The wind never touched the ground the same way twice.
Caelan noticed this long before he noticed destiny.
It curled through broken arches and hollow towers, whispering across the floating ruins of the skyisle like a living thing searching for memory. Grass bent where no storm blew. Shattered stone chimed faintly, as though the air itself remembered footsteps long erased.
Caelan moved carefully, boots scraping ancient marble dust. His cloak patched, travel worn fluttered behind him as he climbed the last incline toward the island's heart. Above him, the sky fractured into impossible layers: drifting clouds below solid land, sunlight refracted through floating debris suspended as if time had forgotten to let it fall.
He had not come here for glory.
He had come because something had been calling him.
Not a voice. Not a command.
A pull.
It had started days ago, just beyond the western plains an ache behind the eyes, a pressure in the chest that grew stronger whenever the wind shifted eastward. Caelan had tried to ignore it. Wanderers learned early that following strange urges often led to shallow graves.
But this pull was patient.
And it did not fade.
At the center of the ruins stood a stone dais split down the middle, as though struck by lightning ages ago. Moss crept along the fracture, glowing faintly with residual magic. Symbols older than any kingdom Caelan knew circled the platform, their meaning lost but their purpose unmistakable.
Something had been sealed here.
He stepped closer and the wind stopped.
Silence fell so suddenly it rang in his ears.
Then, from the heart of the broken stone, came a sound.
A hum.
Low. Steady. Not power but restraint.
Caelan's breath caught.
Half-buried in the fractured dais was a sword.
Its blade was pale silver edged with translucent green, as though forged from wind given shape. Runes traced its fuller, shifting when he looked too closely never settling into a single language. The hilt was simple, wrapped in worn leather, unadorned by jewels or royal insignia.
It did not look like a king's weapon.
It looked like a promise.
Caelan approached slowly, hand hovering inches from the grip. He felt it then a pressure behind his ribs, a resonance in his bones, as if the sword were listening.
Don't, he muttered to himself.
He had seen relics before. Most demanded blood. Others demanded lineage. All of them demanded something.
"I'm not your hero," Caelan said quietly, as if the ruins themselves might overhear.
The wind stirred.
Not around him toward him.
Dust rose in a gentle spiral. The runes along the dais flared, not with blinding light, but with recognition.
Caelan swallowed.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the hilt, the world inhaled.
Memory crashed through him not his own.
Battlefields beneath burning skies. Towers collapsing into oceans. A crown shattering, its fragments scattering across time itself. A girl standing alone at an altar, eyes filled with resolve sharp enough to wound the heavens.
Caelan staggered, gripping the hilt to keep from falling.
Do you swear to save this world?
The question was not spoken.
It existed inside him.
His jaw tightened.
No he whispered.
The pressure intensified, not in anger but insistence.
Then why do you reach for me?
Caelan's grip trembled.
Because, he said, voice rough, someone has to stand where the wind breaks hardest. And I am that someone.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the sword laughed.
Not with sound with motion.
The wind surged, roaring across the sky-isle, tearing loose debris that should have fallen but instead spiraled upward. The runes along the blade ignited, emerald light racing across silver steel.
The sword loosened.
It yielded.
Caelan pulled.
Stone cracked. Light burst skyward. The blade slid free as though it had been waiting centuries for that exact answer.
When Caelan stood, sword in hand, the silence broke.
The wind bowed.
Far away beyond mountains, beyond time a bell tolled.
And Princess Elyndra Valecrown, kneeling in a ruined sanctum, lifted her head.
Her heart raced.
Somewhere in the world, the Blade of the Infinite Promise had awakened.
And fate, long dormant, had begun to turn.