The night Valen Vaelstrom entered the world, the heavens did not rage. They did not split with fury or weep with rain. Instead, thunder rolled across the sky in perfect, measured cadence—a rhythm like the slow, deliberate breath of something ancient waking.
In the sacred birthing halls of the Vaelstrom Clan, carved deep into the heart of their storm-forged mountain, the child opened his eyes before he drew his first breath. His gaze, a glacial blue threaded with veins of lightning, fixed upon the vaulted ceiling where painted stars shimmered in the lamplight. As if he already recognized them. As if he were counting them.
Only then did he cry out—a single, clear note that hung in the air like the strike of a blade against glass.
And then he fell silent.
His hair, white as fresh-fallen snow, curled softly against his shoulders, the ends kissed with the faintest hint of cerulean. His features were sculpted with an almost unsettling perfection—sharp brows like the edge of a sword, lashes dark against his pale skin, lips full enough to soften the severity of his beauty. But it was his stillness that unnerved the elders. Most infants thrashed, wailed, demanded. Valen simply watched.
His mother, Lira of the Reyes Clan, cradled him close, her fingers brushing the lightning-shaped birthmark just visible beneath the collar of his silken wrap. She was a woman of quiet grace, her eyes holding depths few dared to plumb.
"His fate," she murmured, "is not written in ink."
Lightning flickered in the high windows, casting jagged shadows across the walls.
"It is written in lightning."
The healers would later whisper of the anomalies. The boy's pulse did not race like a child's—it thrummed in controlled, rhythmic bursts, as though his heart were a storm contained. Aether curled around him without prompting, drawn like moths to flame. And when the eldest seer peered into his soul, she recoiled, her breath catching at the sight of a shimmering thread woven into his very essence—a mark of Reyes blood, ancient and awake, in a child born to thunder.
Valen's father, Lord Tyrian, stood motionless by the chamber doors, his hand resting on the hilt of his ceremonial blade. He was a man of few words, his emotions locked behind a mask of ice. Where Lira was fire and intuition, Tyrian was calculation and steel. Their marriage was one of strategy, of alliance. Affection was a luxury. Loyalty was not.
By three, Valen was walking the Storm Steps—a spiraling path carved into the sheer cliffs of the Heartspire, where the air crackled with volatile star essence. Most children did not attempt the ascent until twice his age.
Valen climbed in silence.
At four, his bones cracked and reshaped themselves during meditation, forging channels to conduct the storm within. By five, he could summon sparks to his fingertips with a thought, could bend metal without touch. Weapons became useless in his presence unless wrapped in layers of insulation. Most were.
He did not gather followers through charm or command. He selected them with the precision of a surgeon's blade.
Selis, his left general, moved like lightning given form. Her swordplay was a dance of thunder and precision, and she had never once questioned an order. She had also never lost.
Corin, his right hand, was quieter. A whisper in the dark, a shadow at the feast. His poisons were art. He had once turned a rival family's celebration into a funeral without a single blade being drawn.
Valen rarely gave direct orders.
He preferred to offer opportunities.
His peers adored him. They spoke of his kindness, his easy smiles, the way he listened as though their words were the only ones that mattered. They never noticed how none of them ever truly knew him. How his warmth never reached his eyes. How every piece of advice he gave led them, inexorably, exactly where he needed them to be.
Even his teachers were fooled. One called him the gentlest prodigy he had ever taught.
Valen smiled and said nothing.
By twelve, he had reached the Astral Meridian realm. His progress was flawless. But it was not mere talent that carried him.
It was strategy.
That year, an assassin slipped into Vaelstrom lands. No one knew who had sent him—perhaps one of the lesser clans, growing bold—but the target was unmistakable.
Valen.
He knew three days before the man crossed the border.
He did not raise the alarm. He did not call for guards.
He planted false trails. Left unsealed letters where they would be found, detailing plans he had no intention of following. He sent Selis away on a fabricated mission. Directed Corin to guard an empty estate.
And then he waited.
The assassin struck at dusk, a blur of shadow and silent steel.
Valen did not move.
The blade kissed his throat, drawing a thin line of blood.
He smiled.
"You missed the second one."
The man hesitated. "The second what?"
"Poison."
The assassin collapsed moments later, his body wracked with convulsions, the faintest scent of jasmine clinging to his robes. Corin's work. Infused into the stolen scroll the man had taken three nights prior.
Valen rose, dabbing at the cut on his neck with a silk handkerchief. He gazed down at the twitching figure with something almost like pity.
"You thought this was a mission." His voice was soft. "It was a lesson."
He left the body where it would be found, timing its discovery so the tale would spread like wildfire through the clans. By morning, the rumors had taken flight—not of Valen's strength, but of his cunning.
His enemies would learn to fear not just his power.
But his mind.
That night, he slept with his window open to the distant growl of thunder.
The lesser clan that had dared to send the assassin was not named aloud. But their ancestral lands were razed three weeks later by an unexplained tempest that tore stone from mountain and salt from the earth.
No one claimed responsibility.
Valen never mentioned it.
He did not need to.