Crown, Cross, Blade, and Rose

Vael was a poor village at the edge of everything — small, cold, and easy to forget. For four orphaned children, it was still home. Darien dreamed of power. Leon dreamed of knighthood. Silas prayed for everyone. Veyna trusted no one and survived everything. Then the silver rain fell. A blighted stag appeared in the square. The chapel burned with cold fire. And a voice that every villager heard named only one command: Find the four. Beneath Vael lies an ancient power tied to the death of magic itself, and whatever woke beneath the village has marked them all. Hunted by temple riders, taken by strangers, and torn from the only life they knew, the four children are driven into separate paths that will shape the fate of the world. A bastard son.A would-be knight.A hollow priest.A girl who survives. Long before the modern world forgot magic, something happened in a forgotten valley. This is the story of how it began.