"The islands carry us over the abyss—like bones over an open mouth."
That's what the old man said before he left. I don't know if he wanted to tell me or himself.
But he was right.
The sky was not blue. Not like they sang about in old songs. No – here, above the floating realms, it was dull and gray, streaked with dusty veins of light. Like scars over a healed war.
I sat on the edge of the old jetty, as I did every morning. The forest behind me was still damp from the night's fog, but in front of me lay endless nothingness: the edge of the island, the drop into the black depths – and below, the roar that never quite disappeared.
A roar that consisted not of sounds, but of memories.
I was alone.
Just as I wanted to be.
Just as I had to be.
Many years ago, there was a tower here. A guard post. Soldiers, banners, even bells. Now only rotten planks and half-decayed ropes. The wind gnawed at them like a dead animal. I understood that. The wind did not forget.
Neither did I.
I remember every face. Every scream.
I just sometimes forget whose fault it was.
"Kael, come back, it's getting late!"
"Just a minute! I have to go to the merchant!"
I was thirteen. My brother stood in the doorway. Mother was cooking. Father was working. The city was loud, lively.
It smelled of fish and steel.
I remember how the sun fell on the roofs. How I thought: I'll be quick.
I wasn't.
When I came back, there was nothing left.
Not the house. Not the street. Not the neighbors.
Only ashes. And my brother, who was still breathing—for a moment.
Long enough to look me in the eyes and say:
"I wanted to protect you."
Then came the flame.
I stood up. The boards under my feet creaked, but they didn't break. Not yet.
My bones sometimes did the same: creak, warn—but not break.
Not as long as I wanted them to.
I went back to the hut. A miserable structure between roots and fog. But it stood.
Like me.
The sword leaned against the wall, wedged between two branches that I had wrapped with rope. I never touched it—except when I had to.
I rarely had to.
But I never stopped feeling it.
I didn't make a fire.
Not out of necessity. But out of defiance.
There was enough burning inside me.
"You should have died with them."
Sometimes I say that. Not out loud. Just... somewhere between a breath and a thought.
The old man would have disagreed. He would have said that guilt is a flame that must be extinguished, not fed.
But he is dead.
And I feed what remains.
It was night when I first sensed that something was different.
Not loud. Not a sound that an animal would have made.
A different crackling. Like sand on hot stone.
Not visible. Not audible to everyone.
But I... I recognized it immediately.
Flame.
Not fire.
Flame.
I opened the door of my hut. The forest lay still. Fog hung low, almost to my ankles. The sky above—dark, pierced by three glowing island lights. They said they were artificial suns that never set.
I never believed that.
Something was burning in the distance.
Not visible.
Just... there.
I didn't reach for my sword. Not right away. Instead, I listened. Not for sounds, but for the trembling in my chest—the slight, barely noticeable fluttering when the flame sensed something nearby.
Something that shouldn't be there.
"Not again," I muttered.
Because I knew the feeling. I hadn't felt it in years—because I had locked it away.
Buried it.
Covered it with earth and guilt.
And now... it was breaking through.
I didn't sleep that night. I stood outside, gazing at the forest, the sword within reach but still untouched.
And the flame inside me—it flickered.
Not loudly. Not fiercely.
Just awake.
Something was approaching.
Something that carried the flame.
Something that couldn't know what it was.
"Not everyone survives when they carry it."
I muttered it, as I often muttered – not because anyone should hear it, but because sometimes I had to forget that I already knew it.
The Black Depths under our flying islands, the elders said, are not empty.
They live.
They breathe.
And sometimes... they spit something out.
The flame, the old man said, was not a gift.
It was a mistake.
An echo from a time that should never have been.
I believed him.
Because I was that echo.
The next morning, the fog was thicker.
And between the roots, where I gathered wood, I found something that shouldn't have been there.
A footprint.
Small.
Too small for a man.
Too narrow for an animal.
I knelt down. Touched the trace with two fingers. Warm.
Fresh.
I wasn't ready.
But being ready meant nothing.
Not in this world.
Not once you had been burned.
I looked up. The cloud cover above the edge rippled.
Something stirred.
Something was coming.
And I knew,
Peace was over.