The realm of the gods was too bright to ever feel real.
Even at night, the sky glowed gold instead of black, lit by drifting stars that never moved. Towers made of pearl and fire floated above gardens where birds sang in forgotten languages. Bridges spun from starlight stretched between mountain palaces, and the air always smelled faintly of smoke, flowers, and something older—like dust from the beginning of time.
It was beautiful. It was eternal.
It was not home.
Idyll walked barefoot through the Great Hall of Deeds, the largest place in the sky-realm, and maybe the quietest. The floor was smooth and cold beneath his feet, made from glassy black stone. Pillars soared above him, carved with swirling patterns and wrapped in floating ribbons of gold. Every wall shimmered with stories—thousands of them—etched into the stone in glowing lines.
These were the legends of the gods.
Every triumph. Every war. Every miracle.
Idyll knew most of them by heart.
He stopped at one of his favorites—Kael the Thunder-Wielder, who cracked open the sky to pull a dying sun back to life. The carving showed Kael's hammer mid-swing, lightning bursting in every direction. It looked alive, even though it hadn't changed in a thousand years.
"I'd have caught the sun before it started dying," Idyll muttered. "Would've been smarter."
His voice echoed just a little, then faded.
He didn't belong here. Not really.
The gods all glowed. They had wings, or halos, or eyes like burning stars. They floated when they walked and left trails of light behind them.
Idyll was just… a boy. Dark-skinned, with a wide jaw and strong arms, always a little scuffed up from climbing places he wasn't supposed to go. He wasn't glowing. He didn't float. His only strange trait—besides being found in the sky-realm as a baby—was his strength. He was strong enough to lift statues, crack stone, punch holes in walls. But even that wasn't enough to make him a god.
He wasn't human. He wasn't divine. He was something else.
He touched the base of the carving, careful not to smudge the glowing lines. "I'll have my name up here someday," he whispered.
"You always talk to the walls, or just the famous ones?"
Idyll spun around, startled.
Thessa stood near the entrance, holding a scroll to her chest. She was dressed in layered robes the color of ink and ash, her white hair tied back with a piece of twine. Like all scribes, she looked Idyll's age—but she'd told him once, in a rare moment of honesty, that she was over a thousand years old.
"I don't talk to walls," Idyll said.
She stepped closer, raising one eyebrow. "You were whispering."
"I was thinking."
"Out loud."
He sighed. "Why are you here?"
"I work here," she said. "Unlike you."
He grinned. "You missed me."
"I missed silence."
Thessa walked to a nearby wall and glanced at one of the carvings. "You've read all of these. Do you actually believe them?"
"Of course I do."
She tapped one line of script with her finger. "This one says a god turned himself into a giant bird and sneezed out an ocean."
"Okay, maybe not that one," Idyll admitted. "But most of them. I mean—somebody had to do all this. Somebody had to shape the world, fight the monsters, teach the mortals."
"And now they sit in palaces drinking light-wine and waiting for someone to write something new about them." She looked at him. "You think they'll let you in just because you read their stories?"
"No," Idyll said. "That's why I'm going to write my own."
She studied him for a long second. Her gaze was sharp but not unkind.
"You really think going to the mortal world is going to fix everything? That you'll walk into a village, kill a monster, save a king, and come back a god?"
He shrugged. "Not right away. But maybe."
"Idyll—" she started, then stopped. Her expression softened, but only slightly. "You're strong. And stubborn. And reckless. But legend isn't just about doing something big. It's about being something… more."
"I don't know what I am," he said quietly. "But I know I won't find out by staying here."
She didn't respond right away. The Hall seemed even more silent than before. Outside, golden wind rustled the feathers of the starbirds perched on the domes.
Then Thessa sighed.
"I wasn't planning on being part of a legend," she said. "I prefer writing about them."
"You could do both," Idyll said, stepping closer. "Come with me. Be my scribe. Write the first story that starts with someone like me."
She narrowed her eyes, but he saw the flicker of curiosity behind them. "And if it turns out you're not a hero?"
He smirked. "Then write that too."
After a long pause, she nodded.
"The gate opens in three nights. If you're late, I leave without you."
Idyll's face lit up. "You won't regret it."
"I already do."
She turned to go, scroll still clutched tight.
Before she disappeared into the archway, her voice floated back.
"Careful what you wish for, Idyll. Stories have a way of changing the people inside them."
Her footsteps faded. The Hall was silent again.
Idyll turned back to the wall.
He found the one he always came back to.
Aramis the Flame-Born, god of strength and stormfire. Towering above an army of giants in the carving, flames wrapped around his fists, hair like a comet blazing across the sky.
It wasn't Idyll's favorite story. But it was the first one he ever saw.
He'd been six the first time he snuck into the Hall. A priest had caught him wandering near the outer gates of the sky-realm—alone, barefoot, with no mark of god or mortal. Not even the oldest scribes could say where he'd come from. No divine parent claimed him. No records mentioned a boy like him.
The gods didn't know what to do with him. So they didn't do much at all.
They gave him food, shelter, space to roam. A few priests taught him to read, mostly to keep him out of trouble. The others avoided him. Some watched him when they thought he wasn't looking.
Aramis had been the first god to speak to him.
Just once.
A single word.
"Strange."
Then he walked away, never looking back.
Idyll had memorized every line of his story after that.
He stared up at the carving now, jaw tight.
"You'll see," he whispered. "All of you will. I may not belong to the gods. But the world down there?" He touched the center of his chest. "That's where I'll find out who I am."
Outside, somewhere far below the glowing clouds and silver bridges, the mortal world waited. Dirty, dangerous, alive.
And full of stories not yet written.