Born Without Magic, Destined to Rule All

Chapter 004 – Awakening Of Earth & Fire

The sun had not yet risen. The world hovered in that fragile moment between night and day — not darkness, not light, but something eerie and breathless in between.

A thick, ghost-colored mist coiled low across the forest floor, veiling everything beyond a few feet in front of him. The trees loomed like sentinels — ancient and patient, their gnarled limbs clawing at the air like skeletal arms frozen mid-scream. Moss blanketed the stones underfoot, damp with dew, and the air hung heavy with the scent of wet earth, rotting leaves, and something older, deeper — something that remembered blood.

Somewhere beyond the ridge, a beast howled. Low. Guttural. It echoed across the cliffs like a warning. And in the middle of a clearing no sane student ever entered at this hour, Zarek Vonn stood unsteady, breath shallow, trying to harness something his body wasn’t built for.

He moved barefoot across the mud and moss, not with grace, but with sheer effort — each step an awkward tug of will against limbs that weren’t ready, muscles that burned, lungs that fought to keep up. His robes were shredded, smeared with blood and sweat, sticking to him like damp parchment. His feet were cracked. His hands shook with every movement. His chest heaved as if each breath had to be torn out of him by force.

This wasn’t a warrior dancing with power. This was a boy wrestling a force too big for him to hold. Every motion he made felt wrong — either too much or not enough. The earth beneath his feet didn’t rise willingly. It bucked, resisted, strained against his command before jerking into motion like a reluctant animal. Pillars of stone rose, crooked and brittle, only to crumble before they were fully formed. Sparks cracked through the air like static — unfocused, weak, gone as fast as they came.

His magic wasn’t fluid. It was fragmented, raw and dangerous.

“Again,” Zarek whispered, voice hoarse, barely audible through clenched teeth.

He dropped into a shaky stance and slammed his palms into the ground.

BOOM!!!!

A ripple shot through the forest floor, but instead of a clean break, the energy sputtered — the fissure crawled out unevenly, like a wound that wouldn’t open all the way. Zarek staggered, barely staying on his feet. His vision blurred. Blood from a cut at his temple trickled into his eye. His arms trembled violently, and his legs buckled before he caught himself. Everything inside him screamed to stop — his bones ached, his skin burned, his breath came in wheezing gasps.

But he kept going. Because pain meant it was working. Pain meant the power hadn’t broken him yet.

Not completely.

He had clawed his way out of that cavern — starved, blind, abandoned. He shouldn’t have survived. And maybe the part of him that did was no longer the same. Maybe what dragged itself back to Arcvale Academy wasn’t a student, but something else entirely.

When he returned — silent, forgotten — no one asked where he’d been. No one noticed he was back. Because the Zarek who left? He didn’t come back. Now, before the sky turned gold and the halls filled with whispers and spellcraft, he returned to the only place that didn’t reject him. To the dirt. To the silence. To the thing inside him that refused to die.

“Too slow,” he hissed. “Too weak.”

He stomped again. The earth answered — barely. A c***k, small and jagged, like it was mocking him. His arms shook. His legs gave out. He dropped to his knees, gasping, fingers clawing at the ground as if he could pull strength from the soil itself.

“You only have one element,” the voice inside him whispered. “What if this is all you’ll ever be?” Zarek bit down hard, eyes squeezed shut. The ache in his body pressed against him like a cage. “What if the voice in the dark lied to you?” it hissed. “What if you’re not chosen? Just... broken?”

His heart stuttered, his body quaked, and then—a flicker, a warmth, small, weak, but there. Zarek reeled back, hands shaking violently. He coughed, his throat raw, eyes wide. “What was that?” he gasped, staring at his open palm.

A single ember hovered—faint, flickering, barely visible—not fire, not fully, but pulsing gently, softly, like it knew him, like it was him, and then it was gone, though the heat didn’t leave, not completely. Zarek stared at his hand. Something inside him twisted. Earth… and something more. Something buried deeper than muscle and bone. “Was that… fire?”

“Talking to yourself now, Vonn?” The voice came from behind — smooth, amused, sharp as glass. Zarek flinched and spun, instinctively raising a stone wall between him and the source. It wobbled — not solid, but enough.

A figure stepped from the mist, silver hair catching the pale light. Leaning casually against a tree, arms crossed, grin annoyingly smug.

Ren Ashveil.

Zarek didn’t lower the wall. “What do you want?”

Ren smiled. “What, no ‘how did you find me’? I’m hurt.”

“You were watching me.”

“Obviously,” Ren replied, stepping closer. “Kinda hard not to when you’re flinging dirt like an angry toddler with a god complex. Trying to c***k the cliffs in half, or just collapsing for fun?”

Zarek said nothing. His breath was still coming too fast. Ren’s eyes scanned the clearing — the broken ground, the dust still drifting, the tremble in Zarek’s arms.

“You’re not supposed to have power,” Ren said, more serious now.

“I don’t,” Zarek muttered.

Ren raised an eyebrow. “Sure. And I’m secretly the High Prince of Ashkavon.”

“I mean it,” Zarek rasped. “It’s not… It’s not normal. It hurts.”

Ren’s expression shifted. Not quite sympathy. But something close. “Yeah. It looks like it.”

He walked a slow circle around the clearing. “I’ve seen fakes. Cheaters. The desperate ones who bleed to spark a flicker. But you?” He paused. “You’re not faking. You’re barely holding it together.”

Zarek’s voice dropped, low and fragile. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Ren didn’t blink. “I won’t.”

Zarek stared, disbelieving.

“But,” Ren added with a crooked smile, "Now you owe me—one favor, one day, my choosing."

Zarek hesitated. Then, with a trembling nod, “Deal.”

Ren gave a lazy salute. “Pleasure doing business. Try not to pass out before breakfast.”

And then he vanished into the mist — like he was never there. Zarek stood alone once more, the silence pressing in again. He looked at his hand. No ember. But that flicker of warmth in his chest remained — faint but steady. The earth beneath him shifted again. Not a quake....just… acknowledgment.

Two elements, one broken body—still standing, still fighting; he wasn’t a spark anymore—he was learning to burn.

“I’m not done,” he whispered, as the first sliver of dawn cut through the mist.