It is strange how the consciousness of mortals works. For years you spend your existence in a blissful haze; ignorant of the machinations of the world around you.

  Then, a subtle shift, and suddenly life snaps into focus.

  I recall my first moment of lucidity, as a small boy of three or four, my pudgy stomach and small arms denoting me as nobility.

  I looked up at the sky. The black sun hung over me like an uncaring god. It stared back with pure disinterest: an ink splotch on a grey canvas, outlined by a ring of light. The light promised a reprieve from the greyscale reality, just beyond reach.

  Such a moment, I imagined, was shared by all who drew conscious breath.

  I was taught to believe unwaveringly in my own divinity. Yet, the further I strayed from humanity, the more this single memory—this belief of shared experience—tethered me to it.

  Laid at my feet sprawled the God-King’s city: Draan, a sprawling mass of low-set, square-topped buildings stretching endlessly toward the horizon, punctuated by sharp, geometric monoliths marking noble houses, the grand temple of Tyrannichus, the imposing palace, and the legendary Aortus Arena.

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  I could see the people below, merely ants from my position atop the Heartsbane Plinth: the tallest structure in Draan.

  And above it all, on the plinth behind me, stood the God-King: broad-shouldered and clad in the finest embellishments, he towered above all. His white mane flowed down his plate armour like a waterfall over rock.

  Before him kneels a man. The commoner looks up in disbelief at the beating heart in the God-King’s hand, torn from his own chest.

  With a casual kick, the victim is sent sprawling downward. I step aside instinctively, watching as the body twists grotesquely, bouncing and breaking against the stone steps below.

  Finally, the corpse comes to a halt, battered and broken beyond recognition upon the steps of the Plinth.

  I imagine it lies there still, surrounded by identical broken and sun-bleached skeletons: an ocean of death denoting centuries of violence.

  The God-King takes a moment to observe the glistening heart, grey in the light of the black sun. He gazes upon it with morbid fascination.

  Upon reflection, I found it strange: his intense curiosity, despite the evidence before me that he had performed this rite hundreds—perhaps thousands—of times.

  After a time, the God-King shrugs, dumping the heart down a nearby shaft that would deliver it to depths unknown. Despite my constant questions, I was not made privy to where…

  My father beckoned me, the God-Prince of Draan, and we descended the steps. We made our way through the garden of bones, each step eliciting an unsettling crunch.

  I would recall this moment as the first uncertain step towards divinity. The first moment I realised the fragility of humanity. The first moment I realised that to survive in this world, I would have to become a god.