The storm that had raged above Dravenholt the night before had left the air unnaturally still. The scent of ozone lingered like memory, and for the first time in centuries, the twin suns of the empire rose with a pale, trembling light.
Nymera had gone to the eastern bastion at dawn to inspect the wards. She found Adrian already there.
He stood at the edge of the battlements, cloak billowing in the cold wind, eyes fixed not on the horizon — but on the heavens themselves.
"You felt it too," she said quietly.
He didn't turn. "Something moved beyond the stars last night. Watching. Measuring."
Nymera's armor glimmered faintly in the dim light as she approached. "Our mages said the mana flux came from outside the atmosphere. That shouldn't be possible."
Adrian closed his eyes. "It's not mana. It's intent."
That word made her hesitate. "Intent?"
He nodded. "The gaze of a god leaves no trace on the physical world — only on the soul. And last night, it touched mine."
She frowned. "You mean one of the deities from the Celestial Concord? The Overlord's pantheon?"
"No," he said softly. "Older."
A silence fell between them. The wind howled faintly against the citadel's banners.
Finally, Nymera spoke. "You've changed, Adrian. Since Noctharyn."
"I know." His voice was quiet, distant. "Carmila saw it first — the mark growing stronger. The seal's thinning. And something out there knows it."
"Knows you," Nymera corrected.
He gave a faint, humorless smile. "That's the problem."
Later that morning, the imperial seers gathered in the Hall of Dawn. The air was thick with incense, the floor etched with circles of gold and glass. Adrian stood in the center as the seers began their chant — a vision-scry meant to pierce the veil of divine observation.
For a few moments, there was only stillness. Then the mirrors lining the chamber cracked — one after another — until the last one exploded in a shimmer of white dust.
The head seer screamed. Blood trickled from her eyes.
"Stop the ritual!" Nymera shouted, rushing forward.
But Adrian already knew. He could feel it.
Something vast and sentient was looking back through the broken mirrors — through him.
He heard the whisper before the others did.A voice too deep for sound, too ancient for time.
So this is the vessel… so small, so fragile. Yet the echo remains pure.
Adrian's knees buckled. The sigil under his chest blazed, white light flooding the room. The seers collapsed as waves of mana crushed the air from their lungs. Nymera grabbed his shoulders, shouting his name, but her voice was distant — drowned beneath the roar of the cosmos.
Then, just as suddenly, the light faded.
The seers gasped weakly, clinging to consciousness. Nymera held Adrian upright, her heartbeat hammering against his.
He exhaled slowly, his eyes dimming back to their normal gray.
"What was that?" she whispered.
Adrian's answer came in a low, shaking voice. "A god. Or something that once was."
Carmila's voice echoed from the communication crystal she'd left him. "Adrian… what have you done?"
"I didn't summon it," he said. "It found me."
That night, under a fractured sky, Adrian stood alone in the palace gardens.
The stars no longer looked the same. One of them — faint and white — pulsed with a rhythm that matched the beat of his heart.
He could sense it even now, waiting beyond the fabric of reality — an infinite awareness pressing against the edges of creation, observing its lost fragment within him.
"The god who watches…" he murmured.
A whisper answered, not from above, but from within.
Not watching, child of the seal. Waiting.
The sigil on his chest burned like a brand, and for the first time, Adrian understood:
The awakening wasn't a prophecy.It was a summons.
And the gods were not the only ones answering.