The sky cracked like old parchment above the village of Drenn. Not with thunder—there was no storm—but with something stranger. The clouds had stopped moving three days ago. Not drifting, not shifting, just… still. Painted overhead in a wash of ashen gray, unmoving even under the fiercest winds that howled down from the Moorreach Mountains.
Kael stood on the roof of his family's cottage, a makeshift satchel slung over his shoulder, filled with stolen bread, a flint striker, and a silver coin so old the king's face had worn smooth. His boots were wet with dew and ash.
Something had changed.
At first, the villagers ignored the signs. Cows calved early. Shadows stretched too far at noon. A child spoke in a language she had never learned, then forgot it the next day. But then came the Stillness. The clouds. And the light—pale and silver, like moonlight at midday.
Kael didn't know why he was leaving. Not really. Just that he had to. He could feel it in the soles of his feet and the pit of his stomach: the world was turning, but not in the way it used to.
Below him, the village square was empty, except for Old Wren, the blacksmith, who hadn't spoken since the night his forge had roared with green fire and melted through stone. He sat with a hammer in his lap, staring at the sky.
Kael jumped down from the roof and didn't look back.
The trees on the edge of the forest bowed toward him, like they'd been waiting. He stepped into the gloom beneath the canopy, and the wind fell silent.
Somewhere far beyond the woods, where the old road split like a broken bone, something ancient stirred beneath the earth. Something that remembered fire and ice, blood and song.
And it had just noticed Kael.