The sky was red, just as it had been for as long as anyone could remember.
It was said that eight hundred and forty years ago, before the Cataclysm, the sky had been blue. The sun shone through white clouds, and birds flew freely across the heavens. Magic surged through the land without effort.
Now the sky was nothing but layers of crimson gloom.
Albert gazed through the city library window at that familiar sight, the same one he had stared at for decades.
Below, the city sprawled beneath the bloody haze. People moved through the streets in long warded coats, the fabric treated with filtration charms to keep out air that had grown thin and bitter over the years. It carried a metallic taste that never quite left the tongue.
Breathe it long enough and it made you sick.
"Still here, old man?" a young librarian asked, passing by with an armful of books.
"Where else would I be, Mira?" Albert replied without looking away from the window.
"Home? Resting?"
"Mira, do you think I'll die before this world does?" Albert muttered, ignoring her concern.
He was seventy-five now.
Eight hundred and forty years ago, this world had been paradise. Historical texts spoke of floating cities and places where even commoners could afford minor enchantments. Magic had once been as common as breathing.
Until the invaders arrived.
History described them as outsiders from beyond this realm, beings who came through a rift in the heavens seeking dominion and everything that came with it.
The war that followed shook the world to its foundation.
No written account could truly capture the clashes between the strongest natives and the foreign conquerors. The Grand Archives held only fragments. Entire mountain ranges leveled in single exchanges. Seas boiled away. Reality itself torn at the seams.
The greatest mages of that age had thrown everything they had against the invasion. Archmage Valeron. Sage Queen Lysara. The legendary Seven Pillars. And above them all, Saint Lyra.
It had not been enough.
In the end, the World Core shattered.
That was when mana began bleeding away.
At first, the loss seemed manageable. But the symptoms worsened with each passing decade. The flying cities fell first. Then the magical beasts vanished. Then ambient mana thinned to the point where only the most gifted could still cast freely. Cities collapsed. Kingdoms fell. Entire civilizations built on magical foundations crumbled when that foundation dissolved.
Civilization choked on what remained of its former brilliance.
In desperation, mages turned obsessive. They refined every spell model, eliminated every trace of waste, optimized every circulation method until magic could be wrung from air that barely held any. The techniques they developed under that pressure were, Albert had always thought, more sophisticated than anything the Golden Age had produced.
Ironically, it had marked the birth of something new. An age of desperate brilliance.
Albert let out a dry, humorless laugh. "In a dying world, humans thrive most when desperate."
He paused, watching the street below.
"But what's the use, when everyone will die anyway?"
No spell could heal the shattered Core. No technique could restore the bleeding mana. Even if every mage in the world became a genius, nothing would stop the end.
"You're in a mood today," Mira observed, setting her books down.
"I'm in a mood every day. Today I'm just honest about it."
She smiled sadly. "The saints say we have a few decades left. Six if we're lucky."
"Optimistic of them."
Still, there was one thing Albert loved about this dying world. Its magical knowledge. The vast spell theories. The rune mathematics. The evolution of mana manipulation under pressure. He had spent decades in this library without boredom, reading, learning, devouring every scrap of magical research this era had painfully constructed.
He had studied thousands of spell models in crumbling manuals, analyzed the final works of geniuses who died pushing magic beyond its limits, memorized techniques built over long stretches of desperation.
This dying world was full of tragedy. But its magical knowledge was beautiful.
Unfortunately, beauty could not save it. Neither could someone like him. He had been born in an age where even talented individuals struggled to gather enough ambient mana to cultivate. Someone with average potential and no resources had never stood a chance. He had spent his entire life studying magic he could not wield.
The Golden Age had passed eight hundred and forty years ago, an era of limitless mana and flourishing brilliance.
If only this knowledge had existed then.
How strong might those mages have become?
What unimaginable heights could magic have reached?
If the Seven Pillars had possessed modern efficiency techniques. If Saint Lyra had understood runematics. If they'd had time to prepare instead of being caught unaware.
Perhaps the invaders would have been repelled. Perhaps the Core would still be whole. Perhaps the sky would still be blue.
"If only," Albert whispered. "If only the past had what the present has, and the present had what the past once did."
"What was that?" Mira asked.
"Nothing. Just an old man's fantasies."
The dead remained dead. History did not change. Dreams remained dreams.
Albert sighed and closed the ancient tome in his lap. Outside, the world was red and tired.
And so was he. Tired.
He had lived in a magical world for seventy-five years and never once touched magic.
"I'm heading home, Mira," he said, standing slowly. His joints protested.
"Finally. Get some rest, old man."
He made it three steps before dizziness struck. The world tilted. His vision blurred.
"Albert!" Mira's voice sounded distant.
He felt himself falling but could not quite remember how to catch himself. The red light from the windows faded, replaced by darkness.
'I should sleep,' Albert thought, and then thought nothing at all.
*
Albert had always wondered what a blue sky looked like.
The history books described it as an azure expanse, but words could never truly capture color. His favorite description came from a pre-Cataclysm children's book, preserved through constant reproduction over the centuries: The sky was so blue it made your heart ache with joy.
He had never understood that. How could a color cause joy? The red sky made his heart ache, but that was despair, not—
Blue?
Albert's thoughts fractured as he stared at what was above him.
Blue.
The sky above him was blue.
His mind reeled. Was this death? Some final hallucination, his starved brain conjuring the one thing he had spent his entire life wondering about?
The history books had been wrong. All of them. Words couldn't capture this. This color, this impossible color stretching endlessly above him, vast and open and alive in a way the red sky had never been.
"He's awake."
"Why isn't he speaking? Has he lost it?"
"Should we send for the physician?"
"Lady Mirelle already sent for him. Keep watching. It would be very bad if Sir Will sees his son like this."
"What could Sir Will do? He's just a horse caretaker. It's not as though we're the ones who let the boy fall."
"Hush! Are you mad? Don't forget Sir Will is a former friend of the Duke. If either of them heard you, it would go badly for us."
"Eek!"
Voices. Female voices, worried and close. The blue sky fractured as shapes moved into his field of vision.
Three women stared down at him, their faces creased with concern. They wore black dresses with crisp white aprons and matching white caps. Servants' uniforms. Old ones. The style was archaic, from centuries past. From the Golden Age.
His head throbbed. He tried to sit up, to ask why the sky was blue and who these women were and what was happening.
"W-where…" The voice that came from his throat was high and thin. A child's voice.
His voice. Except it could not be, because Albert was seventy-five years old.
"Easy, young master," one of the women said gently, pressing a cool hand to his forehead. "You took quite a fall. Lie still."
Young master.
Albert tried to speak again. His throat felt strange. "What happened?"
The same child's voice. He felt his own mouth produce it, felt the vibration in his chest. His vocal cords. His body.
He jerked his right hand up before his face.
Small. Smooth. Unmarked. A child's hand with tiny pale fingers.
Where his gnarled, age-spotted hand should have been.
"Young master Albert, please don't move so suddenly!" The servant's hand pressed firmly on his shoulder. "You hit your head. The physician will be here soon."
Albert. She had called him Albert. Young master Albert.
That had always been his name. Though for some reason it felt unfamiliar now.
Blue sky. Servants in Golden Age uniforms. A child's hand where an old man's should be.
"How old am I?" His voice cracked on the last word.
The three women exchanged a glance.
"You are eight years old, young master," the eldest said carefully. "Don't you remember?"
Eight years old?
The world tilted again. The servants' worried faces swam above him.