Prologue

Ian stood at the highest peak above his village. It was surrounded by high cliff tops, a perfectly hidden valley. Eden, they called it, but it always felt like Hades, to him.

Crimson puddles stained the dirt, smeared the strong wood huts of the place he once called home. He would've never guessed how much of the red liquid the body contained. It gave him pleasure, but also made him sick.

The blood of Valyrian willed it, Is what the Fathers of Old said.

We were his descendants, and because of the bloodshed I didn't commit I was now guilty and sentenced since birth. It all made no sense. The will of the Mighty Light, and the will of Valyrian. It must've never occurred to the Fathers of Old that it was possible to be willed by both.

Now they're all dead, all of them. Yet he didn't cry. He did not mourn for his father, who he killed with his bare hands. Or his mother, his brothers of the village.

But he stayed perched on the cliff. He watched how the blood dried up and became one with everything, until nightfall.

Again, the will of Valyrian made its way into the world. As new epochs come and go, new devils live and die. The Valley of Eden felt the cold winters once again as it has century after century.

It was surely the will of Time.

. . .

Ian shifted for the first time in hours, his bones thawing from the bitter wind. He almost forgot about his existence.

How exciting.

He walked for days until he left the borders of the known world. Searching.