The night before the new journey began, the sky felt different.
It wasn't darker. It wasn't brighter.It simply… watched.
Kael woke up with a sharp breath, his heart beating fast, like he had been running in a dream. The fire inside him, the one that once tried to control him, was now calm. Quiet. Almost gentle.But something else had replaced the danger.
A whisper.
Not a voice in his mind.Not a monster calling him.Not even the old corruption.
It was something softer.
A whisper—a tiny breeze—like the sky itself was trying to speak to him.
He sat up, pushing away the thin blanket. The morning sun wasn't up yet. The village around them slept peacefully, unaware of the strange wind twisting gently between the houses.
Kael rubbed his eyes and listened.
"Do you remember me?"
The whisper was so soft he couldn't tell if it came from outside or inside his thoughts.
He stood. The ground felt warm beneath his bare feet, as if the earth was waking too. As he stepped out of the hut, he felt the wind circle around him again, brushing against his cheek like a familiar hand.
Trees swayed though there was almost no breeze.Clouds drifted though the sky was still.The world breathed in a slow, uneasy way.
Behind him, the door creaked.Lira appeared, her hair messy, her eyes full of sleep and concern.
"You felt it too," she said softly.
Kael nodded. "Something's calling."
Lira wrapped her arms around herself. "It's not the fire," she whispered. "Not the Eye's voice. This feels… older."
Kael looked at her carefully. "Did you hear it? What did it say?"
She hesitated. Her voice trembled when she spoke.
"It said… 'The sky remembers what we forget.'"
Kael froze.
He had heard the same words in his dream.The exact same words.
He stared into the early morning sky. It looked empty and normal, yet he felt like hundreds of invisible eyes were looking back at him.
"Lira," he said quietly, "I think something is waking."
She stepped closer, touching his hand. "Do you think it's dangerous?"
Kael didn't answer right away. Instead, he asked himself a simple but painful question:
"Why do all new beginnings feel like warnings?"
He was silent for several moments before he spoke.
"I think the world is shifting again," he said. "Like a book turning its own pages."
Lira gave a small, sad smile. "Then we'll read it together."
The Strange Sky
As the sun finally rose, Kael and Lira walked through the village. People greeted them with grateful smiles—they had saved this place, after all—but some villagers looked uneasy, glancing at the sky as if they sensed something too.
The colors of dawn were softer than usual.The light spread slower.Birds sang, but their songs sounded faint, as if muffled by unseen walls.
Kael whispered, "It feels like the sky is… thinking."
Lira nodded. "Or remembering."
They reached the old wooden fence at the edge of the village. Beyond it stretched a vast meadow with tall golden grass. The wind moved in slow waves across the field, forming patterns that almost looked like shapes—symbols—messages.
"Do you see that?" Lira whispered.
Kael narrowed his eyes.Yes.He saw it.
The grass bent in spirals. Circles. Lines.Like a map…or a warning.
"Follow."
The whisper brushed his ears again.
Kael clenched his fists.
A Traveler Arrives
Before Kael could take a step forward, the sound of hooves echoed from the eastern road. A dusty horse galloped toward the village, carrying a rider who looked half-dead from exhaustion.
Kael and Lira rushed toward him.
The man fell off his horse, dropping to his knees.
"Please…" he gasped, gripping Kael's cloak. "You must help… The sky at night—it opened—like a wound—"
Kael stiffened.Lira knelt beside the man, offering him water.
"What do you mean?" Kael asked.
The traveler's eyes widened with terror.
"I saw… shapes inside it," he whispered, voice shaking. "Like stars falling upward instead of down. Like something was… crawling behind the sky."
Kael and Lira exchanged a frightened look.
"Where did this happen?" Kael asked quietly.
"Near the northern cliffs… close to the ruins of the Old Watchtower. I ran. I didn't look back."
His voice cracked.
"No one should look back," he said.
The First Sign
Kael helped the man sit, but his gaze stayed locked on the horizon.
Lira whispered, "Kael… if the sky is breaking…"
He finished her sentence.
"Then something is trying to enter."
The wind around them suddenly died.Every sound vanished at once.Even the birds went silent.
A cold shiver ran through Kael's spine.
From far beyond the meadow, the clouds parted—not gently, but sharply—like claws had ripped them open.
A thin beam of silver-blue light shot down from the tear.
And in that light…A shadow moved.
Too slow.Too large.Too unnatural.
Lira grabbed Kael's hand. "Is that…?"
Kael swallowed.
"I don't know," he said. "But I think it saw us."
The sky pulsed once—like a heartbeat.
Thump.
Then the tear closed suddenly.The clouds sealed.The world returned to normal.
Except nothing felt normal anymore.
Kael took a slow breath and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper:
"Sometimes the sky stays silent because it's afraid to tell the truth."
He turned to Lira.
"We go north."
And so began the next path—a journey not into darkness,but into memory.
For some memories were never meant to be remembered.Some memories belonged to things older than the world itself.
And now…those memories were waking.