“In the nds where moonlight kissed the forests and mana swirled with every breath of the wind, I was born—a stain upon silver perfection.”

  My name… is Aduin.

  Born of the Elves of Midgard.

  But never truly one of them.

  The sky was birthing a storm the night I was born. A phenomenon rare in the regions of Thalith’shral, the ancient homend of the Elves—nd of dew and eternal spring. But that night… the sky split like a wounded beast. Lightning cwed through the clouds, and thunder answered with primal rage.

  From within the crystalline birthing chamber deep in the hollowed heart of the Aeldergrove, I first opened my eyes.

  And they were not as they should have been.

  “Era,” a trembling voice whispered, “his eyes… look—look at them!”

  One eye burned like molten amber, the other gleamed with cursed crimson.

  And his hair...

  Bck.

  Pitch bck.

  Not silver. Not gold. Not moon-white. But the color of burnt dreams and forgotten fmes.

  “He… he’s not one of us,” said the healer, backing away as though my mother had birthed a monster, not a child.

  I was not embraced.

  I was not celebrated.

  I was feared.

  The years that followed were... unforgiving.

  I grew, but my shadow never did.

  Elven children, with their eyes like polished gems, avoided me. Their ughter ceased when I walked past. Whispers stalked me like wolves.

  “Demon-born.”

  “Marked by the Deep Night.”

  “His right eye brings misfortune. His left watches death.”

  I remember once, during the Blossom Ceremony, when young elves weaved mana into the petals of the Lunar Orchid… I tried to join.

  But as I reached toward a flower, it wilted in my hands.

  Or so they said.

  They screamed, and I was struck. Not by magic.

  But by stones.

  By words.

  And worst of all—

  By silence from my own blood.

  My father, Valion, once a proud warrior of the Windspire Legion, turned his back on me.

  “I did not sire a cursed child,” he said, eyes colder than obsidian.

  My mother, Era, she… she wept in secret. But never openly. Never for me.

  And so I lived like a phantom among my kin.

  Banished from celebrations. Hidden during rituals. Assigned to the lowest of tasks—cleaning stables of moon-deer, fetching muddy water from forgotten wells.

  “If the mana spirits curse him,” they would whisper, “let him be useful before he perishes.”

  I endured.

  Year after year.

  I endured the gres.

  I endured the wounds.

  I endured the silence.

  But the weight... oh, the weight.

  It carved itself into my bones.

  Then came the night everything changed.

  I had just turned nineteen—still young in elven years, but already old in suffering.

  I sat in my small canvas tent at the edge of the tribe’s territory, nursing a bruise from a careless blow earlier that day. A child of a noble had “accidentally” unleashed a mana whip in my path. They all ughed. I did not.

  I never did.

  The rain was soft that night. A drizzle, like the sky was crying quietly.

  That’s when I heard them.

  Footsteps.

  Multiple. Light, but purposeful. Like predators.

  The fp of my tent tore open.

  And five figures entered.

  Cloaked in tribal insignia. Faces I knew—cousins, childhood neighbors… even my older brother, Kalder.

  “Kalder?” I asked, rising to my feet, confused.

  He didn’t speak.

  None of them did.

  The first blow came fast.

  A fist to the gut. I doubled over.

  The second, a boot to the ribs. I colpsed.

  They descended on me like shadows fueled by hate.

  Kicks. Punches. Elven curses spat in hatred.

  “Trash!”

  “Dirt!”

  “Demon bastard!”

  “Filth doesn’t belong in the same breath as Elves!”

  Then Kalder lifted me by the colr, my blood dripping onto his pristine robe.

  “No more,” he whispered. “The tribe’s tired of your existence.”

  I looked into his eyes, hoping—pleading—for mercy.

  All I saw was disgust.

  They dragged me through the forest. I didn't resist. Maybe... some part of me hoped it would end. Maybe... just maybe, I'd find peace in the dark.

  We reached the Ogl Cliffs.

  A drop so deep, light did not touch the bottom.

  “Any st words, bck-hair?” said one.

  I tried to speak.

  But Kalder didn’t let me.

  He pushed me.

  I fell.

  Wind screamed in my ears as gravity pulled me into death’s embrace.

  My mind raced.

  Is this how it ends?

  Alone. Hated. Forsaken?

  The stars above vanished.

  Only darkness remained.

  But…

  Fate had one st jest.

  As I plummeted, the world faded—not into death—but something else.

  A warmth—foreign yet familiar—enveloped me.

  A crimson glow in the abyss.

  And then…

  Nothing.

  Epilogue: The Star That Burned Alone

  When I opened my eyes again, I was not in Midgard.

  The air was heavy with fire and life.

  I could no longer feel the same mana I once knew.

  Instead, there was… a pulse.

  Raw.

  Chaotic.

  Ancient.

  I had survived.

  But I was not the same.

  “From the ashes of rejection, I rise—not as the elven child they scorned, but as the fme fate dared not extinguish.”

  “This is no longer Midgard.”

  “This… is the Vermillion Bird Star.”

  “And I—am the outcast no longer.”

  [TO BE CONTINUED...]