"Birth of the Cursed: The Prologue of Leornars Servs Avrem"
The air inside the birthing room of Kurnov was thick—wet with the scent of rain, sterile cloth, and something colder... dread. Outside, a storm raged as if nature itself recoiled at what was to come. Thunder cracked like cannon fire, rattling the windowpanes and shaking the stone walls of the keep. Beneath dim lantern light, amidst screams and sweat, Leornars Servs Avrem was born into a world that already despised him.
The attending doctor—a woman hardened by decades of delivering life—took one look at the pale-haired child and stumbled back, a strangled gasp escaping her lips. Her eyes widened in terror at the infant's snow-white hair, a mark unseen, unnatural, unholy. Her knees buckled. Without a word, she turned and fled into the corridor, her screams for the knights echoing like a curse through the cold hallways.
Leornars's mother lay trembling on the bloodied bedding, her wide eyes locked on the motionless child. Her lips curled in revulsion.
"Why?" she whispered hoarsely, eyes filled with horror. "Why did the gods curse me with this... thing?"
Her voice cracked as she turned to her husband. "Is this some cruel jest?"
Her husband stepped forward, his face a rigid mask of loathing. "Only you, I, and that doctor saw this abomination," he said coldly. "The only mercy left is to erase it. Now."
The mother didn't hesitate. "He is a stain. A curse. Burn him. Cut him to pieces. Let the forest devour him."
"Perhaps the well," the father mused aloud, already moving toward the door with the newborn in his arms. "No one will find him."
Outside, the storm screamed like a divine protest. Rain lashed the stone as they approached the old village well. Without ceremony, without remorse, the father dropped the infant into its abyss. No name was spoken. No prayer for life was uttered. Only hushed words for his death, swallowed by wind and thunder.
But fate, ever cruel and watching, was not done.
A wanderer—a forgotten soul wrapped in rags—heard the weak cries through the rain. His bones ached, his stomach twisted with hunger, but the sound drew him to the old well. Peering into its dark throat, he saw it. A child, impossibly pale, still alive. With an effort fueled not by strength but by instinct, the old man climbed down the slick stone and retrieved the infant.
When he emerged, the storm still raging, he whispered to the shivering child, "So the world has already thrown you away, little one."
He begged shelter from the church, but the priests barred their doors. He carried the child to the orphanage, but they recoiled in fear. In a final act of compassion, he chewed a crust of old bread into pulp and fed it to the infant, tearing strips from his own clothes to wrap the child's fragile body.
"I've not eaten in two weeks, little one," he murmured, voice ragged. "But I'll protect you. Never fear."
Two weeks passed. Hunger gnawed at the man's insides, yet he held the child, warming him with what little life remained. In town, fear turned into frenzy. The mayor, red-faced and trembling with zealotry, roared in the square, "The white-haired devil breathes! Hunt him down! Purge this curse from our land!"
Torches lit the woods.
At dawn, a hunting party found the wanderer's broken body deep in the forest, clawed open by a bear. No child. Just dirt hastily turned for a grave, and silence. The townsfolk rejoiced, declaring the "demon child" destroyed. Their hands wiped clean. Their guilt buried.
But beneath a hollowed cliff near the edge of the woods, the child yet lived.
In his final breath, the wanderer had hidden Leornars in a cave. For two days, the boy cried—his voice weaker with each hour, his hunger growing unbearable. The scent of frailty drew vultures. Their shadows darkened the cave mouth. Just as their talons reached for flesh, another shadow fell.
She entered in silence. Her white hair shimmered like snow in sunlight. Her eyes, cold yet compassionate, settled on the trembling infant. Light glowed from her hands as she touched him, knitting flesh and soothing pain. She cradled him. Fed him warmth and safety.
Then she knelt by the wanderer's grave. "You deserved better," she whispered. "But thank you... for him."
And she vanished into the wild with the child, as the village celebrated into the night, believing their sin washed away.
---
Four Years Later
The boy they had tried to erase had not died. He had not been spared either.
In the bowels of a hidden fortress, far from sunlight, Leornars sat in chains. His hair had grown past his shoulders like a curtain of frost. His skin—nearly translucent—was stretched thin over his bones. His eyes were hollow pools of madness and pain.
Nine years.
He had been locked away for nine years.
"I've been here... for nine years," he whispered, rocking on cracked stone. "They break my fingers... then heal them. Break my legs... then heal. Rip my organs out... again and again and again."
His voice rose into a scream that echoed through the dungeon like a knife.
"They made me watch my mother die—four hundred million times!"
His fists clenched. Blood wept from his nails.
"WHY!? WHY ME!? I DID NOTHING!!!"
He slammed his head against the wall. Again. Again. "I don't want to be alone! It's dark! I'm in pain! GODS, HELP ME!"
His cries became sobs. Then words lost meaning.
"I want to go home… I want to tell mother the trip was fun… I want… Mother? Mother! WHO AM I?!"
He screamed until his voice broke.
And eventually, he stopped speaking altogether.
The mayor had ordered a neural chip implanted in Leornars's brain—one that forced a continuous playback of Emalian's execution. Every six hours, physical torture resumed. He was fed once every two weeks.
"He can't speak anymore," a guard later informed the mayor. "His screams shredded his vocal cords."
"Good," the mayor smirked. "If caught, he can't spill secrets."
"He uses up eight healing crystals a day now."
"Eight?! Why?"
"He keeps tearing into his own flesh, banging his head, pulling out skin with his nails."
The mayor scoffed. "Let him. As long as he loses his mind but not his life, he's still valuable."
As he left, Leornars, chained in shadow, glared with bleeding eyes. His lips moved in a whisper:
"Tar...tour rou…"
("I will take you to the depths of hell.")
The mayor laughed. "Soon, your soul will join your whimpering mother."
Years passed.
The dungeon walls echoed only with the sound of gnawing rats, soft sobs, and the dull thud of skull against stone. Leornars lost all sense of time. All meaning of hunger. He ate rats. Then insects. Then pieces of himself.
"They heal me anyway," he thought, numb.
His organs were removed and restored six times a day. For nine years.
"I watched her die... five hundred million times," he muttered, voice broken in thought. "I don't know what's real anymore."
The floor was too rough. Too many stones poking him. He didn't remember what warmth felt like. Or sunlight. Or laughter.
He only knew cold. And pain. And that no one... no one was coming to save him.
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