At nineteen, Sio has spent his entire life failing at the one thing a Veyr is supposed to be capable of doing: making a Claim.
Three empty Claim slots. Thirteen years of failed attempts. Weapons, animals, ordinary objects, even a rock once Sio becomes desperate enough to negotiate with one. Nothing accepts him, and he has long since grown used to watching other Wayfarers discover extraordinary abilities while his own soul remains stubbornly empty.
Then, walking home after another disappointing day, Sio looks toward the night sky and tries something ridiculous. He attempts to Claim something no human could possibly possess.
The sky answers by breaking open.
Something tears its way into the living world from the Passage, the place human souls sometimes encounter before birth. Those who survive that place wounded become Riven, carrying supernatural Scars carved into their souls, while those who escape untouched become Veyr and gain the ability to make three Claims. The two paths are supposed to be mutually exclusive, and entities from the Passage are never supposed to cross into humanity's world at all.
The creature that finds Sio manages to break both rules.
Wounded and fleeing something even worse, it attacks him, tries to destroy his soul and take his body for itself. Somehow, Sio survives. When he wakes, the system examining his soul returns two results that should never appear together: [SCAR DETECTED] and [CLAIM I — UNKNOWN ENTITY].
Sio finally has his first Claim, but he has no idea what he Claimed, why something inside him prevented the creature from taking his body, or what left a Scar inside the soul of someone who has been confirmed Veyr since childhood. All he knows is that his new Claim can twist distance in ways he barely understands, the Scar seems to perceive things no ordinary Wayfarer can see, and whatever now shares his soul was desperately running from something.
Power does not come freely either. Every Claim carries a Responsibility, every self-imposed restriction demands a consequence, and breaking the rules of the Passage has drawn attention from people who would rather dissect Sio's anomaly than understand it.
For nineteen years, Sio believed his problem was that nothing in this world would let him Claim it.
He may have been looking in the wrong world.
