Chapter 1: The Glowborn
Sari Wynter was born during the Eclipse Bloom, a night when the moons aligned and cast a shimmering glow over Zephyra. They said those born under its light were cursed or chosen. Sari never knew which one she was.
She lived in the Lower Drift, the edge of Zephyra where the city started to fall apart and the air buzzed with forgotten dreams. The district sat beneath the main floating platforms, where scraps of glittering memory rained down like stardust from the upper cities. There were alleys that whispered and doors that opened only when you were sad enough. Here, emotion wasn't just felt—it haunted the air.
Her mother had disappeared when she was five, leaving behind a box of crystals that pulsed when Sari touched them. They hummed with heat and sorrow, responding only to her. For years, Sari stared at the box, waiting for it to explain itself, or for her mother to return. Neither ever did.
Her only anchor was Lys, a quick-witted dream-dealer who could charm secrets out of shadows. He was a few years older, but they had grown up together—or rather, survived together. He told stories about his sister, who vanished during a Black Harvest raid, and how he learned to bottle dreams to feel close to her.
Lys sold dreams bottled in star-glass vials. He had a supplier in the Moon Market and a buyer in every district. He said dreams were safer than feelings. Sari knew he lied. He used his own product when no one was looking. His addiction stemmed from a tragedy he never spoke about—a sister who burned herself out, unable to contain the grief of a broken bond.
During the day, Sari cleaned stalls and fetched packages for merchants too highborn to descend into the Drift. At night, she read the emotions in the air. Sometimes, she'd sit near the Memory Fountain and watch people's pasts shimmer on the surface like fish in water. She could hear their regrets, their loves, their failures. It overwhelmed her, and yet she couldn't stop listening.
Sari had a gift she didn't understand. She could feel deeper than most. When she laughed, entire buildings glimmered. When she cried, the wind howled. The neighbors noticed but stayed silent. In the Drift, the gifted were hunted or recruited.
One night, during a trade under the floating bridge, a deal went wrong. Lys had arranged to sell a rare dream—one drawn from the last heartbeat of a dying noble. It was illegal, powerful, and raw. But the buyer tried to double-cross him.
A fight broke out. The vial shattered, releasing raw euphoria into the air. The emotion hit Sari like a storm.
She inhaled it by accident. Her emotions exploded.
A storm of glowing threads unraveled from her skin. The ground cracked. Lights flickered across the city. For a moment, it felt like time held its breath.
Memories that weren't hers flooded her mind—a woman screaming, a palace on fire, a child with silver eyes.
And someone was watching.
A tall figure in the distance, cloaked in shadow. Masked. Still. Unmoving.
Before she could blink, he was gone.
The city guard arrived moments later, drawn by the surge. Lys grabbed Sari and they ran, ducking between buildings pulsing with the afterglow of her outburst.
They hid in a forgotten shrine, beneath a broken altar where the old gods of feeling were once worshipped. Lys stared at her like she was a stranger.
"What are you, Sari?"
She couldn't answer. All she knew was that everything had changed. Her veins burned with unspent power. The air around her shimmered. She wasn't normal. She wasn't safe.
And somewhere out there, someone had seen her become something impossible.
---
Chapter 2 : The hollow invitation
The sky cracked the next morning.
It was a soundless rupture—a shimmer like glass tearing open above the city—visible only to those sensitive enough to feel it. Sari watched from her rooftop perch, heart pounding, as a rift appeared in the clouds. Threads of violet light danced across the breach.
And then he came.
Kael arrived with the wind. Cloaked in shadow and wearing a mask of silver thorns, he walked through the Dream Market as if time bent around him. He moved past stunned vendors and drifting memories with the grace of someone who didn't quite belong to this world.
He found Sari alone near the edge of the Market, where abandoned stalls whispered secrets to the dusk. Her power still crackled under her skin, barely contained. She had run from the shrine after Lys disappeared again, terrified of what she had become.
"You're not like them," Kael said. His voice was calm, smooth, like a river hiding jagged rocks.
Sari backed away. "Who are you?"
"Someone who sees what you are becoming."
He held out a token—a coin made of obsidian glass, etched with a single tear. It pulsed with energy that resonated with her core.
"Come to Hollow Keep," he said. "Learn to control it. Or be consumed."
"Why me?"
"Because you survived what should have broken you. Because you felt too deeply and didn't die from it. That makes you dangerous. That makes you rare."
She hesitated. Her mind replayed the moment under the bridge—the power, the fear, the memory of that strange masked figure watching her.
"Is this a trap?"
Kael tilted his head. "All of Etheris is a trap. This is your chance to break free of it."
He walked away without another word, his cloak trailing sparks of starlight.
The coin in Sari's palm was warm.
Later that night, she returned to the shrine. She waited for Lys, but he never came. Instead, she found a message scrawled into the stone wall, glowing faintly: Run.
The guards were closing in. Posters with her face—half-drawn, but unmistakable—were posted on the arches of the Drift. They called her a rogue empath. A threat.
Sari wrapped herself in a borrowed cloak, clutched the obsidian coin, and made her way to the edge of the city.
The path to Hollow Keep was through a sky-rail known only to the gifted. She reached the station by midnight, where a ghost-train made of memory fragments waited in silence.
She stepped aboard.
Zephyra shrank behind her.
Ahead, Hollow Keep rose from the mists like a cathedral built from forgotten emotions—spires of boneglass, walls of woven regret, and towers that pulsed with the weight of unspoken truths.
Sari felt the air shift around her.
Whatever happened next, she could never return to who she was.
---
Chapter Three: The Empath's Trial
The moment Sari stepped onto Hollow Keep's grounds, she felt it—an overwhelming pull of emotions, not her own, but echoes of every soul who had passed through before her. The fortress breathed. Its spires sighed. The very stones wept at dusk.
Hollow Keep stood suspended in the skies by sorrow itself. It was a sanctuary for the gifted and a prison for the unstable. Here, emotions were studied, dissected, and—if possible—mastered.
Sari was escorted through the fog-veiled gates by Kael, who remained a silent shadow at her side. The halls inside were carved from memoryglass, reflecting fractured pieces of visitors' pasts. As she passed, she caught flickers of her mother's face, Lys laughing, the burst of power under the bridge. She turned her head away.
They brought her to the Atrium of Echoes, where the Council of Sentients awaited. Five figures, each wearing a mask of a different emotion: Joy, Grief, Rage, Desire, and Serenity.
"Empath Sari Wynter," said the one in the mask of Grief. "You are to undergo the First Trial. Only then will you earn your place here."
Sari's hands trembled. "What kind of trial?"
Kael stepped back into the shadows. "One of memory. One of truth."
She was led to the Trial Chamber, a vast circular room where the air vibrated with residual emotion. In the center was the Crucible—a bowl of living glass.
"Place your hands inside," instructed the Sentient of Rage. "It will draw out the memory you fear most. And you must face it."
Sari obeyed. The moment her fingers touched the surface, the chamber vanished.
She was five again. Standing in the kitchen of her childhood home. Her mother packed a satchel with trembling hands.
"You have to be strong," her mother whispered, cupping Sari's face. "Never trust the ones who smile too much. And if they ever find you, don't run. Burn."
Then her mother turned, opened the back door, and stepped into the night. And never came back.
The Crucible pulsed. Pain surged in Sari's chest. Her knees buckled, but she did not look away.
The memory faded. She collapsed.
When she awoke, the Council stood around her.
"You did not flinch," said the Sentient of Serenity. "You passed."
They handed her a ring—thin, woven from threads of frozen tears. It shimmered faintly.
"Welcome, Initiate."
Kael helped her stand, his mask unreadable. "This is only the beginning."
As Sari left the chamber, the walls whispered again. But this time, they did not speak of fear. They spoke of fire.
And somewhere deep inside Hollow Keep, something ancient stirred.
---
Chapter 4: The Shattered Crown
Darkness pooled in the skies above Hollow Keep, like ink spreading through water. A restless wind swept across the mountaintop fortress, rustling ancient banners and whistling through the obsidian spires. Sari stood on the edge of the East Watchtower, her eyes fixed on the violet horizon, where clouds gathered like wolves hungry for thunder.
The trials had ended, and she had survived—but something inside her had shifted. She no longer felt like a passenger in her own body. The storm that once loomed inside her heart now whispered at her command. It frightened her, the control... and the craving.
Behind her, footsteps echoed.
"You always watch the sky like you're expecting someone to fall out of it," Kael's voice said lightly. He leaned against the tower wall, a half-smile on his lips, though tension clung to him like armor.
Sari didn't turn. "Maybe I am. Or maybe I'm hoping I won't feel so alone up here."
Kael's expression softened. He stepped closer, the wind tugging at his dark hair. "You're not alone anymore. Etheris doesn't just take. It gives. Sometimes in ways we don't expect."
She looked at him finally, her eyes sharp. "You mean like you. You keep showing up when I need you—and then vanish before I can ask why."
Kael's smirk vanished. "There are things I can't say yet. Not because I don't trust you—but because once I do, there's no turning back."
Before she could press, a bell rang from the lower courtyard—deep, urgent, ancient.
Kael's face darkened. "We need to go. Now."
The central hall of Hollow Keep, once a quiet sanctuary of reflection and magic, had turned into a storm of shouting voices and arcane energy. Council members stood in a circle, surrounding a glowing map of Etheris projected in the air. The kingdom's veins pulsed with threads of light, but one region—Tirith Vale—flickered with growing shadows.
"It's the crown shard," Master Elarion said grimly. "Someone has awakened it."
Murmurs swept the council.
Sari blinked. "Crown shard?"
Kael spoke, his voice low and urgent. "The Kingdom of Etheris was once ruled by the Crown of Empathy—a relic forged from the purest emotional resonance. It kept balance across the lands. When it shattered during the Great Severing, its pieces were scattered, hidden. Sealed."
Elarion gestured to the flickering region. "Tirith Vale was thought lost. A region so deep in despair that not even light returned from its borders. But now, something—or someone—is drawing power from its fragment."
Sari frowned. "What happens if they succeed?"
"Then Etheris will feel everything—and nothing. All at once. Madness. Collapse," Kael answered. "We must go."
The journey to Tirith Vale took them beyond the floating bridges of the central archipelago and into the Hollow Paths—twisting corridors of forgotten ruins that defied time and space. As they traveled, Sari felt the air grow colder, denser. Her emotions—usually in her control—twitched and surged unpredictably.
Beside her, walked Thorne, a battle-mage with a temper like wildfire and a heart forged from pain. He had joined them at the council's command, his presence unwelcoming but necessary.
"You're the one who stirred the storm during the trials," Thorne said. Not a question.
"I didn't mean to."
"Good. Means it's real. Means it'll be worse next time."
Sari narrowed her eyes. "Thanks for the pep talk."
Thorne shrugged, his armored shoulder clinking. "Just don't lose it when it matters. Tirith Vale doesn't forgive mistakes."
They crossed the Vale's threshold just before dusk. The moment their feet touched its soil, the wind died. The trees here had no leaves—just branches stretched like skeletal fingers toward a sky that never changed. A haze rolled along the ground like fog, but thicker. Hungrier.
As they moved, they found signs of life—twisted and wrong. A village where the people whispered to walls. A child who laughed at things no one else could see. Emotions bled into reality here. Pain took shape. Grief became shadow.
"Don't think too loud," Kael warned. "It listens."
They reached the heart of Tirith Vale three days later. A cathedral of black crystal rose from the land like a wound. At its peak burned a shard of the crown—hovering, pulsing. Beneath it, a figure waited.
She was cloaked in memory, wrapped in gold and regret. Her eyes mirrored Sari's.
Kael swore. "Aurianna."
Sari stepped forward. "Who is she?"
"My sister," Kael said. "And the one who nearly destroyed Etheris."
Aurianna smiled, not cruelly, but with a sadness that made the ground tremble.
"You brought her to me," she said, stepping down from the dais. "The storm-girl. The new empath queen."
Sari stiffened. "I'm no queen."
"Not yet," Aurianna replied. "But you will be—unless you die here."
And the cathedral screamed to life.
The fight wasn't physical—it was emotional warfare. Aurianna unleashed waves of despair, sorrow so thick it made Sari's bones ache. Visions of her childhood fears, the memory of her mother's voice, her father's abandonment—all crashed against her like tidal waves.
Kael and Thorne fought to hold the shadows back, but only Sari could confront the source.
She knelt, overwhelmed. Tears streamed down her face—but they glowed. Her emotions weren't weakness. They were power. They were hers.
"You don't win by erasing pain," she whispered. "You win by surviving it."
The shard pulsed. The ground fractured.
Sari rose, hands glowing with energy drawn from her every wound, her every joy. She stepped into the storm Aurianna summoned and pulled it into herself.
With a cry that shattered the cathedral's walls, she claimed the crown shard.
When the dust cleared, Aurianna was gone—vanished into mist. The shard hovered before Sari, cracked but silent.
Thorne stared at her like he was seeing something divine.
Kael stepped closer. "You've awakened it. The first shard."
Sari took a breath, steady and calm. "Then let's find the rest."
The journey had only begun.