Prologue

In a small dimly lit room, a newborn boy, covered with blood, lay struggling and crying in the arms of a hunched old man.

The old man's appearance was haggard, with yellow and dry cracked skin that hid his facial features. He stood there giving off a fierce frown of concentration at the child in his wrinkled and bony arms. Besides him on a thickly quilted bed haphazardly strewn with additional rugs and furs, a young woman lay in a cold and clammy sweat, her chest heaving desperately for breath from her recent childbirth.

He began to mutter under his breath as the child continued to cry, examining its body closely, going so far as to tilt the baby boy upside down, causing it to release an earsplitting cry of discontentment towards the unjustified treatment. Eventually, the noise became unbearable even for the old man and temporarily ceasing his mutterings, he tapped the baby on the forehead and it suddenly went silent, its body completely limp in his hands.

The old man's facial expression remained unchanged as he gingerly peeled back the baby boy's eyelids, peering into the boy's now dark and unfocused pupils, carefully searching for something. However, time passed and the old man's search proved fruitless, his face quickly filled with undisguised disappointment.

He sighed and silently motioned for a midwife who previously stood quietly in the dark corner of the room to take the child from his arms, his eyes hinting deep complex emotions and fatigue.

The middle-aged woman swiftly stepped forward to take the burden from the old man's frail frame, who looked like he needed a good rest. Yet, as the old man prepared to pass the child to her outstretched arms, he spared a final glance at the baby and his face quickly froze in shock before shaking from extreme excitement as he revealed an unusually elated appearance. Wisely, the midwife backed up to her original position and continued her silent observation as her eyes too lit up with happiness.

From the boy, thin wisps of almost undetectable golden light began to emerge from his pores, collecting around him, forming a faint and ethereal golden glow. It quickly thickened as more light streamed out of him, and specks even began to emerge from the embers of the nearby dim hearth which provided heat to the room and the effect resembled a small fire being doused in fuel.

The light climbed in intensity and ferocity, becoming a roaring inferno that surrounded the child in blindingly bright energy. All that was visible to the midwife who had pasted herself against the wall in sudden fear was a faint and hazy outline of the child in the old man's arms. The dazzling light then rapidly pulsed, projecting itself outwards in a ferocious billowing wave of heat that surged across the room, covering it entirely.

Before the heat was capable of incinerating the room and its occupants with its touch, it strangely contracted and disappeared, sucked into the old man's tightly clenched right fist. The midwife could not help but slowly slide down the wall and collapse upon the wooden floor from the near-death experience, her hand tightly clutching her cramping chest. Ignoring her, the old man rocked the source of the disaster with one arm, upon his face a beaming smile of contentment.

The young woman who was laying on the bed, managed to catch her breath and gasped out hurriedly, "I told you! I win! What did I tell you, you old fool! Any child of mine-" Her voice caught in her throat and she began violently coughing from the exertion of speaking, small droplets of blood flying out of her mouth and staining the surrounding dark bed sheets.

Hearing the woman's words, and continued unhealthy coughing, the old man's face soured. He released a disgruntled sound of acknowledgement and splayed out his clenched right fist towards the woman, releasing the golden light in her approximate direction.

The light rushed towards her, although it seemed far less threatening than before it entered the man's fist and the mother greedily inhaled as the light neared her face. She revealed a bloody smile of victory that she bared towards the old man, who had turned his back to her and handed the child to the midwife - who had since picked herself up from the floor.

Miraculously, the young woman's breathing became noticeably more even and rosy colour returned to her previously pale cheeks as she inhaled the light, leaving none of the golden motes to remain in the surrounding air.

The old man stood hunched next to the thick stone door frame, seeming incredibly small and decrepit next to it. And, noticing her recovery, he opened his mouth, "Consider this a reward for your accomplishment. Raise them well," he said before swiftly pushing open the door and exiting the room.

The mother's face twisted in anger before turning to confusion at his words, "They?" she softly uttered before glancing down at her lap and releasing a heartrending scream of terror.

A heavy thud of the midwife collapsing once again resounded from the room and spread to the dark corridor where the hunched old man was still slowly walking away, with the ghost of a smile upon his thin lips.