The boy awoke with dirt in his mouth and stars in his eyes.
He lay just beyond the boundary stones of Hollowbarrow—again. The same spot where the grass never grew right. The same ridge where the wind always sounded like whispering.
Above him, the sky was still dark, the constellations skewed by a thin veil of cloud. Cold air rolled in off the sea, sharp and salt-bitten. Far below, waves battered the cliffs with slow, steady violence.
His hands were scraped. His breath came fast, like he'd been running through dreams that chased him all night.
Again.
He pushed himself up, brushing grit from his palms. There were no wounds, no footprints, no sign of where he'd come from—or how he'd ended up here. Just that same humming sensation under his skin. That warmth. That ache. That... pull.
The dream was fading already, slipping away like smoke from wet wood, but the last moment always stayed.
The sky had split open.
And something had called him.
Not a voice exactly. Not words. But a knowing. A presence.
It said: You.
It wasn't the first time.
Down the slope, the oil lanterns of Hollowbarrow flickered dimly along the crooked paths. The village slept uneasily. The watchposts were silent. The old iron bells hadn't rung. No search parties. No shouted names.
They didn't come for him anymore.
They were used to his disappearances.
And too afraid to ask why.
"You wake under stars again."
The boy turned.
The old man stood at the edge of the path, barefoot in frost-bitten grass, his breath curling in the air like incense smoke. His robes were layered and patched, more tradition than protection. His eyes were pale—nearly colorless, like old river stones worn smooth by time.
Ruhn.
The last seer of Hollowbarrow. Keeper of fading rites. Too quiet for a town that no longer wanted omens.
He had raised the boy. Or at least fed him, clothed him, spoken to him when no one else would. He never said why. Never claimed to know the boy's name. If the boy had one.
The boy nodded. "It was the dream again."
Ruhn's jaw worked side to side, thoughtful. "You remember it?"
"Only the voice," the boy said. "And light. Splitting."
Ruhn looked past him, toward the edge of the cliffs. The wind pushed at his robes like it meant to carry him away.
"Go back," Ruhn said. "Before they wake. Before they notice you're gone. Before the others—before it—notices."
"What is it, Ruhn?" the boy asked. "What am I?"
The old man's eyes softened. Then he closed them.
"Not yet."
They walked back in silence, feet crunching frost-laced grass. A thin mist coiled around the lower houses of Hollowbarrow. Smoke drifted from cookfires, and the day hadn't begun, but already something felt wrong.
By morning, the village was murmuring.
A beast had been seen beyond the northern ridge. Something the hunters refused to name. A dozen sheep found dead—no blood, no sound in the night. Trees snapped at the base, roots torn up as if by storms... but the sky had been clear.
The boy heard the stories from behind doors. He watched the villagers light candles outside their homes, draw old protection runes in charcoal on stones and fences. Some looked at the hills. Some looked at him.
He could feel it too.
A pulse beneath his ribs.
Not fear. Not warning.
Recognition.
That night, Hollowbarrow prepared its defenses.
Salt circles. Smoke lines. Sacred fire. Prayers to gods long silent.
The people of the village clung to rituals they barely remembered. Not because they believed they'd work. But because doing something was better than doing nothing.
The boy stayed in the shadows, listening to the chants he never learned. Watching the flamelight flicker in their eyes. They called it protection.
He knew better.
It wasn't the creature in the woods they feared most.
It was him.
Just before midnight, he left.
The world outside the village felt louder. Alive. The wind moved like it had purpose, tugging at him, guiding him. There was no path, but his feet never hesitated.
He passed between the standing stones of the north trail.
He crossed the ashline where the old forest began.
He stepped into silence.
And the beast was waiting.
It stood taller than any horse, its body wrapped in sinew and haze. Not fur. Not flesh. Its form shifted at the edges, like it hadn't decided what it wanted to be. Eyes the color of molten gold stared through the dark.
It didn't growl.
It didn't lunge.
It knelt.
The boy froze. His heart pounded in his ears, but his body didn't move. He felt no urge to run. No fear. Just... certainty. As if he'd done this before. As if he had called it here.
Inside his chest—
A crack.
Not physical. Not seen. But something inside him gave.
Like a seal broken.
Like a door no longer shut.
And then, a pulse.
Not in sound, not in voice.
But in meaning:
"You are not ready to choose..."
The beast rose. Its golden eyes dimmed, as though the moment had passed. But it didn't flee. It simply... watched.
Behind him, the sky lit up.
Not like sunrise. Not like lightning.
A single streak of silver flame cut across the stars, tracing a jagged scar through the sky. For a second, everything else fell away.
The boy stared. He felt it. Not just in his chest—but in the world itself. Something ancient shifting in its sleep. Something old... beginning to wake.
And then, the voice again—this time final:
"But when the sky splits—
You must."