Episode 1 – The Wrong Summon
Soulbound: Throne of the Forsaken
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Zane Virell had never known peace.
It was a quiet, constant ache in his chest, a gnawing sense of wrongness that clung to him like the smog of the city. His hoodie, drenched from the downpour, weighed heavily on his shoulders, but that didn't matter. He had bigger problems. Always did.
The thugs down below were no different from the rest of the world. They saw someone weak—someone like them—and they thought they could push him around.
They were wrong.
Zane's fists were sharp as razors, cutting through the air with brutal precision. His knee slammed into one thug's stomach, lifting him off his feet with a sickening crack. The other two tried to circle around him, but Zane had the advantage. He always did.
Even when he didn't want it.
His blood, hot with adrenaline, surged through his veins as he danced around them—moving like he had nothing to lose. And maybe he didn't. He barely felt anything anymore.
It wasn't about fighting. It wasn't even about winning.
It was about surviving.
He drove his elbow into the back of the third thug's skull, hearing a satisfying crunch, and the world felt quiet again. Too quiet.
His breath came in sharp gasps. The adrenaline faded like the remnants of a bad dream. He staggered back to the edge of the roof, staring down into the dark streets below.
No one cared. Not really.
You'll die alone. You always have, always will.
The thought was heavy, but it wasn't new. He'd learned to carry it with him a long time ago.
Zane sank to his knees on the rooftop, head bowed. The cold rain trickled down his face, mixing with the blood from his knuckles. He didn't even flinch at the sting. The cold was a familiar numbness.
He looked up to the sky, his expression vacant. His chest rose and fell in rhythm with the rain.
No one's coming for me. Not in this world. Not anywhere.
That was the truth. And as much as it hurt to admit, Zane had made peace with it long ago.
The sounds of the city—sirens, car alarms, shouts—seemed to fade away as his thoughts spiraled. The weight of the world was pressing down on him.
Was this it?
The thought lingered, threatening to crush him. He had no purpose, no hope. Just… this. Just the pain. The endless, suffocating silence.
And then, in a blink, it shattered.
He didn't feel the fall.
One moment, he was staring at the rain-soaked city, the next—he was gone.
---
He didn't land. He didn't feel anything, not at first.
He wasn't in the city anymore. No longer was he perched on a rooftop, rain-soaked and broken.
He was... elsewhere.
All around him, light swirled like an endless storm. The colors were indescribable—like fire, but colder, like a star being torn apart. He couldn't see, couldn't move. He wasn't even sure he had a body.
But then came the voices.
A thousand voices—or was it more?—calling out in pain, pleading, chanting, shouting.
This isn't real.
Zane's thoughts struggled to take hold, to assert some sort of control. But the voices only grew louder.
"NO! STOP!"
"—isn't supposed to—"
"—must take him, the soul—"
What the hell is happening?
The world around him fractured into flashes of light, and before he could understand it, everything was pulled apart.
The sensation of being torn, ripped, was almost unbearable. His soul was stretched to its limits, every inch of him feeling like it was being split apart—each fiber, each moment of existence, shredded—until he couldn't even remember who or where he was.
Then—
Darkness.
Not empty, not quiet. But heavy, suffocating. The kind of dark that presses down on your chest until it's hard to breathe.
Then, it stopped.
Just like that, the weight of the world lifted.
---
Zane hit the ground hard. The impact was brutal, the kind of pain that rattled his bones. His head slammed against cold stone, his body twisting with the aftershocks of that violent fall. He gasped, struggling for air as the harsh scent of metal and dust filled his senses.
He could barely move. His body felt like it was made of stone, too heavy to lift, too broken to escape.
What was happening?
He blinked, his vision swimming, and as he regained his senses, the first thing he saw was the circle.
A massive summoning circle stretched beneath him, glowing with a sinister red light. The runes carved into the stone seemed to writhe as though alive, hungry. They bled into the ground like ink into paper. He could feel the power of them, pushing against him, testing him.
Standing around the circle were several cloaked figures, their faces obscured, but their energy unmistakable. The air around them hummed with magic.
Zane tried to sit up, his body refusing to obey. He wanted to speak, but his mouth felt dry—his throat too tight.
One of the figures stepped forward, their voice cold and commanding.
"Is he the one?"
Another figure, taller, leaned in, eyes wide with panic. "No. This is… this is the wrong soul. We—!"
But the first figure raised a hand to silence him. "It is too late." The words dripped with authority.
The circle flared, the runes sparking with unnatural energy. Zane's chest felt like it was being torn open, like something was digging inside him. His heart raced, panic tightening his throat.
"What did you do?" he rasped, his voice barely a whisper, but the figure's face twisted into an expression of disbelief.
"Impossible…"
And then, something else happened.
Zane felt the presence—a force, ancient and vast, crawling into his very soul. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was there. Something far older than these robed figures. Something… otherworldly.
It wasn't a voice, not in the way he understood it. But it was a presence. It spoke through him.
"I am the Echo of Veyrion. I was bound once—no longer."
Zane's body jerked as if the words had physically struck him. His vision blurred, flickering between light and shadow. The robed figures staggered back, mouths agape, horror written across their faces.
"What have you done?" one of them choked out.
The presence in Zane's chest burned with fury. It was the voice of an old god—a being that had existed for millennia and been killed, erased, forgotten. But it wasn't just speaking through him. It was binding him, welding their fate together in the most horrifying way possible.
And then everything around him shattered, the runes exploding in blinding white light.
---
Zane awoke with a jolt, his head pounding. He was no longer in that dark chamber.
He was in chains.
He felt the cold bite of iron against his wrists, his legs shackled to the stone floor. Panic set in. His heart hammered in his chest.
He twisted, trying to rise, but he was pinned to the floor by the runes carved into the walls around him. The symbols hummed with dark energy. He tried to focus, but his thoughts were clouded, every part of him feeling like it wasn't his own.
Footsteps echoed across the chamber.
A figure stepped into his blurry vision—tall, clad in silver plate, their face hidden beneath a heavy hood. The air around them crackled with divine energy.
"You are awake," the figure said, voice cold and flat, devoid of warmth or mercy. "You should not be. The soulbinding was not meant for you."
Zane blinked, the words swimming in his mind. Soulbinding.
He wasn't sure what it meant—but he was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing.
The figure raised a hand, and Zane felt an oppressive pressure suffocate his chest. "By decree of the Sevenfold Council, you are to be executed."
"Executed?" Zane rasped. "For what? Just existing?"
The figure's lips curled into a cold, humorless smile. "For the crime of being."
Zane felt his anger flare. He couldn't move, couldn't fight back—but that didn't mean he wouldn't make them regret it.
He had nothing left to lose.