The sky was bleeding.

  Ash choked the wind, curling around the corpses of men who had followed him into a thousand battles. Steel rang in the distance, dull now, like the final heartbeat of a dying beast. He could no longer feel his legs. The ground beneath him was cold, slick with blood, his, theirs, it didn’t matter anymore.

  He had been a god once, or so they said. The War God, The Peasant General, The Kingdom’s Last Flame. Now he was just a man again, dying.

  He blinked through the haze, the scent of iron and fire thick in his throat. His sword was gone, arm crushed beneath rubble. His chest was pierced, breath shallow and wet. And yet it wasn’t the pain that haunted him. It was the quiet. It gave him space to remember.

  Not this world, not these fields or crowns or the nobles who spat when he passed. But Earth, that old, tired world of glass towers and gray skies. The woman who had loved him even when he was nothing. The warmth of her hand in his, the way her eyes softened when she looked at him like he was worth something.

  He had died peacefully there, wrinkled, tired, full of love. He should have stayed dead. Instead, he had opened his eyes in this cursed world, and for all his strength, for all the blood he spilled to earn respect, it hadn’t mattered. The nobles feared him. The peasants hated him. His name would not be remembered with honor, only dread.

  And now, with his last breath, he realized he had wasted it again. Not the battles, not the victories, but everything else. The laughter, the calm, the chance to be more than a sword.

  His vision dimmed, but memory flared. He closed his eyes, not to the battlefield, but to the years he had left behind.

  His mother’s laugh, soft like a summer breeze. His father’s worn hands, the pride in his eyes when he learned to ride a bike. He remembered their funerals. He was alone after that, for a long time, until he found her. Her smile was his salvation.

  He saw her now, clearer than the sky above, standing on their porch, brushing flour from her apron, scolding him for coming home late again. He remembered the way she’d lean against his shoulder when the world felt too heavy. The way she whispered his name like a promise.

  Their children… he remembered their tiny hands, the first steps, the first words. He wondered what kind of father he had been. Did they cry when he passed? Did they grow up kind? Were they still alive?

  His heart ached with a pain no sword had ever given him. Then came the second life, this cursed world. The pain came back like a tide.

  The man who took him in called himself "father" but had fists heavier than chains. Every scar on his back was carved in rage, not love. He ran at ten years old, bleeding and cold, he ran into the wild and never looked back.

  He found the mercenaries by accident, or maybe fate. They gave him food, a blade, and a name that wasn’t spat with hate. He killed his first man at twelve. The wars changed him. The blood let him forget, forget her, forget them, forget Earth.

  In truth, nothing was ever forgotten, only buried. Now, as his body failed and his soul began to drift, he wished for nothing more than silence. Not peace. Just… nothing.

  No rebirth, no third chance, no gods whispering fate, just darkness, just rest.

  Let it end. Please… just let it end.

  He was cold.

  Not the cold of a battlefield or winter wind, but something deeper.

  A gasp. Wet, small lungs dragging in air like it was foreign. Light stabbed at his sealed eyes, and sound came in strange, muffled bursts.

  He knew this feeling. He had felt it once before, years ago, a lifetime ago.

  Birth.

  No.

  No!

  His mind raged, but his body betrayed him. Weak, fragile, helpless. He couldn’t lift his arms, couldn’t scream in fury. The only sound that came from his mouth was a wail.

  He was an infant again.

  Why? he thought, if thought could even be shaped in that trembling state. Why won't it end?

  He didn’t want this. Didn’t ask for it. He had begged for silence, for finality, for the peace of oblivion. But the world, cruel as ever, had dragged him back.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Through swollen lids, he caught fragments of a room gilded with gold. Drapes of crimson, candlelight flickering against carved marble.

  A woman held him with soft hands, and a trembling voice.

  “He’s perfect, he’s perfect, Elias.”

  Elias? He wanted to spit.

  He wanted to scream that he wasn’t theirs, wasn’t this. That he had killed kings and buried armies, that he had been born twice already and died twice just as hard.

  Somewhere behind the cries, a deeper voice replied.

  “The heir to House Vortan. May he bring honor to the name.”

  Honor. The word curdled in his soul. He knew what nobles called honor. Lies sewn into silk, smiles backed by knives. Power games played with innocent lives.

  He would grow up in that world now. Under chandeliers and scheming glances. Promised to someone before he could walk. Trained to speak with elegance and strike with precision.

  The days passed in a haze of muffled voices, golden light, and soft linens. He hated how helpless he was, how each movement was a struggle, how the adults cooed at him like he was some delicate, empty thing. But slowly, the fog began to lift.

  He learned, he listened, names surfaced like islands in a sea of sound.

  “Lucas Von De Vortan.”

  His mother whispered one morning, cradling him against her chest. Her voice was light, tinged with hope.

  “My beautiful boy.”

  The name dug into him like a thorn. It sounded noble, polished, meant for a boy with servants and silk, not for a war god reborn. But she spoke it with such warmth that even he, hardened as he was, didn’t hate her for it.

  His mother, Lady Evelyne Vortan, was young, no older than twenty, and wore grief behind her smile. He could see it in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. Loss had shaped her, maybe of status, maybe of love. She was gentle, but tired.

  His father, Elias, was a man in motion. Always pacing, always muttering to himself, scratching figures onto parchment with ink-stained fingers. There was no steel in him, no command, only ambition clashing with desperation.

  “Once the company’s off the ground, things will turn around.”

  Elias said one night, unaware that Lucas was awake in his crib.

  “We just need a few more shipments to land. House Lethren owes us, and I swear if they delay again.”

  “I know, love.”

  Evelyne said, her voice brittle.

  “I know.”

  But the truth came from other lips. The servants didn’t bother to whisper when they thought he couldn’t understand.

  “Lord Elias is chasing ghosts.”

  One of the maids muttered to another while folding sheets nearby.

  “The debt collectors were here again. Third time this month.”

  “They say House Vortan’s bleeding coin faster than they can print it.”

  The other replied.

  “Living in a lion’s den and pretending it’s a palace.”

  “Should’ve married into gold, not glory.”

  He processed every word with a stillness no infant should have. Debt, weak roots, a noble house in name, not in strength.

  So this was his new cage. A noble title drowning in debt, a merchant father who clung to dreams and a mother too soft to fight the world alone.

  Lucas Von De Vortan was born into a house of crumbling stone, and he was expected to carry the name like it still meant something.

  He gritted his teeth in the quiet of his mind. Fine, he thought, I'll carry it.

  *Later That Week*

  The house was unnaturally quiet for a celebration.

  Banners of House Vortan, faded red with a silver hawk, hung limp over the entry hall. The dining table was laid out with bread, fruits, and wine no better than vinegar. Servants moved stiffly, their smiles as brittle as the silverware. It was Lucas’s naming ceremony, an event that should have brought prestige, alliances, laughter.

  Only two guests came.

  His uncle and aunt, dressed like they were attending a funeral. Lord Halric Vortan, Elias’s elder brother, stood tall, thick-necked, and cruel-eyed, his voice loud enough to silence every room he entered. Lady Mirelle stayed beside him, her silence venomous in its own way.

  “Is this it?”

  Halric scoffed as he stepped into the hall, eyeing the decorations with disgust.

  “You call this a noble gathering?”

  “It’s modest.”

  Elias offered weakly.

  “But it’s all we could afford-”

  “Afford?”

  Halric’s voice cut like a whip.

  “You can’t afford piss, Elias. Five thousand gold. That’s what you owe me. Where is it?”

  The room went silent. Elias tried to laugh, hands raised.

  “This is hardly the time-”

  Halric struck him. A backhand, sharp and sudden, sending Elias crashing into the table. Glass shattered, wine spilled like blood.

  Lucas watched from the crib across the room, swaddled in silk, helpless. Halric loomed above his brother.

  “You’ve wasted the family name on pipe dreams and dead ventures. If I don’t have my gold in ten days, I’m taking this house. I’ll drag it to the Baron myself and have it seized in court. I’d rather see it burn than watch you keep disgracing it.”

  Evelyne cried out, rushing to her husband’s side, but Halric was already turning to leave. Mirelle didn’t even glance back.

  When the door slammed shut behind them, it echoed through the hollow halls. Elias staggered to his feet, one eye swelling shut, blood dripping from his nose. He stumbled through the silence, past the wreckage of his pride, until he reached the crib. He looked down at Lucas, barely a week old.

  “Lucas…”

  He whispered.

  “My son…”

  Blood spattered the white blanket. Elias trembled, fingers tightening around the crib’s edge, his voice cracked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He said.

  “I’ve been a fool. A weak, cowardly man. I thought I could build something better for us. But all I’ve built is debt and shame.”

  His hands clenched into fists.

  “You didn’t ask for this life. But I swear to the gods, Lucas, I’ll tear my own heart out before I let you suffer like I did. I’ll find a way. Somehow, I’ll give you a future.”

  Lucas lay still beneath him, not crying, not blinking. The warmth in his father’s words cut deeper than any sword ever had. They weren’t the declarations of a king, or the vows of a soldier. They were desperate, broken words, but real.

  For the first time since being reborn, Lucas felt something stir. Not rage, not despair.

  Resolve.

  You’ve given me a reason, he thought. I will build a better world, not just for myself, but for you. At that moment, he accepted the name.

  Lucas Von De Vortan.

  Born of ashes, bound by blood. He would rise once again for both their sakes.