I can feel Him again.
Not as a voice — not as a thought — but as pressure.
The air bends when He remembers us.
For centuries, we built beneath His silence. The stones still hum with His shape. The Kaerynox worked as one, claws carving symbols too vast for the mortals to ever see. From a distance, our mountain looks like a jagged heart. Up close, it breathes.
Every scale of the gate was forged in duality — one side of gold, one of blackened crystal.
Every rune was drawn with our own blood.
Every breath, a prayer.
They say we were chosen to build what even gods feared to attempt — a bridge between His daughters.
A door through which divinity may bleed.
I look upon my kin — wings folded, eyes bright like molten suns — and I know none of us truly understand what we build. Faith does not need understanding.
Faith needs fire.
We called it the Convergence Gate.
Two pillars of living metal rise from the peak, carved with mirrored runes that shimmer like veins of light. Between them floats an orb — a heart of condensed bloodlight, pulsing to a rhythm we cannot hear but somehow obey.
Kaelith's will moves through us as warmth beneath our skin. When the orb pulses, we see fragments of Him — wings without end, a shadow that shines.
It is not sight. It is remembrance.
And I, Vareth of the High Scale, kneel before the Gate.
"You have built in silence, child of flame."
The whisper is not sound, but gravity.
"Now call to what is not yet meant to answer."
My heart trembles. I bow my head.
"I am not worthy."
"Faith makes you worthy."
The Gate flares. The air fractures into shards of molten glass.
I hear the roars of my kin below — deep, resonant, holy.
The mountain itself quakes as if remembering its purpose.
Twin beams of light burst from the Gate — one gold, one black — spiraling upward in perfect symmetry. They rise into the clouds, splitting them apart like silk. The air turns to liquid fire; reality bends.
Every Kaerynox falls silent.
The beams twist higher, carving their way beyond sight.
And then — for one breathless moment — we see something vast turn its gaze upon us.
The world stops.
My wings lower in awe. My heart cracks open.
The sky… begins to bleed.