Prologue - a State of Equilibrium

There was that feeling again: pain, but it didn’t burn, didn’t sting, and didn’t throb. Ordinary pain manifested like that. Ordinary pain required a body, and he didn’t have one yet. It was forming, though, solidifying out of thin air, and got stitched to his mind. That hurt. This pain sneered at him he wasn't natural, that he should die like every other creature would after what he had been through, that he should not exist. It didn’t stop his body from forming. Skin, muscle, and bone slowly caged his tortured mind. He was being destroyed while being created. No words could describe that, not even "pain" itself. He had to broaden the definition instead.

Then, within the span of a heartbeat, the feeling faded. A sense of weight took its place. A mind had no mass, but now the earth pulled at his limbs as he lay still on the ground. His body was complete, fit and strong, untouched by that phantom pain. But his mind still knew. The pain got etched deeper into it every moment it was time to rise. Oh, how it knew…

He got to his feet. Grass surrounded him, but the knee-high blades rippled in the wind and made it look like a sea. The plants touching his stained greaves turned red. None of the blood was his.

He should leave the plate armour behind. He didn’t want to draw attention—or worse, be recognised because of it—and a wound was something he didn't need to worry about anyway. The only reason he wore protection was for show. Being clad in metal from head to toe brought either courage or fear to the hearts of soldiers, depending on which side they were on. He had been invincible, one of the most promising sorcerers the world had ever seen.

He would never be like that again.

"Nadir," he whispered. The code word made the enchanted metal split open at his back, arms, and legs. He removed his sword belt and peeled off the armour as if it were ordinary clothing. He looked around. Only a few trees stood scattered across the flat landscape, with their dark, twisted branches clawing at the sky. They seemed to claw at him too. At his mind. At the emotions he had so carefully hidden away. His hands began to shake. He was miserable. Mistaken. Misled.

Still, the desolate land west of Berg was a good place to flee to, despite its depressing effect on him. He didn’t want to be found. People had to believe he had been wiped off the face of this world and now lived in the next. His gaze went to the east, to the city, where his body was supposed to be lost under a pile of rubble. A thick column of smoke rose on the horizon, and despite the distance, its smell still stained the air. It reeked of death.

That was my home. What have I done?

It had been the Holy Army's stronghold. A pendant with their symbol bounced against his chest with every step he took away from home. He took it off his neck, stared at its engraved, crowned moon in disgust, then flung it over his shoulder—but his fingers snatched the chain at the last moment.

No, it wasn’t fair to think of them as the sole culprit. The blame was his. Sorcerers had ranks, and he had been so eager to reach the top that it had blinded him for the things that truly mattered. The Army had only given him promises of power, not taken his common sense. He had been stupid enough to give that up himself. His stepfather and half-brothers had paid with their lives for that mistake, together with countless others.

I need a new name, he thought while he walked away from the smoke, sheathed sword in hand. More than that: I need a new identity. A new goal.

The Army hunted sorcerers without a pendant, so he put it back around his neck. The weight felt comfortable, even though the thought of it was not. His thumb traced its decorations. The silver blurred, and his fingers smudged out the rim's engraving as if it were made of clay. Doing small handiwork had never been his strong suit, and the piece of jewellery ended up butchered. The markings had to go, though. They indicated the rank of the mighty sorcerer he once was, but that man had died in the collapse of his home.

I need a new name, he thought again.

He shouldn't have been that man in the first place. He shouldn’t have searched for happiness through power. It had only brought pain to others, while the pit inside his mind was as dark and inescapable as ever. Monsters lurked in there. He saw them when he closed his eyes. They kept their distance now, leaning against the walls of the mental pit without saying a word. They didn't need to do more. Their twisted grins were always visible in the dark, a silent reminder that, no matter how hard he fought back, they would always conquer his thoughts and snuff out all joy.

Death looked more attractive with each step he took. It would free him from his monsters, his pain, and his guilt. His end didn’t have to be an honourable one. Right here would be fine, where long blades of grass would hang over him to form the ceiling of his tomb. His hand stroked the pommel of his sword, but the blade wouldn’t give him what he needed. He had tried, but the time to rise still had come. Some people would consider that a gift. He did not. There had to be a way to not rise again. Death as a goal in life. How contradicting. How sad.

I need a new name.

The western horizon bathed in the greenish hue of dusk, but that last remnant of the sunset would be gone soon. The first stars had already appeared, standing in a sky so clear it made him lose all sense of depth. The twinkling lights looked only an arm's length away, ready to be plucked out of the heavens like flowers. One particular star caught his eye. It was still standing low in the east, having started its journey from one end of the horizon to the other not so long ago.

"Rigel," he whispered, welcoming the blue light. He was so accustomed to its company he almost saw it as a living thing, a real person, but one he never got to understand—a disappointing result, considering how much he had studied the star.

His hand ran through his short, dark hair while he gazed at the other celestial bodies that illuminated the night's sky. Rigel might burn with an impressive light, but the other stars that shared its constellation did that too. A corner of his mouth curled up, creating a crooked smile. He had found a new name, a good name. It was an unusual one, yet he couldn't think of anything more fitting.

His pursuit of happiness had died today. He walked towards his new, grimmer goal hidden somewhere on that starlit horizon, while his monsters followed him in his footsteps.