The storm was a symphony of celestial rage, a cacophony that had consumed the land of Aethelburg for seven days and seven nights. It wasn't the rain—though it fell in sheets thick enough to drown a man standing upright—nor the wind, which shrieked like a banshee denied its due. No, it was the sky itself that had turned monstrous. The stars, once distant and serene, pulsed with an angry, unnatural light. Familiar constellations twisted into grotesque shapes. Comets—three of them—had streaked across the heavens on the first night, their tails like bloodied scythes, and remained since, suspended like omens of cosmic upheaval.
Inside the keep of Azuris, a minor noble house perched atop the wind-battered cliffs above the Turbulent Sea, a different kind of storm raged. Lady Elara Azuris, her face pale as moon-kissed seafoam, thrashed in the birthing bed. Her cries, raw and piercing, were periodically swallowed by thunder that shook the stone walls—each crash like a god's hammer forging a new, terrible fate.
"Push, my Lady! By the All-Mother, push!" urged Maeva, the old midwife, her face a map of wrinkles earned over countless nights like this one. Yet even Maeva, hardened by decades of experience, felt unease. This birth was... different. The air was thick—not just with sweat and fear—but with something else. A strange, electric pressure that made the hairs on her arms stand up, and even the dust motes in the candlelight seemed to shimmer with unnatural energy. It felt like the moment before a lightning strike—except it never passed.
Outside the chamber door, Lord Kaelen Azuris—stoic and unyielding in all things—paced with white-knuckled fists wrapped around the hilt of his ancestral sword. He was not a man given to superstition, but the celestial chaos overhead and the unnatural length of Elara's labor twisted cold dread into his gut. He had sent for the local Seer, a woman whose riddles usually made less sense than the stars, but even she had refused to approach, muttering about "a tear in the veil" and "a light too bright for mortal eyes."
A scream tore through the air again. Kaelen stopped pacing, pressing his forehead against the cold, unyielding wood of the chamber door. A warrior, a commander of men—yet utterly powerless in this moment.
"The head! I see the head!" Maeva called, a thread of triumph in her voice. "One more, my Lady! For your house—your blood!"
Elara summoned the last of her strength, a primal roar escaping her lips as she bore down. For an instant, the room dimmed; candlelight flickered wildly as if buffeted by an invisible wind. The hum in the air intensified, resonating through the very stones of the keep.
And then—a cry.
It wasn't the squall of a typical newborn. It was clear, resonant, almost melodic, yet it carried an undercurrent of something ancient and vast. It cut through the storm's roar, and for one breathtaking moment, the thunder ceased. The wind stilled. Even the raging, pulsing stars seemed to pause in their dance.
In that sudden, profound silence, Maeva lifted the child, her hands trembling.
She faltered. The room was dim, but what she saw made her gasp. The child was… luminous. Not glowing, exactly, but his skin caught and reflected the candlelight with a soft, pearlescent sheen. And his hair—despite being wet and matted from birth—was a shocking, impossible white. Not the pale flax of northern folk, but the purest snow under a winter moon.
"A boy, my Lady," Maeva whispered, her voice rough with awe. "A son."
Reverently, she cleaned him. As she did, more strange details emerged. His features, though soft with infancy, were perfectly formed—sculpted, almost. There was a delicate beauty to him that was both mesmerizing and unsettling. When Maeva gently wiped his eyelids, they fluttered open.
His eyes.
She had seen thousands of newborn eyes—murky blue or grey, unfocused. These were not. They were pale blue, clear as glacial ice, like a winter sky at dawn. And they were focused. Not just looking, but seeing. Observing.
A soft sigh escaped Elara. Spent and pale, a faint smile touched her lips. "My son," she whispered, reaching out a trembling hand. "Let me see him."
Maeva placed the child into her arms. As she did, a single, perfect snowflake drifted down from the chamber's vaulted ceiling. It passed untouched by any draft, landing gently on the newborn's forehead—then melted into a tiny droplet, like a tear from the heavens themselves.
Outside, the storm didn't resume its fury. Instead, a deep calm settled over Aethelburg. The blood-red comets dimmed, their malevolent glow softened. The stars, though still unusually bright, shifted back into familiar constellations. A single beam of moonlight broke through a fleeting gap in the storm clouds and pierced the arrow-slit window, illuminating mother and child in a soft, ethereal glow.
Sensing the shift, Lord Kaelen slowly opened the door. He saw Elara—exhausted, glowing—cradling their son. He saw the impossible white hair, the ancient intelligence in those newborn eyes. The air still thrummed, but no longer with threat. Now it pulsed with something else—promise.
"Elara?" he whispered, his voice roughened by emotion.
She looked up, her eyes bright with tears and something deeper—something ineffable. "Kaelen," she breathed. "Look. The heavens have sent us… a spark of themselves."
Kaelen stepped closer, gaze fixed on the child. A pragmatic man, not given to fancy. But he couldn't deny the weight of what he saw—the serene light clinging to the babe's skin, the power simmering in the still air. This was no ordinary child.
"What," Maeva whispered, voice shaky, "what will you name him?"
Elara looked down at her son. His pale blue eyes shimmered, ancient and unreadable. A name formed on her lips, carried by the final breath of the storm—a name that felt as old as the stars, and as new as dawn.
"Velian," she said softly, but with a certainty that brooked no question. "Velian Azuris."
At the sound of his name, the infant blinked slowly. A tiny smile touched his lips—one without innocence, but with something older, something knowing. A smile that might have watched stars collapse in silence... and was ready to begin again.
The world beyond the keep stirred. Magic—long dormant or flowing in ancient, predictable channels—shifted. Stirred. As if answering a call. As if awakened by a presence long awaited. Prophecies, half-remembered and buried, whispered anew in the dreams of mystics and madmen alike. Something—or someone—of immense consequence had arrived.
And there, in the stone keep of House Azuris, under the quiet gaze of calmed stars, Velian—the star-child—took his first breath of a world destined to change. Around him, the air still thrummed with potential, with power. A silent promise of the system that would one day awaken within him, and the celestial might he would command.
For now, he was just a babe. But his destiny stretched wide as the cosmos.
And so began the first chapter of an epic not with a whimper, but with a cry that stilled the heavens.