His name was Renner Voss.
Born under sun-bleached banners in the lawless southern wastes, where the bones of old wars were still being picked clean by scavengers and sons.
He had tasted steel and blood before his voice had deepened, and by the time he saw his sixteenth summer, he'd already left behind more corpses than memories.
In the south, they called him The pale slaughter, not for his skin but for how little emotion he showed when carving through men.
There was no poetry in his violence, no pride. Just hunger. The unending, gnawing ache to become something greater.
Esgard was the stage. The Crucible was the gate. And Ian—the Demon Blade—was the mountain he meant to climb and break.
But first, he needed power.
And tonight, beneath the cracked sky and beside the forgotten altar of some long-waiting entity, he was offered just that.
