Prolog: The Awakening
Jacob stood alone in an endless pond.
The water was shallow—only ankle-deep—and stretched farther than the eye could see. The sky above him shimmered with strange stars that pulsed like beating hearts, casting flickering reflections across the water’s glassy surface.
It was silent.
No breeze. No sound.
Only the rhythmic pounding of his own heartbeat, growing louder and louder in his ears.
He turned slowly, scanning the boundless horizon for something—anything—but found only his own reflection. Over and over, it stared back at him, multiplied into infinity until he couldn’t tell which one was real.
Then—ripples disturbed the still water at his feet.
He froze.
The stars flared above—first golden, then blood-red.
The ripples grew wider, faster, until the surface began to churn and boil. Jacob tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. Just water. Just stars. Just that pounding in his chest.
A voice echoed across the vastness, ancient and bone-deep:
"The blood of dragons. The blood of demons. The blood of kings."
Jacob staggered backward. His legs moved sluggishly, like he was wading through wet cement.
Another voice answered—quieter, but no less powerful:
"One shall bear the Divine Right. One shall awaken the forgotten throne."
From the roiling water, three figures began to rise.
A girl with snow-white hair—her eyes twin oceans caught in a storm.
A girl with hair like firelight—fierce and unyielding.
A third figure cloaked in shadow—her form a silhouette etched against the stars.
He didn’t recognize them.
And yet, deep in his soul… he knew them.
All three pointed at him in unison.
A golden light burst from Jacob’s chest—searing, blinding—so bright it carved through the dark like a blade of pure fire.
He screamed, collapsing to his knees as the mark across his arm exploded in radiant flame.
Symbols rose around him, spinning like a storm: dragons, demons, crowns, swords, runes glowing in an ancient tongue he couldn’t read.
Above, the stars twisted into a vortex, devouring the sky itself.
Jacob gasped for air, choking on invisible pressure.
The white-haired girl stepped forward. Her voice cracked like ice and thunder:
“Choose.”
His head spun. “Choose what?!”
The fire-haired girl strode toward him next. Her voice rang with molten steel:
“Fight—or fall.”
The shadowed one moved last. Her whisper struck deeper than any scream:
“Ascend—or be forgotten.”
The stars screamed.
The pond shattered—its watery surface splintering into suspended shards of liquid glass.
Jacob rose shakily to his feet, every muscle trembling.
“I don’t understand!” he shouted.
“You will,” the voices said as one, echoing inside his bones.
A flash of white consumed everything.
When his vision cleared, Jacob stood atop a stone platform floating above an infinite abyss.
Wind howled around him—cold, feral.
Before him stood a massive stone door, etched with carvings: dragons with burning eyes, demons with wings like blades, humans kneeling before them.
At the center of the door pulsed the same mark that now burned on his arm.
It called to him—aching, insistent.
He stepped forward.
The platform trembled violently, chunks crumbling into the abyss below.
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“Open the gate!” the voices roared.
Jacob hesitated.
The door was alive. He could feel it—throbbing with ancient power, waiting.
Behind him, the girls reappeared.
But they were no longer just human.
The white-haired girl shimmered—silver scales rippling across her skin.
The red-haired girl’s arms burned with crimson runes, her hair a crown of living flame.
The shadowed girl’s form twisted, cycling through impossible shapes.
They raised their hands toward him.
The world cracked open.
Power surged through his veins—primal, unstoppable.
The door groaned. It opened—inch by inch.
And inside… he glimpsed something vast.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
A dragon’s roar tore through the sky—so loud it shattered the stars, their shards raining down in burning trails.
Jacob fell to his knees.
The mark on his arm flared hotter, brighter, blinding.
“Choose!” the voices screamed.
He reached for the door—
—and a blast of golden light hurled him backward.
He hit the ground hard. Pain bloomed in his skull. Stars burst behind his eyes.
Then—he was falling.
Down, down, down… through the broken sky, through the shattered pond, through endless corridors of memory that weren’t his.
He saw warriors with blazing weapons. Kings wreathed in fire. Dragons battling demons in the sky. Blood, screams, flames.
He saw his own face—older, scarred, wearing armor he'd never touched.
He heard his own voice calling out a name he didn't know.
Hands reached for him—desperate, pleading.
And then—
SLAM.
Jacob’s body jolted against the rattling window of the bus.
The real world snapped back around him.
The low rumble of tires. The muted voices of other students. The sticky warmth of late morning sun.
He gasped, drenched in sweat, heart racing.
His hand flew to his arm.
The mark was still there—glowing faintly beneath the sleeve of his hoodie.
He wiped his mouth and sank back into the faded bus seat, breath coming hard.
It hadn't been just a dream.
It was a warning.
A beginning.
The first tremor before the quake.
Jacob turned toward the window as the towers of the University of Oregon rose into view.
His reflection stared back at him in the glass—pale, wide-eyed, a thin sheen of sweat still clinging to his skin. He barely recognized himself.
What the hell was that? he wondered. A dream? A vision? Or something worse—something real?
His fingers unconsciously traced the glowing mark beneath his sleeve. It was fading now, just a soft warmth under his skin. But he could still feel the pulse of it, like a second heartbeat, alive and waiting.
A dull ache settled in the pit of his stomach—not pain, exactly, but pressure. Like something had been stirred inside him. Like something had been unlocked.
He glanced at the other students around him—laughing, texting, sipping iced coffee. No one else seemed shaken. No one else seemed marked.
Why me?
And somewhere high above the clouds behind him, far beyond sight or logic, a dragon roared again.
This time, Jacob didn’t flinch.
He leaned into the sound.
