Darius, the Unlucky

From a demon's union, dark and dread, with a giant's might, the legends spread. They birthed a dragon, fire-fed, eyes of gold, a sunburst's thread. The seer of the northern islands spoke that prophecy twenty years before Darius was born. The kings of three nations heard it and decided, very quietly, that it must not be allowed to come true. His mother was a valkyrie before she was a slave. His father was the king's shield before he became a farmer. They burned their names, their banners, their language, and built a life in a country that would have killed them on sight, all so the prophecy could die unfulfilled in a peasant's bed. It almost worked. On the morning of his fifteenth birthday, Darius walks into the Lindisfarne Cathedral expecting to fail the Awakening Rite the way every peasant boy fails it. The bowl in his hands does not stay clear. It does not turn the orange of an elemental mage. It does not turn any color that the Church has a name for. It turns blue, and then it begins to crystallize. Slowly, blood runs from his eyes. The cathedral empties. The bishop, a man with no magic and a great deal of patience, picks the boy up off the stone floor and carries him into corridors that do not exist on any map the Church will ever show you. Somewhere in the north, an old seer wakes laughing.