Solis dust tasted of stagnant brine, oxidized metal, and the sour sweat of ten thousand laborers. To Gin, this was the taste of existence. From his observatory—a mattress of pressed straw and sheets smelling of cheap medicinal herbs—He mapped his world in echoes, not steps.
There was the rhythmic crack of hydraulic hammers in the distant shipyards. The groan of pulleys hoisting oak beams to reinforce the hulls of the Council's defensive fleet—ships that had rotted and been rebuilt for generations, watchmen of an ocean that did not move. And, closest of all, the scratching hiss of Celeste; his mother wheezed like a punctured forge bellows, every exhalation a protest from lungs worn down by shifts that seemed to have no end.
"Sixteen copper coins and three bronze coins." Celeste's voice was a rough whisper. The clinking of metal against peeling wood was the most urgent melody Gin knew; the only composition capable of guaranteeing breath for the next day. It was enough for seaweed paste and a bit of pork lard.
Gin tried to sit up. Every vertebra protested, a domino effect of hot needles ending at the base of his skull. He was not the master of his body; he was a prisoner in a cage made of useless flesh and tendons.
"You should eat the fat, Mom. Look at your hands."
Celeste's hands were a patchwork of burn scars and split calluses, the result of years assembling the keels of boats that, ironically, she would never see sail beyond the Seal. She only smiled, a tired gesture that didn't reach her sunken eyes.
"Today you turn fifteen, Gin. Master Kahn promised to stop by. He says he's bringing something special from the Guild. A record... from Before."
Before. The word echoed like a myth. Before the isolation. Before the Iron Council turned Aurora into a sprawling barracks. Before humanity was locked in a glass box.
The mention of "Before" made the blood—that thin, weary fluid—run a little faster in his veins. To Gin, knowledge wasn't just information; it was the only territory where he wasn't fragile. On the maps of Gemina, he was free.
Celeste didn't stop after dumping the coins. Exhaustion was a shadow she tried to shake off with sharp movements. She began wiping down the small table, using a grimy rag to polish the wood as if it could still retain a lost shine.
His mother's movements were brittle. Her thin body, too small for the hardness of that labor, seemed always on the verge of snapping. Her face, despite the fatigue, still held fine, almost noble features that contrasted with the dirty straw between her fingers. She was panting. Every time she bent down, her spine cracked, a dry sound reminiscent of dead branches breaking.
Still, she had saved a handful of dried herbs—not medicine, but tea—for Kahn's arrival.
"You didn't need to clean the shelves, Mom. The dust will be back in an hour. The shipyards never stop."
"Today is not just any day." She paused for a second, bracing her hand against the wall to steady her balance. "If the Guild Master is bringing the past into this house, the least I can offer is a place where the present doesn't feel so wretched."
Gin's throat tightened, a dry constriction that had nothing to do with his sickness. He looked away to the small shelf beside the bed, where three volumes bound in moonfish leather rested. He knew every mold stain on those pages. He knew by heart the migration cycle of Glass-Razors of Velkhar and the chemical composition of Vulkris ash.
Beneath the industrial drone of the city, a different sound climbed the hills of Solis. It wasn't the heavy, rhythmic stomp of the Council's infantry patrols with their iron-soled boots. It was an irregular, almost jaunty gait: broad shoulders swinging under joints that betrayed decades of work, while carrying a bag that looked heavy enough to carry centuries.
Kahn was coming.
Celeste smoothed her hair, trying to hide the premature gray streaks, and placed the mug of tea on the table. She looked at her son, and for a brief instant, the shadows of exhaustion were replaced by the gleam of curiosity.
The rotten wooden door creaked. Kahn didn't knock; he just occupied the space. The Master of the Adventurers' Guild smelled of old parchment and cheap tobacco. His clothes were a tapestry of worn leathers and moss-green patches, boasting pockets that Gin knew contained maps of lands that were technically no longer reachable.
"The boy looks paler than an abyssal fish," thundered Kahn, though there was a softness in his eyes as he rested a heavy volume on Gin's withered legs. "Happy birthday, little scholar."
The book was ancient. The cover had the texture of cured monster skin, cold to the touch.
"Encyclopedia of the Tides of Nhalyss." Gin's voice came out as little more than a whisper, his thin, translucent fingers trembling slightly as they touched the faded gold lettering. "I thought the Council had confiscated all Nhalyss records in Aurora."
"The Council confiscates steel, but they are terrible at finding books hidden under false floorboards." Kahn sat on a crate, his heavy gaze fixed on the window overlooking the harbor. "They call it protection."
"It's captivity," Gin murmured, opening the book. It was an old conversation, worn thin by time. "Still seas, isolation. I know, Kahn."
Gin's eyes devoured the illustrations of creatures that defied anatomy and predators whose forms blurred with living hurricanes. While the Iron Council trained soldiers in simulations of "Echoes," Gin lived reality through ink. He knew the behavior of Goblins and the biological signals preceding a Naga's aggression outbreak without ever having felt on his skin the void that precedes a strike.
Suddenly, his fingers stopped on the page.
"Kahn..." Gin's voice faltered. "The Seal is vibrating."
Kahn stopped adjusting the buckles of his bracer. The constant breeze of Solis, which usually dragged the smell of oil into the room, simply died. The air no longer circulated; it became dense, stagnant.
"This peace has expired, Gin." Kahn's voice sounded lower, grave. "The Primordial Clan gave us time to sharpen blades, not to hide. But the Council preferred to spend centuries perfecting machines of fear."
The silence that followed was filled only by the crackling of embers in the stove.
Kahn stood up and walked to the window. The sunset in Solis was never beautiful; it was merely a transition from industrial-gray to coal-black. But that night, the sky had other plans.
Celeste was immersed in a ritualistic calm, pouring the tea, when the first tremor hit. It didn't come from the ground. It came from above.
A sound of crystal being crushed by a divine sledgehammer echoed throughout Aurora. The impact vibrated in the roots of Gin's teeth. Through the window, the vault of the sky—that perfect dome keeping Chaos outside—began to fracture.
Veins of white light, cold and terrifying, crisscrossed the firmament like cracks in a mirror.
"Mom!" Gin screamed, trying to use his arms to drag himself to the edge of the bed.
Celeste didn't answer. She stood in the center of the kitchen, hands clutching her chest. The effort of fifteen years, the wear of double shifts, the malnutrition accepted in the name of her son... everything collapsed the exact moment the world broke open.
She fell. The sound of her body hitting the packed earth floor was muffled by a second boom in the sky. The Primordial Seal didn't just break; it disintegrated.
The air pressure plummeted. Oxygen became suddenly heavy, charged with the static of raw energies humanity hadn't breathed in centuries.
The shockwave tore the door from its hinges and made the shelves vomit books. In the center of the chaos, Kahn moved with the agility of a man who had waited for disaster his entire life.
"Celeste!" Kahn's shout was a deep roar that cut through the static hum.
He reached her before the ceiling dust settled. His immense hands cradled the woman's fragile body with desperate delicacy. Kahn knelt, ignoring the shards of the tea mug digging into his knees.
"Mom, please..." Gin crawled out of bed. The pain in his joints was a wildfire, but he ignored it.
Gin's despair wasn't a cry; it was a silent vacuum that, suddenly, filled with a brutal influx. New air invaded his sick lungs and found, in his chest, something withered and dormant. Something that, starving, reacted.
He didn't plan it. He didn't cast it. He just needed.
A pale light, the color of milk and the moon, emanated from Gin's palms. The air condensed, spinning in a silent vortex until a form solidified over Celeste's chest.
A small snake, white scales glowing with internal luminescence, appeared from nothing. Its eyes were orbs of pure light that seemed to reflect Gin's panic.
Kahn froze. His hands hung suspended in the air. He ignored the groaning ceiling and the screams from the street; his eyes were fixed on the silhouette of light slithering over his friend's skin.
The Familiar hissed, a sound that vibrated directly in Gin's mind. The luminous silhouette trembled. The white light, once pure, was stained by gray veins—the reflection of Gin's own fragility.
The creature understood the cruel reality in an instant: the power sustaining it came from the same source that was withering away.
In a fluid motion, the white snake slid from Celeste to Gin's chest.
"No! Her! Help her!" Gin tried to grab the being of light, but his hands passed through the glowing mist.
The light didn't just touch his skin; it burned through the flesh, ignoring ribs and muscles to nest in the cold void of his marrow. It wasn't a gentle entry; it was as if molten metal had been stitched directly into his nervous system. The creature coiled around his spine, every vertebra vibrating as the intruder forced his atrophied body to accept it.
Kahn, seeing the boy arch his back in a violent spasm, lunged to stop him from smashing his head against the floor.
"Hold on, Gin!" Kahn's voice seemed to come from underwater.
The Guild Master looked at the gaping doorway. Outside, the sky of Solis was a kaleidoscope of forbidden lights. And then, overlapping the noise of the collapse, came the sound all of Aurora feared and, secretly, awaited: the metallic bellow of the Trumpets of Rupture echoing from the Council barracks.
The millennial war protocol had begun.
An explosion of pure agony—and then, silence.