The skies over Aetheros were always painted with light. Azure-colored magic floated like mist through the clouds, and children born under its shimmer were destined for great power. But for one boy, the sky held nothing but silence.
Kael wasn't supposed to exist.
In the city of Vaelwyn, where every child awakened to their first spell at age six, Kael had waited. And waited. While the other boys shot fireballs and the girls conjured wings of light, Kael stood among them, empty-handed, red-cheeked, mocked by the magical winds that had never touched him.
"No magic?" the Head Examiner whispered during Kael's Awakening Ceremony. "A Null…? That's impossible. He must be cursed."
It wasn't long before Kael was given a new name behind his back: The Cursed. To nobles, he was an embarrassment. To teachers, a waste of space. And to his parents—former war-mages—he was a bitter reminder of failure.
But Kael wasn't ordinary. And though no fire blazed from his hands, something far more dangerous flickered in his mind: brilliance.
By age nine, Kael had read every scientific scroll in the School of Arcana—twice. He had studied magical theory, not to use it, but to understand it. If he could not wield spells, perhaps he could bend the world that did.
He built his first invention at ten: a lens that could detect magical frequencies. It was laughed off as a child's toy—until it exposed a hidden assassin's spell creeping through the academy walls. At eleven, he crafted a glove that nullified weak enchantments. They called it heresy, and the Church of Mana tried to have it destroyed.
Now, at fifteen, Kael worked alone in a cold tower outside the city walls, far from the glowing lamps and floating citadels of the gifted.
He preferred it that way.
The stone tower had once belonged to a failed necromancer. Now, its walls were etched with diagrams, blueprints, and notes in Kael's neat handwriting. Potions hissed on mechanical burners. Gears clicked where wands once lay. No spellbooks here—only science and sweat.
A single voice interrupted his concentration.
"Kael, your tea is overheating again."
The voice came from LUMA, his latest project—a sentient orb of floating crystal, encoded with artificial memory runes and powered entirely by non-magical ether-fuel. To most, it was a talking marble. To Kael, it was a friend.
He adjusted the burner. "Thanks, LUMA. Remind me to recalibrate the heat sensors later."
"You said that yesterday," LUMA buzzed playfully.
Kael grinned. "Then I'll actually do it today."
But his smile faded as his eyes drifted to the parchment beside him. It was the schematic for his most ambitious plan yet: a weapon to rival a mage's staff, powered not by magic, but raw physics. Something he called… the Arc-Bow.
A weapon for a magicless soldier in a world ruled by sorcery.
That night, lightning struck the tower. Not metaphorically—real lightning. The sky roared as a magical storm loomed, its unnatural glow piercing through the narrow windows.
Kael rushed to seal the mechanisms. His tower was grounded, but volatile chemicals didn't care about engineering. He flipped switches, closed valves, and ordered LUMA to enter "sleep mode" in case of damage.
But just as he moved to secure the Arc-Bow's prototype, the tower door burst open.
A girl collapsed on the floor, bleeding, panting, magic fizzling around her broken form.
Kael froze.
She wore the robes of the Royal Academy. Enchanted embroidery clung to her like torn silk. Her right arm was half-frozen in ice—cursed ice, Kael realized. Not from nature, but dark magic.
She looked up, her violet eyes dimming. "Help… me…"
Kael moved without thinking. He grabbed his anti-curse injector, a device he'd built for theory, never use. He pressed it into her shoulder, and the dark frost hissed, retreating like a beast burned by steel.
Her breathing stabilized.
"Who did this to you?" Kael asked quietly, wrapping her in his only clean cloak.
"Royal… hunters," she whispered. "They… they found out I tried to leak the truth. The Council… they're lying. About magic. About what it really is."
Kael stiffened. The truth?
"What's your name?" he asked.
The girl shivered. "I'm Elyra… daughter of Archmage Vexen."
Kael blinked. That name—Vexen—was one of the most feared men in the kingdom. The Grand Archmage of the Royal Council. A man with the power to level cities.
And this was his daughter?
LUMA's voice crackled to life again. "Kael, Royal scouts approaching. Six riders. They're tracking her mana signature."
Kael stared down at Elyra.
He had built a life alone. Hidden. Safe.
But now, fate had kicked open his door, bleeding and bruised, asking for help.
"LUMA, activate the decoy drone. Then prepare my Arc-Bow prototype."
"You're actually going to use it?"
Kael looked at Elyra. Then at the storm outside.
"They call me cursed. Let's show them what that really means."
And as the wind howled and the storm raged, the world of Aetheros was about to meet its first true anomaly: a boy with no magic, only mind—ready to defy an empire built on spells...