why do you rule through fear?"

Kael Valthorr didn't answer immediately. He was standing over a map of the continent, hands resting on the spires of conquered cities.

Then, finally:

"Because hope is a lie, son. A luxury for the weak. Fear… fear always listens."

Raizel nodded.

But he wasn't convinced.

Not yet.

On the day he first saw the imperial emissary—a cloaked man with a black seal and the mark of the Shadow Court—Raizel felt the shift in the castle's air.

There were whispers of alliances. Assassins. Conspiracies in the capital. Movements in the west. His father grew restless.

The power balance was changing.

Raizel, still a child in form, began to draft contingencies. Escape routes. Subtle enchantments. Promises made in secret to lesser nobles, sealed with blood. He didn't trust anyone.

Except himself.

And that was enough—for now.

In the dark of his chamber, under the flicker of candlelight, he read tomes no child should read. He practiced hexes designed for war, curses meant for betrayal. He studied faces, hearts, ambitions.

He was building something.

Not an army.

Not yet.

But a path.

A way forward.

A way out.

Because Raizel Valthorr did not intend to become his father's shadow.

He intended to become his end.