The wind howled louder the closer he came.
For hours, Calix flew the Zephyr through the Uncharted. Past floating ruins, ghost-laced fog banks, and storms that flashed without thunder. The map Mira gave him pulsed with steady light, guiding him like a heartbeat.
But even with the sky in his favor, the trip drained him. His hands blistered on the controls. The wind clawed at his coat. Every bone in his body ached.
Still—he didn't stop.
And when he saw it, rising from a bank of silent clouds like a fortress carved from wind itself—he knew.
The Eyrie.
Not a city. Not a temple.Something older.
Built into the bones of a floating mountain, wreathed in stormlight, impossible to see until you were nearly on top of it. Its towers were shaped like feathers, wings, spires twisting upward into broken skies. And at the center—
A shattered dome.Cracked open like something had broken free from the inside.
Calix slowed the ship and brought it down onto a stone perch carved with runes he didn't recognize. As the engines stilled, he sat there a moment, breathing.
Then he stepped out.
And the sky went silent.
No one greeted him.
No wind. No guards. No sign of life.
Just cold stone, and halls lined with murals faded by time and rain.
He walked through empty sanctuaries, long-collapsed training rooms, and chambers full of weapons too rusted to lift. Each wall was carved with sigils—some glowing faintly, some burned out.
Skyborn runes.
And then, finally—he found it.
A hall of memory.
The walls covered in names.
Some had been scratched out violently. Others glowed with soft white light. At the center was a symbol he recognized: the pirate crest from the Old Tower. But this one had been defaced—slashed with a blade, scorched black.
Below it, written in flawless silver ink:
"Those who flew free.Those who fell.Those who remain."
And beneath it all—one last name, added in a different hand.
CALIX — RETURNED
His heart stuttered.
Someone had been here. Recently.
Someone who expected him.
"Welcome, Skyborn."
The voice was low. Old. Gentle like distant thunder.
Calix spun around, hand on his harness.
An old man stood at the end of the hall. Robes of layered white and storm-gray. Skin lined like cracked stone. Hair the color of ash and wind.
Eyes that glowed faintly blue.
"Who are you?" Calix asked.
"I was once called Aeris," the man said. "Warden of the Eyrie. Keeper of the wind-paths."
"You're a Skyborn."
The man nodded. "One of the last. Until you."
Calix stepped forward. "Then it's true. They hunted us."
"They feared us," Aeris said. "Because we served the sky, not crowns. We flew without permission. We broke the chains they built."
"So they wiped us out?"
Aeris's gaze turned sharp. "No. They did worse. They bound us."
He raised his hand—and the air shimmered.
A vision formed in the space between them.
Calix saw himself—no, not himself, but a boy with his face—younger, screaming as fire burned around him. A noble mage stepped forward, whispering a curse. Magic wrapped around the boy like chains of smoke.
"Your parents tried to flee," Aeris said. "But they were caught. You were spared—not out of mercy. But because the royals needed a way to control the last Skyborn blood."
Calix's hands shook. "What kind of control?"
"The kind that locks your power," Aeris said. "Buried it deep. Cut you off from the sky."
Calix remembered the fire. The night his parents died.He had always thought he was powerless.
He wasn't.
He had been caged.
Aeris stepped forward, pulling a small blade from his robes. Not a weapon. A ritual knife, carved from windstone.
"There is a way to undo it," the old man said. "But it will hurt."
"Do it," Calix said without hesitation.
"Are you sure?"
"I didn't come all this way to stay chained."
Aeris nodded once.
"Then kneel."
The ritual burned.
The blade etched glowing marks into Calix's skin—wrist to shoulder, heart to throat. Not cutting. Unlocking. He screamed once, then bit it down.
And when the final mark was made—
The wind screamed back.
It rushed into the Eyrie like a hurricane, tearing through the halls, whirling around Calix in a spiral of light and air. His feet lifted off the stone. The feather Mira had given him ignited, bursting into silver flame, and dissolved into his chest like a shard of sky itself.
He could feel everything.
The pull of the wind lanes. The distant echo of storm routes. The broken places in the sky no one dared fly.
The sky wasn't just awake.
It was listening.
And it whispered one word into his soul:
Rise.
When Calix opened his eyes, Aeris was watching him carefully.
"How do you feel?"
"Lighter," Calix said. "And also like I could tear the palace in half."
The old man smiled faintly. "Good. You'll need that strength. Because Solarae will come for you."
Calix stood.
"No," he said. "I'm going to them."