Raoul Vexholm

Snow storm whip against the jagged ruins of the Old Ones, sparks of metal scattering across frozen plains. Machines prowled the forests, their glowing eyes piercing the gray, movements precise and deadly. I was born with markings that set me apart runes glowing beneath my skin like living wires. The tribe feared me. My mother was the same as his, but our fathers were different, and we were forbidden to know of each other. My father trained me, teaching me to fight, climb, survive but he could not teach me my power. I had to master it alone: bending machines to my will, sensing hidden paths, reading my markings, and slipping into ruins abandoned for centuries. Sometimes, I glimpsed him my brother through snow-choked canyons, across frozen rivers, in the shadow of a Sawtooth, and I felt a connection I could not name. Once, I dared to approach him and the other kids, hoping for warmth, and to play and to feel like i belong and he shoved me from a cliff into icy waters. I survived, but hatred rooted deep, cold as the horizon itself. Now, I must uncover the truth of our connection. I moved through the Horizon wilds like a shadow, climbing towers, crossing frozen canyons, hunting, scavenging, surviving. Tallnecks strode across the horizon like living mountains, revealing paths to hidden ruins. Every machine I tamed, every ruin I explored, every challenge I endured sharpened me, shaping a survivor the tribe could never imagine. The boy I despised though I did not know he was my brother was my measure, the unspoken challenge fueling every step. One day, our paths will collide not as siblings, but as enemies shaped by forces older than memory. And when that moment comes, I will remind him of the cliff, the icy waters, and the power I was born with a power he could never understand, even as the hidden link between us trembles across the frozen horizon.