Chapter 1: The Awakening Sun

Chapter 1: The Awakening Sun

Month of Hekatombaion, 2045 B.C.E.

The first sensation was not one of birth, but of arrival. There was no shocking cold, no screaming gasp for air, no helpless flailing of infant limbs. There was only a gentle, pervasive warmth and the scent of sun-baked earth, wild thyme, and salt.

A man lay on a hillside, cushioned by a bed of resilient grasses and vibrant wildflowers. He appeared to be in the prime of his life, perhaps twenty summers old. His body was lean and strong, a vessel forged for purpose, with skin the colour of pale olive and hair as dark as a starless midnight. He sat up, the movement fluid and unpracticed, like a statue stirring to life.

"And the time period?" The memory of the question echoed in his mind, a whisper from a place of blinding, formless white light.

"2000 years before Silas was cursed with immortality and stoned by his ex-girl," he had replied, his voice then just a disembodied thought, yet filled with the unshakeable confidence of a man who had spent a lifetime—a whole other lifetime—planning this moment. "And because I will be using the immortality spell during such an early period in time, there are no Spirits to retaliate, so there will be no side effects. I will use the sun itself as the source of immortality."

The white light had pulsed in a way he interpreted as agreement, and then… this.

He was here. The man who had been a corporate analyst in the 21st century, a man who had died a mundane death in a hospital bed, was now Lykaon. He had chosen the name himself, plucked from the myths of this ancient land. A name that meant "wolf," a predator, a survivor. It felt fitting.

He stood and looked out. He was on the island of Crete, he surmised, from the unique geography and the faint, distant outline of a sprawling, complex structure that could only be a Minoan palace, perhaps Knossos in its nascent glory. The Aegean Sea was a breathtaking tapestry of sapphire and turquoise, stretching to a horizon so clear it felt as if he could see the curve of the world. The air was alive, humming with a palpable energy he had only ever read about in fanfiction and seen depicted on a screen. Magic. It was real, and it saturated everything. It was in the rustle of the olive leaves, the buzz of the bees, and the rhythmic crash of the waves against the shore below.

This was not the diluted, polluted world he had left behind. This was a world where the veil between the physical and the mystical was thin, almost non-existent. He could feel the ley lines beneath his feet like warm currents, flowing with the raw power of the untamed planet.

And then he looked inward.

His wish. He had asked to be the most powerful witch that ever existed in this verse. He had expected power, but this… this was something else entirely. It was not a reservoir of energy within him; it was an ocean. A deep, calm, boundless ocean of magical potential that mirrored the sea before him. There were no frantic ripples of uncontrolled energy, no threatening undercurrents. Just a profound, absolute certainty of his own capability. The white light had not just granted his wish; it had fulfilled its deepest intent. He felt no need for chanting, for herbs, for any of the crutches that lesser witches relied upon. The power was an extension of his will, as natural as breathing.

A smile, the first his new face had ever formed, touched Lykaon's lips. It was a slow, dangerous smile. The smile of a man who had just been handed the keys to the universe. For two thousand years, Silas and Qetsiyah would be considered the progenitors of immortality, their tragic love story shaping the future of the supernatural world.

They were about to be demoted.

In the weeks that followed, Lykaon became a ghost in this ancient world. He descended from the hills, his movements cloaked in a subtle silencing spell that was as easy as a thought, his form blurred to any casual glance. He walked the dusty paths of the burgeoning Minoan civilization, a silent observer from a future they could not comprehend.

He needed to understand the time he was now in. His 21st-century knowledge was a priceless advantage, but it was academic. He needed to feel the pulse of this era. He spent days watching the artisans craft their vibrant pottery, their frescoes depicting strange rituals of bull-leaping and serene goddesses with snakes coiled around their arms. The people were vibrant, their society seemingly peaceful and centred around trade and worship. They spoke a language he did not know, but it was a trivial obstacle.

He sat beneath an ancient olive tree, focusing on a group of merchants haggling over a shipment of copper ingots. He didn't cast a spell in the traditional sense. He simply… listened. He pushed his intent outward, the desire to understand, and his vast magical ocean responded. The foreign syllables in his ears began to shift, to rearrange themselves into concepts, then into the familiar structure of English from his past life. Within an hour, he was fluent. He could hear the nuance, the gossip, the prayers. It was intoxicatingly simple.

With his newfound understanding, he began to prepare. Immortality was his first and most crucial goal. It was the foundation upon which he would build his entire existence. He had the knowledge, a perfect recall of every iteration of the immortality spell ever conceived in the lore he had so obsessively studied.

Qetsiyah's spell, the first one. It was born of love and desperation, a powerful but flawed masterpiece. It created true immortality, an existence that could not be ended by any known means. But Nature, in its eternal quest for balance, had retaliated. It hadn't struck Qetsiyah down or cursed her directly; it had created a shadow self, a doppelgänger, to live out the mortal life that Silas had forsaken. And in her rage and grief, Qetsiyah had created the Other Side, a purgatory for all supernatural beings, forever tainting the spiritual landscape.

Esther's spell, a thousand years later. A desperate mother's attempt to protect her children. It was a corruption, a bastardization of Qetsiyah's work. She had used the sun for life, but also the White Oak tree for permanence. In doing so, she had woven her children's doom into their very creation. The sun that gave them life would burn them, and the tree that made them immortal would be the only thing that could unmake them. A clumsy, brutal piece of magic that spawned a race of predatory, blood-drinking monsters.

Then there were the lesser versions. Dahlia's slumber spell, Lucien's monstrous upgrade. Each a testament to the pursuit of eternal life, and each riddled with loopholes, consequences, and failures.

Lykaon would have no such flaws.

His plan was audacious in its simplicity. He would not use a specific object like the White Oak, for anything that can be used as a source can be turned into a weapon. He would not create an imbalance that Nature would be forced to correct. Instead, he would form a symbiosis. He would anchor his existence to the single greatest source of life and energy in the solar system: the sun itself.

Esther had used the sun, but only as a component, a symbolic battery to kickstart the spell. Lykaon intended to merge his life force with it. He would not be a parasite drawing power; he would become a part of its cycle, his immortality fueled by the endless thermonuclear fire of the star. It was a concept so far beyond what any witch in this world had ever conceived that he was certain it would work.

And the timing was key. He was here before Qetsiyah. Before her grief carved a prison out of the spirit world. His theory, the one he'd gambled his reincarnation on, was that the violent backlash from "the Spirits" that plagued later magic was a direct result of the existence of the Other Side. Before that supernatural purgatory existed, where did spirits go? They likely faded, returned to the Earth, dissipated into the natural flow of energy. There was no organized, vengeful force to retaliate against a witch bending the rules. There was only Nature itself, and he had a plan to appease it.

To perform the ritual, he needed a focus. While his raw power was likely sufficient, the act of creation required symbolism. It was about convincing not just himself, but the universe, of his intent. He gathered his components with patient deliberation. Gold dust, panned from a mountain stream, to represent the fire and purity of the sun. A clay bowl filled with water from a hidden spring that bubbled up from deep within the earth, representing life. And a piece of amber, discovered in a trader's stall, its golden depths holding a trapped insect from a forgotten age—a perfect symbol of timeless preservation.

He found the perfect location after a week of searching. It was a sea cave on the southern coast of the island, a place of immense power where several ley lines converged. The cave's entrance was a narrow slit in the cliff face, but it opened into a surprisingly large, circular chamber. At the back of the chamber was a smooth, flat-topped boulder that would serve as his altar. And most importantly, a natural fissure in the cave's ceiling was perfectly aligned so that at midday, a single, brilliant shaft of sunlight would illuminate the altar. It was here he would be reborn.

All that remained was to wait for the final celestial component: a total solar eclipse, predicted by his own astronomical calculations, due in three days. A moment when the sun and moon would align, when the world would hold its breath. A moment of perfect, potent balance, ideal for the spell of a lifetime.

The day of the eclipse dawned with an unnatural stillness. The air was heavy, charged with anticipation. Even the birds seemed to sing in a more subdued key. Lykaon had spent the previous night in meditation, not to gather power, but to calm the vast ocean within him, to make it as still and reflective as a glass pond. His mind was a silent sanctuary, his focus absolute.

He walked into the cave, his bare feet cool against the damp stone floor. He placed the clay bowl of spring water on the altar and laid the piece of amber beside it. Then, he took the pouch of gold dust and began to walk in a slow, deliberate circle around the altar, letting the glittering powder fall from his fingers to form a perfect, unbroken ring on the stone floor.

He stepped into the circle and stood before his altar, facing the cave entrance. He was ready.

As the morning wore on, the light outside began to change. The brilliant Aegean sun slowly dimmed, its light shifting from a harsh white to a soft, silvery twilight. The shaft of light from the ceiling faded. The moment was approaching.

Lykaon closed his eyes and began to channel his magic. He wasn't drawing it from the earth or the sky. He was drawing it from himself, from the infinite wellspring of his soul. The air in the cave grew thick, vibrating with a low, resonant hum. The gold circle on the floor began to glow with a soft, internal light.

He began to speak. The language he used was not the tongue of the Minoans, nor any human language that had ever been or would be. It was the language of creation itself, the pure essence of magic given voice. The words spoke of existence, of cycles, of permanence. They were a declaration of intent, a petition, and a command all at once.

As he spoke, he wove together the threads of knowledge from his past life.

"From Qetsiyah's design, I claim true immortality," he intoned, his voice echoing in the chamber. "An existence unbroken, a life unending. No blade, no fire, no poison shall unmake me. My flesh shall ever return to whole, my mind shall ever remain my own."

He was taking the core concept, the unkillable nature of Silas, but he was proactively building in safeguards against the things that tormented other immortals. He wove protections against madness, against the slow decay of memory, and against the mystical compulsions that could enslave even the Original Vampires.

"From Esther's folly, I claim the celestial fire," he continued, his voice rising in power as the last sliver of the sun vanished behind the moon. The world outside plunged into an eerie darkness, and the cave was lit only by the glowing gold ring. "Not as a tool, but as a partner. I bind myself not to a dying ember of a sacred tree, but to the living heart of a star. As the sun burns, so shall I live. Its fire is my fire. Its life is my life."

This was his masterstroke. He wasn't just taking. He was offering. He extended a sliver of his own immeasurable magical essence outward, a tendril of pure energy that shot from the cave, through the rock, and into the heavens. It was a handshake, an offering of symbiosis. I will be a part of you, and you will be a part of me. It was a bargain Nature, in its preference for balance over vacuums, would find difficult to refuse.

"By my own will, I seal this pact," he roared, the power reaching its crescendo. "I reject the shadow. I refuse the weakness. I am the first. I am the only. I am eternal!"

At the moment of totality, with the sun's corona blazing like a diamond ring in the sky, he slammed his hands down onto the altar.

The reaction was instantaneous and cataclysmic.

The shaft of darkness from the ceiling was replaced by a column of pure, blinding golden energy that erupted from the heavens and struck the altar. The gold dust on the floor exploded into a molten ring of fire that encircled Lykaon without burning him. The water in the clay bowl flashed into steam, and the bowl itself cracked and turned to dust. The piece of amber in his hand glowed white-hot, the ancient insect within incinerating in a flash, before the amber itself dissolved into light and flowed into his skin.

Lykaon screamed as the power of a star surged through his veins. It was not a scream of pain, but of pure, agonized ecstasy. Every cell in his body was being systematically destroyed and rebuilt. His DNA was being rewritten by the language of the sun. He felt his heart stop, his lungs empty, his connection to the mortal coil sever. He died.

And in the same, silent, eternal instant, he was reborn.

The golden light receded. The molten ring of fire solidified back into a circle of inert, glittering dust. The cave returned to its natural gloom. The eclipse was ending.

Lykaon stood before the altar, his head bowed, his chest still. For a moment, there was nothing. Then, he took a breath. A deep, steady inhalation that felt as if he was drinking in the very light of the returning sun.

He opened his eyes. They were the same dark colour, but now, a faint, golden light swirled in their depths, like captured nebulae. He felt… complete. He felt the distant, thermonuclear pulse of the sun not as an external force, but as his own secondary heartbeat. It was a constant, thrumming reassurance of his unending existence. His magic, the vast ocean within, was not diminished by the ritual. If anything, it felt deeper, amplified by its new, inexhaustible power source. He was an immortal, but he had lost nothing of what made him a witch. He was more.

He had succeeded.

He looked down at his arm. There were no visible changes. He was still flesh and blood. He spotted a razor-sharp shard of obsidian on the floor, left over from his earlier observations. He picked it up and, without hesitation, drew the jagged edge across his forearm.

A line of red welled up, deep and startling against his skin. For a single second, the wound existed. Then, a flicker of soft, golden light pulsed from within, and the skin knitted itself back together. The cut vanished, leaving no trace, no scar, not even a memory of the injury. There was no pain, only a detached sense of observation.

He had done it. True immortality, with no built-in weakness. No vengeful spirits screamed from a non-existent Other Side. No immediate sense of a cosmic imbalance. He had woven his spell so seamlessly into the fabric of the natural world that it had been accepted.

But what of the doppelgängers? Was Nature still biding its time? Had his symbiotic pact, the act of giving as well as taking, appeased that need for balance? Or had he simply created a debt that would come due in its own time, in a form he could not yet predict?

He let the thought go. He had centuries, millennia even, to prepare for any consequence. For now, there was only the victory.

Lykaon turned and walked out of the cave, stepping from the cool darkness into the warm, brilliant light of the newly reborn sun. He lifted his face to its rays, and for the first time, it did not feel like an external warmth. It felt like a welcome. A homecoming.

He stood on the cliff edge, the wind whipping through his dark hair, the endless sea sparkling before him. The world was vast, new, and entirely his. The Mikaelsons, Silas, Tatia, Amara… they were all sleeping seeds in the soil of time, two millennia away from sprouting. He was here, now. The most powerful witch to ever exist, and the first true immortal. The game had not even begun, and he had already won. The only question now was what he would build in the time he had been given.