In the farthest reaches of the Celestial Dominion, where the light of creation had long since turned cold, a fracture opened.
It began as a whisper between dying stars — a soundless murmur that rippled through the divine lattice like a rumor. The gods above ignored it, too consumed by their debates of balance and judgment. But in the forgotten outskirts, where light faded into dream and dream into memory, something answered.
Ashen Veil stirred.
He had been sleeping for an age — bound in the ruins of his own rebellion, entombed in a veil of frost and cinders. Once, he had been the God of Thresholds, the guardian between realms. Now he was the thing that even the gods refused to name.
As the echo of Kael's awakening spread through the void, his prison began to crack.
The ice did not melt; it evaporated into sound, collapsing into the hum of awakening. Fractures webbed across the air, releasing the scent of ozone and memory. A thousand visions flooded through him — the fall of empires, the silence of forges gone dark, and the spark of a mortal heartbeat pulsing against the will of the heavens.
He smiled, though his face was made of shadow and shifting flame.
A mortal, he whispered, voice soft as dust. The Forge chooses flesh again.
He stretched his arms — if arms they were — and the void around him shuddered. The remnants of stars he had devoured long ago reignited briefly before collapsing into streams of molten light that clung to him like armor.
Aeon Valis will watch. The others will wait. But I—
The words hung in the air, unfinished, swallowed by gravity.
—I will descend.
He stepped forward.
Each step shattered the boundaries of creation.
The first tore through the Dominion's lower rings — halls of mirrored light that reflected every god's memory. The reflections screamed as his presence warped them, turning beauty to ash and order to entropy.
The second step broke the veil between realms — the Astral Corridor, where thoughts of mortals gathered like flocks of glowing birds. Their dreams scattered as he passed, turning to glass dust in the wake of his descent.
The third brought him into the Sea of Worlds, a plane of swirling color and half-formed galaxies. Here, reality resisted. Chains of luminous equations lashed at him, screaming divine law — but he only laughed, tearing through them with hands of flame.
The laws of gods are words etched in vapor, he said. And I am the wind that scatters them.
When he finally emerged into the mortal cosmos, the stars flickered as though unsure whether to burn or flee.
He looked down upon the sleeping world below — Kael's world — its continents blackened from forgotten wars, its skies heavy with storms. He could feel the Forge's heartbeat there, a thrum beneath the surface, growing louder with every breath of the mortal who carried it.
So small, he murmured. And yet… the fire listens to him.
The thought amused him. The gods above had hidden from the Forge for eons, afraid it would unmake them. And now, a single mortal carried its pulse freely.
He reached out, fingers of shadow curling toward the world. For an instant, the oceans froze, the winds stopped, and the constellations turned their gaze downward — as though creation itself hesitated.
Wake, little forgemind, Ashen Veil whispered. Let me see what you truly are.
Then he vanished.
The night returned to silence, but the stars did not shine the same.
Across Kael's horizon, storms gathered where no winds should form. The ground trembled, faintly, as if something vast and ancient had entered the dream of the world — and refused to leave.