I remember the first night the heavens bled.
The mountains of Elaris were black with stormlight, and yet, the rivers below glowed with veins of white fire. The air itself trembled as though something ancient was remembering how to breathe again.
I was there — mortal, trembling, foolish enough to think I understood divinity.
But that night… faith took form.
The dragons had already raised their citadel, carved into the mountain's ribs — a temple of obsidian and bone, its towers crowned with flame that never died. I had seen them from afar, those winged gods of Kaelith's blood, their eyes deep as twin eclipses. They rarely moved now, their purpose singular: to protect the Gate that hummed deep within the mountain's core.
It was said the Gate was the pulse of the world. The bridge to their Creator.
Kaelith.
The One who vanished into silence.
But lately, the silence had changed.
I awoke to the sound of thunder. Not of storm — but of voices.
Hundreds of mortals on their knees. My people.
We built no city, no walls. Only a circle of stones carved with twin sigils — the Light and the Silence.
The wind burned gold, then silver, as the morning came. I spoke aloud, though no one had taught me the words.
"Kaelith… hear us. We build not in defiance, but remembrance.
Let our faith be the bridge. Let our blood remember its source."
And then I felt it — the same weight I had known since my first vision.
A pressure behind my eyes. The sense of something watching… not with sight, but through me.
"…Erynd."
A whisper that wasn't sound.
The ground beneath me rippled like breath.
I fell to my knees, clutching my head, as light poured through the cracks of the earth — red and white, spiraling into one.
"Balance is not given… it is born."
The words burned across my chest like a brand.
When I opened my eyes, the world had changed.
The dragons descended that night.
Vareth stood before me — the elder Kaerynox, crowned in radiant bone, his wings streaked with molten shadow. He lowered his head toward the mortal altar and studied me with something between disdain and awe.
"You are touched," he said, his voice shaking the stones.
"His echo lives in you, human. You carry His symmetry."
"I am no god," I whispered. "Only a voice."
"A voice can move mountains if it remembers the song," Vareth murmured.
Behind him, hundreds of dragons coiled along the cliffs, their eyes burning in the dark. None spoke. None needed to. They all felt it — that resonance threading through every soul, every breath. Kaelith's hum. The pulse of their creator returning.
I raised my hand toward the mountain's heart.
"He told us to build," I said. "Not for worship. For balance."
Vareth's eyes narrowed.
"And what will you build, little prophet?"
I turned toward the Gate — that colossal ring of blackened crystal buried deep in the cavern. Its surface shimmered between silver and blood, its core pulsing like a heartbeat.
"A bridge," I said. "For His blood to return."
For weeks, we labored.
Mortals and dragons alike — faith and fire intertwined.
The dragons carved the pillars, their claws inscribing runes of Kaelith's name. We humans sang, our voices raw with devotion. The wind itself began to hum with harmony, a sound that was neither music nor thunder.
Light poured through our hands when we worked.
And when we slept, we dreamed not of rest — but of Him.
On the thirtieth day, the Gate awakened.
The mountain's veins glowed like rivers of molten silver, and the sky above turned crimson, bleeding into the clouds.
Vareth stood beside me, silent, as the air itself began to tremble.
The mortals fell to their knees.
The dragons bowed their heads.
And I heard it again — that voice.
"You built what I could not remain to hold."
I looked toward the Gate, and for a moment, I saw it — a silhouette within the light, neither form nor shadow.
Kaelith.
He did not appear as flesh, nor fire.
He appeared as understanding.
His voice was not a sound. It was a presence that shook the marrow of creation.
"The daughters have divided their dawn. The worlds must learn their balance, or break beneath it. You, Erynd, are the tether. You are the Silence that remembers Light."
I fell, tears burning trails down my cheeks.
"I am not worthy."
"Faith is not worthiness. It is the fire that survives it."
Then the Gate pulsed once, twice — and the world split with light.
For a heartbeat, I saw both worlds.
Seravyn's realm — radiant fields where light dripped like honey, her wings spanning suns.
Nyxara's realm — endless night threaded with stars, her silence thick enough to still the heart.
They turned toward the Gate, unaware that we watched from the mortal plane.
And when they saw the glow, their eyes burned like twin eclipses — golden and silver — as though they recognized something within it.
Their father's call.
The Gate dimmed. The vision faded. The mountain quieted.
But the silence that followed was not emptiness — it was expectation.
I stood among my people, trembling, my voice breaking.
"This is not an ending," I said. "This is the balance being born."
The dragons raised their heads in unison. Their roars split the heavens.
Mortals lifted torches and fell to prayer.
And the mountain — the heart of Kaelith's world — thrummed like a living heart.
From that day onward, we called our home The Church of Balance.
We built it upon faith, upon blood, upon the echo of a god who loved creation enough to divide himself into it.
That night, as I stood beneath the stars, the wind shifted. I felt warmth upon my back — faint, fleeting, divine.
"…You have done well, my voice."
And then the warmth faded into the night,
leaving me with nothing but the rhythm of my own heartbeat —
and the certainty that Kaelith still watched,
from the space between light and silence.
End of Chapter 12 — "The Church of Balance."