prologue

Willem was just eleven when his life in the old world ended. A quiet farmstead surrounded by endless fields, where the wind blew through golden wheat. He never imagined that the soil beneath his feet was only the beginning of a much larger story.

One moment, he was running through the fields, the sun warm on his back. The next, he awoke in a stranger’s cradle, the clang of hammer and anvil ringing in the air. He was no longer the boy from the farm; he was born anew. The son of a blacksmith in a land ruled by the gods.

At first, the memories of his past life were a fading echo, like a dream slipping through his fingers. But as Willem grew, so did a quiet unease. A shadow beneath the surface of this new world.

When he was thirteen, a terrible plague descended on his village. A sickness unlike any other, burning through homes and hearts alike. They whispered that the gods themselves had sent it, a cruel punishment for unknown sins.

Willem watched helplessly as friends, family and neighbors succumbed. Their voices silenced under a sky heavy with divine wrath. The plague took everything from him. His childhood, his innocence, and the world he had begun to know.

From that moment, a fire kindled inside him. Not the gentle warmth of the forge, but a blazing grudge against the gods who had destroyed his life before it truly began.

He vowed that if the gods held power over mortals, then mortals would one day have power over gods.