In the silence that followed the Queen's sacrifice, no one in the kingdom knew what had happened. The festival went on. The music played. People laughed and danced. But in twelve other kingdoms - far from the capital - there was no joy.
They had all felt it.
Not magic.
Not prophecy.
Something deeper. Something new.
The Demon King stood in his obsidian fortress, eyes glowing dimly.
"Something has entered this world... and it doesn't belong to us," he whispered.
The Dragon King, high above the clouds, flared his wings and roared to the sky.
" A presence without chains... Unwritten by fate."
The Angel King wept silently in his golden chamber, knowing without knowing why.
"We were not meant to guide them. They were meant to choose."
The God-King placed down his crown for the first time in centuries .
" I cannot see their future. That alone is terrifying."
The King of Ice, deep in his frozen realm, spoke aloud for the first time in years:
" I felt warmth. And that means change."
The King of Water, the King of the Sea, the King of Time, the King of Space, the King of Snow, the King of Lightning, and the King of Storms - they all felt it too.
A disturbance. A spark. A breath that did not come from destiny.
They looked to the sky, to the wind, to the seas, to the stars - and they all asked the same question in their own tongue:
"Who was born?"
For days after the festival, their sages searched scrolls, their prophets screamed in confusion, and even the gods grew restless.
But the answer never came.
Because the eight children were gone. Hidden in places no one could track. Watched over by women with no names. Named only by the thread-stitched words on the blankets they were wrapped in.
Lyena, Livar, Zephyrion, Nivor, Glacien, Xavius, Kaelen, Chronas.
And somewhere, far away, a woman rocked a baby in silence.
And when the baby opened their eyes for the first time, a storm howled across the world.
End of Chapter 2 - The Kings Who Felt the Silence