The Last Night of the Ashen King.
The sky bled fire.
Not from war, nor wrath of man ___ but from the stars themselves, falling like torches torn from the heavens. And beneath that infernal rain, upon the obsidian steps of the Hollow Spire, stood the Ashen King ___ bareheaded, unbowed, and already dead.
His crown had split. Not shattered by sword or spell, but by something deeper: betrayal.
Around him, the world crumbled. Cities turned desolate. Forests fell silent. Rivers ran backward. The sun hid its face behind a cloud of ash.
Seven Soulbinders, the last of the free magi, stood against him on that night. Together, they cast the Severing Spell, fracturing the Ashen Crown into nine shards ___ each flung into the void between worlds.
And with it, they shattered the Ashen King's soul.
His body fell. But not his will.
They say his name was burned from all the books.
That the shards are now stars.
That every hundred years, they fall again.
To test the world.
To tempt it.
To remember him.
And now, a shard has fallen again.
Present Day -- Far Below the Northern Peaks
Snowstorm. Midnight.
Kael didn't believe in omens ___ just in cold fingers, empty coin-pouches, and the graveyard's silence as he picked his way through tombstones older than memory.
Then it came.
Not from the sky ___ but through it.
A soundless, searing tear, like the heavens exhaling.
A star fell. Black as coal, bright as blood.
It struck not fifty paces from where Kael stood, and the earth beneath him trembled like it feared what had come.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
And then he saw the crater.
And in its centre __ not a flame, not a stone __ but a crown fragment, pulsing like a heartbeat, whispering his name.
"Kael..."
End of Prologue