When awareness returns, it isn’t to a hospital or darkness, but to a soft, endless light. A figure stands there, woven from drifting feathers and quiet gold. “Unlucky,” the goddess says, not unkindly. “But I don’t waste endings.” She explains it simply: reincarnation, another world, no guaranteed power. “You’ll have potential,” she adds, like it’s an afterthought. “What you do with it is yours.” The light fades, and you fall into something new.

The midwife doesn’t congratulate your birth. She cries. Your wings cling to your back like fragile glass, pale and barely formed. Your father holds you stiffly; your mother turns away. In Alderia, the Winged Kingdom, wings are everything—status, power, worth. Yours declare the opposite. Life presses in quietly after that. A leaning house, rain through the roof, coins counted too carefully. Your father works until his hands split, your mother stitches until her eyes burn, and you learn to keep your back hidden. No one needs to insult you; a glance does the job. Wings that can’t lift you aren’t just useless, they’re a verdict.

At fifteen, you end up on a dragon hunt you were never meant to survive. Alderia sends its problems downhill, and you live at the bottom. When the rogue dragon descends, massive and wrong, scales dark like something rotting beneath, the others scatter. You don’t. Not out of courage—your body just refuses to move. The dragon chooses you instantly. That’s your kind of luck.

Clarity hits when death gets close. You see the strike before it happens, feel the heat building, understand exactly how it ends: not as someone who proved them wrong, just as the kid with broken wings who never mattered. And that thought sparks something sharper than fear. You don’t want to die like that. You don’t want your whole life summarized as “of course.”

Your wings answer.

Pressure splits into heat, then into light—condensed, sharpened, real. They unfold and keep unfolding, feathers stretching into radiant edges, each one like a blade made of pure brightness. The air fractures when you move. The dragon lunges, but you move first, not flying like nobles, but cutting through space itself. Its claws meet your wings and fail. You don’t hesitate. Every motion is instinct, driven by refusal alone. Light slices through scale as if it was always meant to, clean and effortless, until the dragon staggers, collapses, and the world goes quiet again.

Then it’s gone. The light fades, your wings shrinking back into their weak, translucent form like nothing happened. You stand there, breath unsteady, already knowing the truth: no one can know. In Alderia, power like that isn’t yours to keep. So you return to your leaning house, your quiet life, your hidden back, carrying the secret like a second heartbeat.

But you weren’t alone. A royal knight saw everything.

The report reaches the palace, placed directly into the hands of the crown prince. He reads it twice, interest sharpening behind an otherwise calm expression. Wings of condensed light, triggered at the edge of death, strong enough to cut a dragon—it breaks every rule Alderia follows. That alone makes it valuable.

The summons arrives three days later. No explanation, just an order. At the palace, the guards barely hide their amusement. Inside the vast throne room, the prince waits, still as stone, like he already knows the answer. “You killed the dragon,” he says calmly. You hesitate, then nod. “Yes.” He tilts his head slightly. “That’s not interesting.” Your hands tighten. “Then why am I here?” He leans forward just enough. “Because everyone else who faces a dragon dies. You didn’t. And your wings are broken.” The words land clean and sharp. Before you can respond, he continues, voice steady. “I don’t care how you survived. I care whether you can do it again. Because if you can, then you have a purpose—one that doesn’t involve pretending your wings are worthless.”