They cheered as I spilled blood in the Crucible.

  Not out of hate, nor fear.

  But awe.

  For the girl they once whispered about—the anomaly born of an Edel and a Boshaft—was now on her knees, blade at her enemy’s throat. They didn’t know my name then.

  But they would.

  They would know Zilar.

  The one who was never supposed to exist.

  Days before…

  Welcome to the land of Solmork, a world bound by an immutable law: all who draw breath are fated to be either Edel or Boshaft. There is no in-between. There never was.

  The Edel are beings for whom kindness is not merely a choice but an instinct, a second nature woven into the fabric of their souls. To be selfless is their nature, their purpose, their divine objective—a pure and noble existence. The Boshaft, by contrast, are creatures of disorder, whose hearts pulse with an unrelenting thirst for obliteration. They do not simply desire destruction—they are destruction, reveling in the chaos they so effortlessly weave. They raze, they pillage, they consume.

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  Yet, amidst this rigid dichotomy, I was born. Neither wholly Edel nor truly Boshaft, I stand as an aberration—a grey amidst black and white.

  My father, a Boshaft who vanished before I could speak his name, and my mother, an Edel whose instinct of kindness surpassed even her own perplexity, bore me into existence. Their union was whispered of in hushed tones, deemed a sacrilege against the very order of our world.

  From the moment of my birth, I was an enigma. My mother, bound by her nature, feared me as one fears the unknown, yet she raised me still—nurtured me not out of love, but out of her Edel instinct. For the Edel cannot turn their backs on those in need, and I, for all my peculiarity, was still but a child.

  Solmork is a world of ceaseless conflict. The Boshaft, unburdened by restraint, would have long since turned their blades upon the Edel and amongst themselves were it not for the Great Hunts. Their bloodlust is not curbed by reason but by purpose. Ogres, Goblins, and Dragons roam the untamed lands beyond their stronghold, and to slay them is the only thing that keeps the Boshaft from tearing each other apart. Their fortress, Citadel Ruin, stands in the east—a kingdom of revelry and ruin, where chaos is both the currency and the creed.

  The Edel, in contrast, dwell in the west, far away from the fray. Their lands, untouched by violence, flourish in harmony, shielded from the beasts of the east by the very Boshaft that pose a threat. Rarely do the two ever meet. Rarely do their worlds ever intertwine.

  Yet, here I stand.

  Belonging to neither, claimed by none.

  An anomaly in a world that allows no grey. I am lonely, for, I am alone in a world I do not belong.