Windmere Village lay hidden like a whisper between the ridges of two sleepy hills. Its people lived simple lives—honest, quiet, and untouched by the politics or pride of the nobility that ran the Clover Kingdom. To the outside world, Windmere was irrelevant. To its people, it was home.
Fifteen-year-old *Kael* had known nothing else.
He spent his days helping his father repair roofs, fetch well water, and tend to the vegetable fields his mother adored. His favorite part of each day was when his little sister, *Mira*, would run to meet him at dusk, eyes wide with stories only six-year-olds could invent.
Kael didn't have a grimoire. He was born with low magic—not magicless like some—but not enough to be noticed. Sometimes he could make a spark or bend a breeze on a good day, but that was it.
Still, he didn't mind.
Windmere was peaceful. Safe.
Until it wasn't.
—
It began with a scream.
Kael had gone to the well late one evening, pulling the rope up slowly, humming to himself. The sun had dipped below the western hill, painting the sky in dusty orange. The air felt... wrong. The wind stilled. The birds that normally chirped at dusk had gone silent.
Then the scream.
He dropped the bucket.
Kael ran. His legs pounded the dirt path as smoke began to rise into the sky. Fire—orange, angry, alive—licked the roofs of houses. People ran in chaos, shouting, crying, some trying to fight back with weak water magic or wind barriers.
But the attackers were too strong.
Bandits. Maybe a dozen. Cloaked in black and crimson, bearing no official insignia, only hatred in their magic. Kael saw one raise his hand and fire a massive *Exploding Ember* spell that tore through a grain store.
He ducked behind a fence, heart racing.
His mind screamed: *Find Mira. Find Mom. Find Dad.*
He ran toward his house, leaping over fallen wood and broken tools, coughing as the smoke thickened. The garden he and his mother tended together was already charred. He turned the corner—
—and froze.
His home was half-collapsed. Flames clawed at the walls, the roof caving in. A figure lay near the entrance—his father.
"D-Dad!" Kael stumbled forward.
His father's hand twitched. Blood pooled beneath him. "K… Kael… run… take your sister…"
Kael dropped to his knees. "Where's Mira? Where is she!?"
His father raised a shaking hand toward the back of the house.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He ran around to the back where a hidden trapdoor to the storage cellar was. It was open.
"Mira!" he shouted, coughing hard now. "It's me! Are you in there!?"
"Kael…?" came a tiny voice.
He climbed down quickly and found her huddled in the corner, clutching a stuffed rabbit. Her face was streaked with tears and ash.
"I was scared," she whispered.
Kael pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. "It's okay. I've got you."
But the peace was short-lived.
A loud crash echoed from above—the house collapsing fully.
Kael looked up in panic. The cellar groaned. A beam fell across the trapdoor, sealing them in.
"Mira, hold on to me!" he cried, wrapping her in his arms. The world above them cracked and screamed.
And then...
Darkness.
—
He didn't know how long he was out.
A strange sound stirred him—a deep hum, like wind blowing through glass. Kael opened his eyes, blinking dust and tears away. The world above had gone silent. Mira was limp in his arms.
He shook her gently. "Mira…?"
She didn't move.
Kael's breath caught. "No. No, no, no. Please…"
Her skin was pale. Too still.
He pressed her close and screamed.
A cry of agony that rose through the shattered earth and touched the wind.
Then he heard it.
The humming again—this time stronger, closer.
From the rubble above him, light broke through—a soft, eerie glow that wasn't fire.
Something floated down slowly.
A *grimoire*.
Not an ordinary one.
Its cover was pitch black, almost like it absorbed the light around it. Crimson lines pulsed along its spine. As it descended, Kael could see it clearly:
A *six-leaf clover*.
He'd never seen one, never even read of such a thing. The old rhyme whispered through his mind:
*"The first leaf is for hope, the second for faith, the third for love, the fourth for luck…"*
The fifth was rare—*despair*.
But this?
This was *unknown*.
As it came within reach, Kael instinctively raised a shaking hand.
The moment his fingers touched it, the grimoire flared.
A wave of power exploded outward, blasting away the debris above. The beam trapping the trapdoor splintered. Wind swirled unnaturally, and Kael was lifted to his feet by invisible force.
The pages of the grimoire flipped wildly before stopping at one spell.
His eyes glazed as the words filled his mind.
*"Unbind: Chaotic Reversal."*
He raised his hand toward the rubble, mana surging into his limbs in a way he'd never felt before.
A burst of unstable wind and dark energy tore through the trapdoor, ripping the debris to dust.
Kael carried Mira's small body and climbed out.
Windmere was gone.
A few huts smoldered.
Bodies lay where they had fallen.
The bandits had long vanished.
Kael stood among the ash, holding his sister, grimoire hovering beside him.
Tears ran down his cheeks.
He couldn't save anyone.
But now… something had changed.
A power inside him burned—not like flame, but like a storm without rules. Wild. Raw. Alive.
And it whispered.
*"If the world would burn you, then return the favor. Let chaos be your fire."*
Kael didn't answer.
He only turned toward the road.
He walked alone, carrying memory and magic darker than any boy his age should bear.
And behind him, Windmere blew away in the breeze—ashes scattered like petals in the wind.
---
Kael didn't know how long he'd been walking.
The road was cracked in places, barely used. Forests loomed on either side, dense and watchful. The wind whispered through the leaves like voices muttering secrets he couldn't understand.
His boots—once clean—were caked in mud and ash. His cloak had torn near the shoulder, and he hadn't eaten since the night before the attack.
But he didn't stop.
Not when his legs burned.
Not when the sun set and rose again.
Not even when his stomach growled like a beast.
All he carried was the tattered stuffed rabbit Mira had held. It was tucked inside his cloak now, close to his heart. His six-leaf grimoire floated silently behind him, as if tethered to his soul. Sometimes it pulsed faintly, like it was… breathing.
Kael passed through smaller villages—quiet ones—never speaking. He kept to himself, sleeping near riverbanks and eating only when kind strangers offered bread. Most couldn't look at him for long; the presence of his grimoire made them uneasy, as though their instincts warned them he wasn't normal.
And he wasn't.
Not anymore.
On the fifth day of walking, it rained. Cold, merciless sheets of water.
Kael didn't complain.
The storm mirrored the one in his heart.
At night, he dreamed.
Flames. Screams. Mira's voice.
"Kael, are you coming to play?"
And then silence.
He would jolt awake, breathing hard, hand already half-raised for a spell that never needed casting.
By the seventh day, his legs had grown unsteady. His mana—though strangely vast—was unstable, exhausting him faster than it should. He was learning that the power of the sixth leaf came with a cost: it was unpredictable, chaotic, and it fought back when forced.
His body hadn't caught up to the energy his soul now held.
Still, he kept walking.
Until, at last—beyond the trees and fields—he saw it.
*The Royal Capital*
It rose like a crown carved from stone and magic. Walls stretched high into the sky, and massive towers gleamed under the sunlight. Even from a distance, Kael could feel the mana radiating from it—disciplined, elegant, and powerful.
His legs nearly gave out at the sight.
*He had made it.*
And yet… he couldn't take joy in it.
Because this wasn't a homecoming. It was the beginning of something else. Something darker.
He approached the capital's outer gates, where guards stood tall with spears and ornate cloaks. People bustled in and out—nobles in enchanted carriages, commoners with market wares, soldiers on horseback.
Kael tried to walk upright, but the weight of the journey, grief, and raw, untamed mana pressed down on him.
His vision blurred.
Just a few more steps.
A guard narrowed his eyes at the boy approaching alone, his clothes torn, eyes hollow.
"Hey—are you alright?" the man called, stepping forward.
Kael opened his mouth to respond.
But his knees buckled.
His grimoire flickered and dropped beside him.
The world tilted sideways.
He fell hard onto the stone path just in front of the gates.
Everything went black.
—
A few moments later, one of the guards crouched beside him.
"Poor kid's burning up," he muttered. "And this grimoire… I've never seen one like it."
Another guard leaned closer and frowned. "A six-leaf clover...? What in the gods' names…"
They shared a look.
"Get him inside."
The first nodded. "Yeah. Whoever he is… we'll need to keep an eye on this one."
The clouds rolled in overhead.
And Kael slept, unaware that his life was about to be forever tied to the fate of the kingdom… and the shadow within its heart.