The night the stars began to die, Lirael of the Veilthorn Citadel gave birth to a godslayer.
Her screams were not from pain—she had severed her nerves hours ago—but from the way reality *rippled* around her swollen belly, the air cracking like thin ice. The midwives had fled. The rune-lights guttered out one by one, as if swallowed by an unseen mouth. Only Kaelion remained, his fire magic reduced to embers in his veins, his calloused hands gripping hers.
*"They're coming,"* Lirael whispered. Blood welled between her teeth. *"The High Elders felt the Convergence. They know what he is."*
Kaelion's laugh was a broken thing. *"A child. Just a child."*
*"No."* She seized his collar, her emerald eyes reflecting the *thing* unfurling in the sky—the Astral Veil splitting like a wound. *"He's the last argument against heaven."*
The infant came not with a cry, but with a *silence* so profound it carved the air. His skin was already cracked with veins of void-black; his eyes—one gold, one starless—fixed on Lirael with terrible awareness.
She did not hesitate. The *Codex of Shattered Horizons* lay open on her lap, its pages written in her own blood.
*"By my life,"* she began, and the words *tore* from her throat, *"I sever his fate."*
Kaelion roared as her body dissolved into light. The Citadel shook. The child wailed—and the sky *answered*.
When the light faded, only Kaelion remained, clutching a swaddled infant in arms scored with burns.
High Elder Veyra emerged from the shadows, her jade mask split down the middle.
*"What have you named him?"* she asked, though she already knew.
Kaelion's voice was ash.
*"Otoku."*
In the elder tongue, it meant *the end of prayers*.
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