The night Michael fell from the sky, Gian was alone in the fields.

The stars shimmered unnaturally that evening. Gian, a simple farmer with more scars than coins, had just finished burying a lamb taken by wolves. When a blinding light split the sky in half, followed by a loud crack of thunder — yet no rain — he thought the gods were finally calling him home.

But instead of death, he found life.

Wrapped in scorched white cloth at the edge of the woods, a child no older than a minute lay crying, glowing faintly. On his back was a strange scar — a swirling symbol pulsing red and blue like it couldn’t decide what to become.

“Sanctus Deus…” Gian muttered, falling to his knees. (Holy God...)

The boy’s eyes met his, calm and unafraid.

“I don’t know what you are,” Gian whispered, lifting the child gently into his arms. “But you’re mine now.”

---

🌾 Seventeen Years Later

Michael ducked beneath a beam as the barn collapsed, catching the last falling chicken mid-air and tossing it back into its coop.

“You fight wood better than wolves!” Gian called from the porch, laughing.

“Maybe because wood doesn’t bite,” Michael replied, smirking as he dusted hay from his shirt.

Their home was small, worn but warm — a safe haven in a harsh world. Gian had raised Michael like blood. He taught him how to sow land, read ancient texts, and swing a hammer. But Michael had always sensed something inside him — something he couldn’t explain.

Some nights, he dreamed of fire devouring forests. Other nights, of snowflakes falling in reverse. Sometimes, he woke to smoke on his breath. Sometimes, frost on his fingertips.

He never told Gian.

Gian never asked.

But his eyes said he already knew.

---

🎓 First Day at Arkvale High

When Gian finally saved enough to send Michael to school in the city, he nearly cried.

“You’ll be the first Marten in this family to hold a diploma,” he said, hugging him tightly. “Not a sword.”

Michael chuckled. “Let’s aim for both.”

Arkvale was nothing like the farms. Tall towers hummed with magical energy. Spell glyphs lined the school walls. Students floated books with gestures and used tech-scrolls instead of notebooks.

Michael tried to keep his head down… until he met Elisa.

“You’re sitting in my seat,” she said flatly.

“There are literally twenty empty ones,” Michael answered, not looking up.

A pencil flew past his cheek, pinning his hoodie to the wall behind him.

“I like this one.”

He pulled the fabric free and smiled. “I like girls with aim.”

From that day, they were friends. She was fierce, sharp-tongued, and obsessed with underground fighting arenas. Illegal but popular.

“You need to let some of that pressure out,” she said one evening, handing him a flyer. “It’s just for fun. No spells. No gear. Just fists.”

Michael hesitated. Gian had always warned him: Stay low. Stay small. Let the world pass you by.

But something in him itched. And the pull… was growing.

The arena was madness.

Magic lights flickered above rusted chains. Teenagers screamed from the stands. Enchanted symbols shimmered across the ring floor.

Michael stepped in, heart steady but unsure.

His opponent was a mountain of muscle.

“Name?” the announcer shouted.

Michael blinked. “Planning my tombstone already?”

Laughter erupted. The bell rang.

The giant charged.

Michael moved instinctively, dodging strikes, weaving through brute force. But he wasn’t fast enough — a thick arm closed around his neck, lifting him off the ground.

He gasped. Panic flared.

And then something unlocked.

His hands moved on their own — reaching behind him, where there were no weapons. Yet suddenly, there were. Twin hilts materialized in bursts of flame and frost.

Two blades.

One shimmered like burning gold. The other glowed a pale, icy blue. Together, they pulsed — like they were alive.

“Quid est hoc…?” Michael whispered. (What is this…?)

Power surged through him.

He swung — and the world changed.

A shockwave of fire and freezing wind erupted across the ring. The crowd screamed. His opponent flew backward, armor cracking with frostbite and flame-burns.

Silence.

Only the blades hummed in the silence.

Elisa stared. “Michael… what are you?”

He stood in the center of it all, breathing hard, blades still glowing.

“I… I don’t know.”

Back at the house, Gian slammed the flyer down on the table.

“You drew the swords?! In front of people? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Michael snapped. “They just appeared—”

“Because they’re tied to your blood!” Gian barked. “To something you don’t understand. And the world won’t either. They’ll fear you. Hunt you.”

Michael’s voice cracked. “Then tell me. Tell me who I am!”

Gian went quiet.

“I will,” he whispered. “But not yet. You’re not ready.”

Michael’s fists clenched. “Maybe I’ll never be ready.”

Two days later, Michael returned home to blood.

The door hung off its hinges. The lamps were shattered. And the stench of magic — dark magic — filled the air.

“Gian?!”

He found him on the floor, breathing shallowly, a crimson pool beneath him.

“Michael…” Gian choked. “They found us… They’re coming…”

Michael fell beside him. “Who?! Who did this?!”

“Go to the Kalem ruins… find the old seer… she knows…”

“You’re not dying here!” Michael cried. “Don’t you dare—”

Gian’s fingers gripped his shirt weakly. His voice, trembling.

“Vita tua… non est tua…” (Your life… is not your own…)

His eyes faded. His hand dropped.

Michael screamed.

But no sound could reach the storm rising inside him.

The wind howled over the hills like it mourned with him.

Michael stood at the edge of the field where Gian once taught him to plant wheat, sword in hand, blood still caked to the grip. The farmhouse was silent. Empty.

Gian was gone.

But the fire in Michael’s chest hadn’t cooled since.

His fingers twitched against the twin hilts. The dragon blades hummed softly on his back — not just tools now, but alive, reacting to his grief, to his rage, to something ancient stirring within him.

He remembered Gian’s final breath:

> “Find the old woman at Kalem ruins…”

“Vita tua… non est tua…”

(Your life… is not your own.)

Michael tied the swords tighter across his back and walked away from the only home he had ever known.

---

The world beyond the farms was colder, stranger. Creatures watched him from the trees — eyes glowing green, lips whispering sounds not meant for human ears. He passed rusted mech towers half-swallowed by roots and rivers that whispered names he didn’t recognize.

At night, he slept under broken moons.

In the morning, the frost on his skin refused to melt.

The power within him was stirring. And it terrified him.

---

🪨 The Kalem Ruins

They stood like the skeleton of a forgotten god — cracked marble arches and floating stones swirling with glowing runes. Lightning danced across the tips of the ruins, yet the air was silent.

Michael stepped cautiously toward the center, where a woman sat cross-legged before a black pool.

Old. Blind. Skin like withered bark.

“You are late,” she croaked without turning.

Michael stiffened. “You knew I was coming?”

“I saw you… before you were born.”

Her pale eyes opened — fully white. Empty… and yet full of something cosmic.

“You carry the blades of the twin wyrms… fire and frost… blood and breath…”

Michael stepped forward. “You knew my father. Tell me who I am.”

She ignored the demand.

Instead, she spoke slowly, in Latin:

> “Dracones antiquae — sanguis eorum in te vivit.”

(The blood of ancient dragons lives within you.)

Michael's heart pounded.

“What does that mean?”

She dipped her fingers into the dark water. Visions rippled across the surface — flames engulfing a city… an army of armored giants… a boy, glowing with light, suspended between worlds.

“You are not from this world. You were sent here to hide. But the seal is breaking.”

“Seal?” Michael whispered. “You mean this scar?”

He lifted his shirt. The mark on his back — the blue-and-red symbol — was glowing faintly.

“Not a scar,” the Seer said. “A lock. Meant to keep your true self asleep.”

Michael looked down at the pool. “Why me?”

The water stilled. Her voice turned soft.

“Because the last time someone like you awakened… a continent burned.”

---

The air shifted. The Seer froze.

“They found you.”

A blur leapt from the mist — cloaked in shadow, wielding twin black daggers. No face. No voice. Just death.

Michael turned, swords drawn in a single flash. The creature moved like smoke, fast — too fast.

The first slash grazed Michael’s cheek.

The second — he caught with his ice blade, shattering the dagger with a metallic shriek.

The attacker hissed. Its body twisted, melting into a swarm of shadow-wolves that circled him.

Michael’s hands shook.

“Stay calm,” the Seer said behind him. “Let the blades speak.”

Michael closed his eyes.

The fire blade blazed. The ice blade froze the earth. Together, they pulsed — and Michael became a storm.

He moved like instinct. No fear. No hesitation.

Flame roared from his left. Ice erupted from his right. Shadow met light.

He didn’t know what he was doing — but the swords did.

When the smoke cleared, the wolves were gone.

Michael stood panting, hands trembling.

The Seer approached him slowly.

“Your power has awakened. But it is wild. Uncontrolled. If you do not master it…”

She touched the scar again.

“…it will consume you.”

---

Michael knelt, exhausted. “What now?”

“You must go to the Ruins of Arderyn — across the Scorched Wastes. There, you will find the truth about your kind… and the war you were born into.”

“Alone?”

“No,” the Seer said. “One watches you already. A girl of fire in her heart.”

Michael thought of Elisa.

The Seer turned, beginning to fade into smoke. Her final words echoed around the stones:

> “In tenebris lucet veritas…”

(In darkness, truth shines.)

Michael stood alone, the twin blades humming on his back, a storm on the horizon.

He didn’t know what lay ahead.

But he knew one thing for certain:

There was no going back.

The wind tasted like ash.

Michael tightened the cloak around his shoulders, the twin blades sheathed across his back. Days had passed since he left the Kalem ruins. Since Gian’s blood stained the floor. Since the Seer whispered truths that haunted his dreams.

> “The last time someone like you awakened… a continent burned.”

Now he stood before the shattered bones of a civilization long lost — the Ruins of Arderyn.

Black stone towers leaned into the fog like crooked fingers. Ancient glyphs pulsed beneath his feet, glowing faintly in blue and red — the same colors as the scar on his back. The air buzzed with power… and memory.

Michael stepped inside the archway, and the world hushed.

---

⛓️ Inside the Ruins

He wandered cautiously through the crumbling halls, torch in one hand, fire blade in the other. Broken murals covered the walls — dragons flying above men in silver armor, cities built in the clouds, symbols he didn’t understand but felt in his bones.

Then he heard it.

A voice. Distant, soft. Familiar.

> “You’re late, flame boy.”

Michael spun.

Out stepped Elisa — dirty boots, leather jacket, fire in her eyes.

“Elisa?” he breathed.

“You didn’t think I’d let you go on some world-ending quest without backup, did you?” she smirked. “I followed your trail after the… incident.”

He stared, speechless. “How did you even find this place?”

“I’ve been here before,” she said, tone quiet. “With my mother. She was… studying this ruin before she disappeared.”

Michael stepped closer. “You think these ruins are connected to your family?”

She met his gaze. “I know they are.”

---

🧬 The Bond Deepens

They walked deeper together. As they passed one of the carvings, Michael stopped. A symbol on the wall glowed beneath his hand — a perfect match to the one on his back.

Suddenly the room pulsed, and the wall began to shift. A secret chamber opened, revealing a crystal basin filled with black water, humming with energy.

“The Seer showed me something like this,” Michael said.

He touched it.

A vision slammed into his mind.

---

🌀 FLASHBACK: The World Before

Fire. Screams. A city burning.

Dragons soared overhead, not beasts — but beings of divine intelligence, bound to humans through blade and blood. Michael saw himself, or someone who looked like him — taller, older, eyes glowing, standing atop a cliff wielding the twin blades.

> “Custos duorum elementorum,” a voice echoed.

(The guardian of two elements.)

A woman beside him — crimson hair, fierce — stood holding a blade of her own.

Elisa?

Then darkness. Betrayal. A blade through the back.

The vision shattered.

---

🌌 Back to Reality

Michael gasped, falling backward. Elisa caught him.

“You saw it too?” she asked quietly.

“I saw you,” he said.

She pulled away, eyes hard. “I’ve been having dreams. Visions. I thought they were just—nightmares. But it’s like I was there. With you. In another time.”

Michael’s voice shook. “Maybe we knew each other before we were born.”

The glyphs on the wall pulsed again — brighter now.

Suddenly the ground trembled.

A roar echoed through the halls.

---

🐉 The Guardian of Arderyn

From the shadows emerged a beast — skeletal wings, molten eyes, a body made of stone and steam. A Sentinel of the Old Blood. Bound to protect the ruin.

It didn’t ask questions.

It charged.

Michael drew both blades, shouting, “Stay back!”

“No chance,” Elisa growled, flames igniting around her fists. “I’ve got your back.”

The sentinel attacked, massive claws slashing the floor apart.

Michael rolled, slashing with fire. Elisa hurled bursts of flame from both hands. But the creature healed fast — stone growing back over its wounds.

“Hit the core!” Elisa shouted. “In its chest!”

Michael’s ice blade met the beast’s chest — but it wasn’t enough.

Elisa leapt behind it, creating a distraction.

“Now!” she yelled.

Michael raised both blades, fire and frost spiraling around him, and drove them down in an X-slash straight through the guardian’s heart.

A burst of light exploded.

The sentinel let out one final roar before collapsing into dust.

---

🗝️ A New Path Opens

The dust cleared. The ruins began to shift — revealing stairs leading down.

Michael and Elisa stood at the edge, catching their breath.

“Still think this is just a dream?” she asked.

Michael shook his head. “No. It’s real. And it’s only the beginning.”

The wind whispered through the halls, carrying a single phrase in ancient tongue:

> “Quae ardet… resurget.”

(What burns… shall rise again.)