Chalice was born of a molecule of the war god. Though divine in origin, he bore the mortal coil—skin, bone, and heart, all too human. But oh, the moment of his birth shook the outer heavens, for his wailing could shatter glass and wilt celestial roses. And cry he did—two hundred years without pause, his sobs echoing through the war god's palace like thunder in a cathedral.
At first, the divine realm tried to soothe him. Silk cradles spun from fate's loom, lullabies hummed by time spirits, honeyed nectar from the Tree Beyond Days—none of it worked. The war god, ever valiant, had no time to tend to a child's cries. He was away, waging divine war against the devils at the edge of existence, for the sake of all realms.
And so the duty fell to the war god's loyal maid, an ageless being who had folded more robes than there were stars. But not even she, steadfast as she was, could withstand two centuries of screams. "He looks ten, but he's older than most kings," she muttered, gripping her divine ears.
With a grunt and a wince, she marched to the edge of the divine veil and—without ceremony—threw Chalice to the realm of mortals.
Oh, how he fell! Like a comet wrapped in golden thread. Mortals from the Northern Banners to the Sapphire Coast looked up and beheld the sight—this radiant boy streaking across the heavens like a fallen star. When he landed, the earth cracked but did not break. He stood—ten years old in appearance, but with a cry that still lingered in the wind.
The people gathered around him, stunned by his beauty, his radiance, his aura. "The war god returns to us!" some cried. "No—he sends his son!" others argued. But none doubted what they saw: the incarnation of war.
What they didn't know—what even Chalice didn't know yet—was that the war god had not forsaken them. He simply fought in silence, in a realm far removed. Yet Chalice, exiled unknowingly, would come to shape the destiny of the Pale Arc more than any divine decree ever had.
…
It was the Northern Banner who reached the fallen boy first. They had seen his descent from the high peaks of the Icewind Hold, their scouts marveling at the streak of fire that cut across the heavens. When they arrived and saw the golden-haired child standing amidst the crater, untouched by flame or ruin, they knew—as surely as one knows breath on a winter morning—that he was touched by the divine.
"We have found the Incarnation," said Lord Vyrran, General of the Frost Guard. "And by rights of discovery, he is ours."
The other clans—Sunroot, Gravenfold, and the Mirrim Vale—did not argue. Not because they lacked desire, but because none dared challenge the Northern Banner. They were the sword-point of the realm, the peak of strength, and none had bested them in battle for generations.
So Chalice, the boy of golden hair and strange silence, was taken in.
They draped him in furs and silver, carved runes into his room to ward off the spirits of the mountain. The maids whispered prayers every morning as they clothed him. The priests blessed his meals with fire-salt and cinder-wine. All believed him a godling. But Chalice… he did not understand.
He wandered the halls in silence, sometimes pressing his hands against the frost-glass windows, watching snow fall like ash. He ate little, spoke less. But he no longer cried. The silence he had once shattered, he now became.
Still, the servants loved him. Especially the young maid, Lenna, who had lost her brother to the last border skirmish.
"You'll need to eat, your grace," Lenna would say softly, kneeling beside him with a warm bowl. "You're too light. Even the wind will steal you if you don't grow bones."
Chalice would glance at her, eyes too deep for a child. "I don't get hungry. Not really."
"But you want to eat, don't you?" she smiled, brushing his hair back. "Wanting is enough. That's the first lesson in being mortal."
Another time, when he found her singing by the hearth, he asked, "Why do you care for me? I don't even know what I am."
Lenna had chuckled, "You think I know what I am? We're all guessing, little lord. The difference is, people guess you'll be something great."
By the time his tenth winter in the mortal realm came, the boy had grown—not physically, but inwardly. The stone of his soul had begun to settle. The servants said he laughed sometimes now. He listened to music. He even spoke more.
It was then that King Raevan of the Northern Banner summoned him.
The throne room was a cathedral of iron and horn. The king sat atop a throne carved from glacial bone, his crown a circlet of woven blacksteel.
"You know why I've called you, boy?" the king rumbled.
Chalice bowed, hands at his side. "No, Your Majesty."
King Raevan studied him. "You've got the blood of gods in you. But you live in my land. If you're going to be called prince, you will earn it. Not with holy names. With skill."
Chalice blinked. "Skill?"
The king rose, towering. "Martial arts. Swordplay. War." He stepped forward, offering a practice blade. "Do you fear pain?"
Chalice looked at the sword. His hand trembled for the first time. "…I don't know."
"Then let's find out."
The next days were trials. Painful. Grueling. The first time Chalice was struck, he fell. Not because he was weak, but because he didn't know how to fall.
But he learned. Each bruise taught him placement. Each strike refined his timing. Each loss filled a hole that had been left by divine abandonment. He rose again. And again.
Lenna and the others would dress his wounds by firelight.
"I think the king is trying to break me," Chalice muttered one night, blood crusting his lip.
"No," Lenna said softly. "He's trying to make you."
And so the Incarnation of the War God began to live up to his title—not by birthright, but by blade.
They say he sparred with the king himself by the end of the first year. And though he never won, the old warlord bled more each time they fought.
The Tale of Chalice (cont.)
By the 15th winter of his time in the Northern Banner, Chalice had grown. Not just in strength, but in form. His golden hair had grown longer, often tied behind his head with a strip of red silk. His limbs, once childlike, now bore the toned sinew of a warrior trained daily. His face retained a strange, celestial beauty—still youthful, but sharper now, defined. Mortal in build, but not in presence.
If one were forced to guess his age, they would have said sixteen.
But it wasn't his looks alone that drew the eye. No—it was his presence.
Where once Chalice had been silent and unsure, he now strolled through the fortress with a grin. His words were sharp as his blade, laced with humor, arrogance, and mischief. He cracked jokes at high generals, made flirtatious jabs at noble daughters, and often disrupted council meetings with irrelevant questions like:
"If you punch someone in a dream, should they wake up sore—or you?"
They called him "Young Lord," now. Not as a courtesy, but with admiration—and sometimes fear.
"Oi, Lenna!" Chalice leaned into the servant hall, upside-down from a bannister, his hair falling toward the floor. "Did you hear? The king's planning a marriage for me."
Lenna—now grown and head of the young housemaids—didn't look up from the bread she was kneading. "And who would take you, troublemaker?"
Chalice dropped to the floor with a grin. "You wound me."
"Not as badly as the cooks will if you keep stealing their fish stock. It's the third time this week."
"I enhance the flavor. Besides,"—he wagged a finger—"a future warlord must maintain his taste for danger."
"Or just salt," she muttered, smirking.
One snowy afternoon, Chalice strode into the training yard, shirt half-draped, carrying a wooden sword and a turkey leg.
"Who's fighting me today?" he called, taking a bite. "If no one steps up, I'll start swinging on the chickens again."
A chorus of groans met him. One of the junior captains stepped forward. "Your lordship—maybe you could train like a normal soldier?"
"What, and waste my god-born flair?" Chalice twirled the sword, then slapped it against his thigh. "Come on, you look bored. I'll only use one hand. And close one eye."
Despite his irreverence, he was a genius. They all knew it. He had bested General Vyrran before his twelfth winter. By thirteen, he had memorized and improved the classic stances of the Northern Sword Doctrine. By fourteen, he could disarm ten men without drawing steel. And now, at fifteen winters, he had done the unthinkable:
He had defeated King Raevan.
That duel had taken place in the Hall of Storms.
"Again," the king grunted, sweat on his brow.
"You're sure?" Chalice had said, tilting his head. "Your knees are sounding like crumpled parchment."
Raevan bellowed and charged. Blades clashed, feet skidded, but Chalice moved like wind over glass. At the end, he stood with his blade tip at the king's neck.
"I believe that's match… six?"
Raevan wiped blood from his lip and laughed. "I should've thrown you off the cliff with the rest of the meteors."
"But then who'd replace you?" Chalice winked.
"You little hellspawn."
The people loved him.
He could often be found at the taverns, performing exaggerated reenactments of battles he never fought in. He'd leap onto tables, using turkey legs as swords, imitating generals with ridiculous accents:
"And then General Fask says, 'Hold the line!'—and I say, 'What line? We're already losing!'"
The room would erupt in laughter. He had that effect.
But some—quietly, cautiously—feared that his laughter ran too deep. That behind the humor and the glory, there was something too bright, too wild, too unshaped by mortal restraint.
"I think he dreams too loud," one of the older mages whispered to another. "He says he wants to fight the sky. As if it's a challenge."
Yet, despite all his antics, his loyalty to the Northern Banner never wavered. He trained their troops, rode with their hunters, ate with their poorest, and danced with their nobles.
He was their golden comet—beautiful, fast, and burning.
But comets don't linger. And storms don't wait.
And though none knew it yet, Chalice's time with the Northern Banner was drawing to its final winter.