Prologue

A wave of pain washed over me as the heat became unbearable. I was sweating bullets, and my long black coat was only making things worse.

I reached inside my coat and brought out my only possession: a large knife with a curiously shaped blade. As the heat rose, I saw it begin to steam.

I needed to get out. Now.

"You cannot escape us, Kylar Deatheyes!" a voice called.

Another voice chimed in, one that I knew well but couldn't remember.

"I'm sorry, Kylar, but this needs to be done." The voice seemed to taunt me, sitting just beyond my memory. Not that I had a memory anymore.

I had woken up this morning in this cell with a blank mind. No memory. Just a black coat, a knife, and a perception in my grey eyes that no other man had.

The door wasn't blocked, but every time I tried to exit a fireball came through. But now I had no choice: run or die. I took a step out, and was nearly knocked over by a ball of flame. In a reflex action, I hurled my knife at the man who had launched it from his spinning Charkams, knocking him down.

Another man walked slowly towards me, showing no sign of fear at all. On the contrary, he seemed to inspire me with a feeling of… no, not fear exactly, but apprehension. "No matter who you kill, no matter what you do, you cannot escape your fate, Kylar Deatheyes. You are still only a boy". He seemed to speak into my mind.

I ground my teeth. "Don't call me that!" I yelled. I knocked him down and stared into his eyes. One of my powers was the ability to see into people's soul, and see what crimes they had committed. This man was… Empty. I could see no soul in his eyes, no crimes, no events, no good deeds, nothing. It was as if he had no soul, but that couldn't be possible… Could it?

Then I saw a large spiked axe come swinging at me. It caught me on the ankle with the flat of the blade, tripping me, but I lashed out with my knife twice, which gave the man wielding the axe an X shaped cut on his forehead. He cried out: "How could you strike your own father in this manner?" I ignored him. Until I was safely away, he was not my father.

I leaped over a broken wall, barely avoiding a blonde girl with bladed steel knuckles. She seemed startled. "Kylar, I thought you were-"

I swerved around her, and dodged away. There was an explosion behind me, but I didn't heed it. My entire mind was focused on escape. Then a buffet of cold water struck me with such force that it lifted me. I saw the edge of a building as I flew over it. Then I was falling. I barely caught onto a railing on the edge of the opposite building, and I chanced a look back. I saw four men and one girl all dressed in long black coats standing at the edge of the balcony, hoods hiding their faces. I dropped from the building onto the back of a passing wagon. Exhaustion took me then, and I slept. When I woke, the wagon had stopped, and I was in the royal city of Mel-Hale.