Chapter 7 — Under a Fading Sky
The boy noticed the sky first.
It wasn’t dramatic. No thunder. No explosion.
Just a star that shouldn’t have been visible at this time of year — flickering above the western ridge.
Kael squinted from the rooftop of his family’s storage house, wiping sweat from his brow. The harvest fires burned low below him, and the village square buzzed with tired laughter.
But the star pulsed.
Once.
Then steadied.
“That’s new,” he muttered.
He’d mapped the sky since he was ten. He knew the constellations better than most traveling scholars. That light didn’t belong there.
Behind him, someone called his name.
“Kael! Stop staring at nothing and come help!”
He ignored them.
The star flickered again — brighter this time.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
And then the air changed.
Not cold. Not hot.
Heavy.
The laughter in the square faltered.
A dog began barking wildly.
Kael stood slowly.
The star dimmed — then something dark moved across it.
Not a cloud.
Something passing in front of it.
His breath hitched.
“Okay… that’s not normal.”
A tremor rolled through the ground — subtle, but enough to rattle loose stones from the rooftop edge.
A woman screamed below.
Kael leaned over the side and saw it:
A thin crack forming in the air above the well in the center of the square.
Not lightning.
Not smoke.
A fracture.
Like glass under pressure.
The villagers backed away in panic.
The crack widened.
And something began to press against it from the other side.
Kael’s heart pounded.
This wasn’t a storm.
This wasn’t bandits.
This wasn’t anything the elders had stories about.
The fracture split open.
Silence swallowed the square.
From within the tear, darkness spilled — not spreading, but observing.
The torches dimmed.
The animals went quiet.
And then—
A figure stepped through.
Not monstrous.
Not armored.
Just a man.
Silver hair catching the firelight.
Eyes faintly gold.
He looked around slowly, as if the world were unfamiliar.
The crack in the sky sealed behind him.
The villagers stood frozen.
Kael swallowed.
The man’s gaze moved across the square — then stopped.
On him.
For a moment, the weight of it felt unbearable.
Not threatening.
Just… immense.
“You can see me,” the man said quietly.
Kael’s voice barely worked. “You… you just tore the sky.”
The man looked upward briefly, as if considering that.
“It was already breaking,” he replied.
A distant rumble echoed from beyond the hills.
Not thunder.
Something deeper.
The man’s expression shifted — not fear, but recognition.
“It followed.”
Kael’s stomach dropped. “What followed?”
The air above the village shimmered.
And high above the clouds—
Something enormous moved.
