The world did not return with a bang, but with the suffocating smell of cold ash and the rhythmic, wet cough of a man in pain.
Arya's eyes snapped open. For a moment, he saw nothing but the swirling violet mists of the Aksantara sky, now bruised by the approaching dusk. His body felt as though it had been passed through a rolling mill—every muscle screamed, and his bones felt brittle, like over-fired ceramic. But the most jarring sensation was the silence in his chest. The roaring, celestial ocean of blue light that had surged through him was gone, leaving behind that familiar, hollow ache: the Empty Core.
"Arya... move, boy... the ash... it's thickening."
The voice was gravelly and weak. Arya sat up too fast, his head spinning. He was still in the village square. The carcass of the Kala-Cahaya lay several yards away, but it was no longer a terrifying beast. In death, its crystalline armor had turned dull and grey, crumbling into fine, toxic dust that hissed whenever the wind touched it.
"Kek Tarja!" Arya scrambled to his feet, his hands shaking.
He found the old blacksmith leaning against the charred remains of a market stall. Tarja's face was pale, his breathing labored. The wound on his shoulder had stopped bleeding, cauterized by some stray spark of energy, but his orange Aether aura was flickering like a dying candle.
"I'm here, I'm here," Arya whispered, kneeling beside him. He reached out to help, but paused.
His hands were different. The soot and grime were still there, but beneath the skin of his palms, faint, glowing blue lines—like the veins of a leaf—were slowly fading into his flesh.
"You... you did it," Tarja wheezed, his one good eye fixed on the weapon lying in the dirt next to Arya.
The Keris.
It was no longer rusted. The eleven curves of the blade were etched with Pamor—the traditional layered-steel pattern—that looked like moving water frozen in time. The hilt, carved into the likeness of a Rakshasa, seemed to watch Arya with an intelligence that made his hair stand on end.
"I don't know what happened, Kek," Arya said, his voice trembling. "I just... I felt this hole inside me fill up. It felt like the whole sky was pouring into my heart."
Tarja grabbed Arya's forearm with surprising strength. "Listen to me. That wasn't Aether. Not the kind these pampered Sect lords use. That was Prana-Akasa—the Breath of the Firmament. It's the signature of the Skyweavers."
Arya froze. The Skyweavers were myths, campfire stories told to children to explain how the great islands stayed afloat. They were said to be the architects of the archipelago, the ones who sang to the stones to make them fly. But the stories always ended the same way: the Skyweavers vanished because they became too powerful, or perhaps, because the world simply wasn't ready to be held up by mortals.
"But I have an Empty Core," Arya protested. "The healers in the Upper Tier said I was a hollow vessel."
"They were fools," Tarja spat, coughing up a bit of grey phlegm. "A vessel isn't useless just because it's empty, Arya. It's the only thing that can be filled with something new. They were looking for a cup of water, and they missed the fact that you were an empty ocean."
The moment of revelation was shattered by the sound of heavy, rhythmic footsteps. These weren't the frantic, uneven steps of fleeing villagers. These were the boots of trained men.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
From the main thoroughfare of the Suralaya slums, a group of five men emerged. They wore polished breastplates of silver-grey steel, etched with the symbol of a rising sun behind a mountain. Their capes were a deep, arrogant crimson.
Arya's stomach dropped. The Silver Sun Sect.
They were the "protectors" of the Southern District, but in reality, they were little more than tax collectors for the Noble Houses in the capital. Their leader, a man named Commander Draka, stepped forward. He was tall, with a neatly trimmed beard and eyes that held the cold indifference of a man who viewed commoners as cattle.
Draka looked at the bisected corpse of the Kala beast, then at the wounded blacksmith, and finally, his gaze settled on Arya and the shimmering Keris.
"An unauthorized manifestation of High-Tier Aether in the slums," Draka said, his voice smooth and dangerous. "By the decree of the Mahesapada Council, all anomalies must be reported. And all unregistered artifacts of power must be... surrendered for 'safety' inspection."
Draka's hand moved to the hilt of the straight-sword at his hip. Behind him, his four subordinates fanned out, their hands glowing with the dull red light of Fire-element Aether.
"The boy just saved the village, Draka!" Tarja shouted, trying to stand but failing. "The beast would have slaughtered everyone while you were hiding in your counting-house!"
Draka didn't even look at the old man. "The village is irrelevant. The energy signature detected by our sensors was blue. Pure, unfiltered Blue Aether. That hasn't been recorded in the Southern Provinces for three generations." He stepped closer, the heat from his red Aether making the air shimmer. "Boy. Hand over the dagger. Now."
Arya felt a cold sweat break out on his neck. He looked at the Keris. He could feel it humming again. It wasn't the roar from before, but a low, warning vibration. It wanted him to pick it up.
If I give it to them, they'll kill me anyway to keep the secret, Arya realized. He had lived in the slums long enough to know how the "Gentry" handled surprises they couldn't control.
"I said... hand it over," Draka repeated, his voice dropping an octave. He gestured, and two of his guards lunged forward.
Arya didn't think. He reached down and snatched the Keris.
The moment his fingers brushed the hilt, the "Empty Core" in his chest pulsed. It wasn't the explosion from before—his body was too exhausted for that—but it was enough. A thin, sharp veil of blue light snapped into existence around his hand.
The two guards, both Second-Stage Cultivators, were thrown back as if they had walked into a stone wall. They tumbled into the dirt, their red Aether flickering out in surprise.
"Skyweaver," Draka whispered, his eyes widening not with fear, but with a terrifying, predatory greed. "The legends were true. A living battery. Do not kill him! Break his legs if you must, but I want him alive!"
The guards recovered and drew their weapons. These were no longer just tax collectors; they were hunters.
"Arya, run!" Tarja roared, throwing his broken axe haft at the nearest guard. "Go to the docks! Find the Garuda's Wake! Tell the Captain you're the son of the Ash!"
Arya hesitated, looking at his grandfather.
"GO!" Tarja's voice cracked with desperation.
Arya turned and bolted. He wasn't a warrior, but he knew every inch of Suralaya's twisted, narrow alleys. He dove between two crumbling shacks just as a bolt of red fire scorched the air where his head had been a second before.
"After him!" Draka screamed.
The Flight Through the Slums
Arya's lungs burned. The ash rain was turning into a heavy downpour of grey sludge, making the cobblestones slick and treacherous. Behind him, he could hear the heavy boots of the Silver Sun guards and the occasional blast of fire as they cleared obstacles in their path.
I have no Aether. I have no Aether, he repeated to himself like a mantra.
But as he ran, he realized that wasn't entirely true. While he couldn't "cultivate" energy into his core like the guards did, his perception had shifted.
He didn't just see the alleyways. He saw the flow.
He could see the heat rising from the forge chimneys as ribbons of dull orange. He could see the gravity-veins in the floating rocks of the street as faint white lines. And he could see his pursuers. They looked like angry, red blots of ink moving through a grey world.
They're faster than me, Arya realized. But they're heavy.
He rounded a corner and saw a narrow gap between a warehouse and a cliff face. The gap led to the 'Ventilation Shafts'—a series of massive bronze pipes that sucked air from the surface to keep the volcano from suffocating the village.
He dove into the shadows of the pipes.
"He went this way!" a guard shouted.
Arya pressed his back against the cold bronze. He gripped the Keris. "Please," he whispered to the blade. "I don't need to kill them. I just need to get away."
The Keris responded. A soft, melodic chime echoed in his mind.
Shift the weight, a voice seemed to whisper.
As the first guard rounded the corner, Arya didn't swing the blade. Instead, he touched the Keris to the massive bronze pipe. He felt the latent Aether inside the metal—the energy used to keep the pipes from rusting in the volcanic sulfur.
Arya didn't try to take the energy. He simply... redirected it.
He pushed his "Empty Core" against the pipe's flow, acting like a bridge. Suddenly, the gravity around the pipe began to warp. The guard, who was mid-stride, suddenly found his feet weighing a thousand pounds. He slammed face-first into the mud, unable to lift even a finger.
"What is this?!" the guard choked out, his armor groaning under the sudden, localized pressure.
Arya didn't wait to explain. He climbed the exterior of the pipe, his movements light and effortless. Without the weight of Aether-density in his body, he was as nimble as a cat. He reached the roof of the warehouse and looked toward the Lower Docks.
The docks were a forest of masts and floating balloons. Thousands of merchant airships moored there to trade volcanic ore for grain from the Upper Islands.
The Garuda's Wake. He remembered the ship. It was a battered, triple-masted galleon with a hull made of dark ironwood and sails that looked like the wings of an eagle. It was one of the few ships that braved the "Grand Descent"—the dangerous trade route to the surface and back.
Arya leaped from the roof, landing on a stack of hay-filled crates. He sprinted toward the piers, his heart a frantic drumbeat.
"There! On the roof!"
Commander Draka was standing on a high balcony, his hand raised. A massive sphere of red fire, the size of a boulder, began to form above his head. The air grew so hot that Arya's hair began to singe.
"You are a treasure of the state, boy!" Draka shouted, his voice amplified by Aether. "If I cannot have you whole, I will have your charred remains!"
The fire-sphere hurtled toward the docks. It wasn't aimed at Arya—it was aimed at the pier he was running on. Draka intended to cut off his escape.
BOOM!
The explosion was deafening. The wooden pier shattered, sending splinters of wood flying like shrapnel. Arya was thrown into the air, the world spinning in a dizzying blur of smoke and sea-mist.
He hit the water. It was freezing, the cold biting into his overheated skin like a thousand needles. The weight of his soot-stained clothes began to pull him down.
Arya struggled, gasping for air as he broke the surface. The pier was a wall of flame behind him. Ahead, the massive hull of the Garuda's Wake loomed like a mountain of wood.
"Man overboard!" a voice cried from the deck. "Throw the lines!"
A thick hemp rope, weighted with a lead ball, splashed into the water inches from Arya's face. He grabbed it with a death-grip, ignoring the rope-burn on his palms.
He was hauled upward, his body slamming against the side of the ship as he was dragged toward the railing. Strong, calloused hands reached over and grabbed him by the collar, hoisting him onto the deck like a landed fish.
Arya lay on the deck, coughing up salt water and ash.
"Easy there, lad," a deep, melodic voice said. "You look like you've been through the Maw of the Naga."
Arya looked up. Standing over him was a woman who looked like she belonged in a legend. She was tall, with skin the color of polished teak and eyes that sparkled like emeralds. She wore a long, flowing Sarung of indigo silk over leather breeches, and a captain's coat lined with the feathers of a Cendrawasih bird.
This was Captain Melati, the legendary 'Sea-Witch' of the Southern Archipelago.
"I... I'm looking for the Captain," Arya wheezed. "Master Tarja sent me. He said... I'm the son of the Ash."
The woman's emerald eyes narrowed. The playful smirk vanished from her face. She looked at Arya, then at the wet, shimmering Keris still clutched in his hand.
She knelt down, her voice a low whisper that only Arya could hear. "The Son of the Ash? That's a name I haven't heard since the Great Fall. Do you have any idea what you're carrying, boy?"
Before Arya could answer, a shout came from the shore.
"In the name of the Silver Sun Sect! Release that prisoner or be declared pirates!"
Commander Draka stood at the edge of the burning pier, his face contorted in a mask of fury. His guards were already boarding a smaller, faster pursuit-skiff, their red Aether lanterns lighting up the smoke.
Captain Melati stood up, a cold, sharp smile touching her lips. She didn't look at Draka. She looked at her crew.
"Cast off the anchors! Release the Aether-sails!" she commanded. Her voice carried over the roar of the flames, infused with a power that made the very deck of the ship vibrate.
"Captain, they're the Silver Sun!" one of the sailors cried. "They'll hunt us to the capital!"
"Let them hunt," Melati said, her eyes flashing with a sudden, green light. She turned to the helm. "We're going to the Grand Descent. If they want the boy, they can follow us into the storm."
The ship groaned. The massive, gravity-defying stones in the keel began to hum, a deep bass note that Arya felt in his teeth. The sails unfurled—not canvas, but shimmering sheets of translucent silk that caught the invisible currents of the Aether-winds.
The Garuda's Wake lurched forward, pulling away from the docks just as the Silver Sun skiff began to give chase.
Arya crawled to the railing, watching the village of Suralaya shrink into the distance. The volcano, the forge, Master Tarja... it was all disappearing into the violet haze.
"You're safe for now, Son of the Ash," Melati said, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. "But you've just started a fire that's going to burn across every island in Aksantara. I hope you're ready to learn how to breathe in the smoke."
Arya looked down at the Keris. The blue light was gone, replaced by a quiet, steady warmth.
"I'm ready," Arya whispered, though his heart was still hammering against his ribs.
He wasn't just a blacksmith's apprentice anymore. He was a fugitive. He was an anomaly.
He was the Last Skyweaver.