The floating skies above Selun'Thael bled with golden hues, where clouds shaped like sleeping lions drifted lazily across sun-threaded air. The play had ended, but the echoes of myth still pulsed through the pearlwork plaza. Children mimicked Anu's last stance with sticks for swords; maidens sighed beneath veil-trees, their voices humming the last lines of the tragic verse.
The boy sat still beneath the whispering eaves of an arched walkway carved from living crystalvine. He hadn't moved since the final verse was sung, his gaze trailing the space where Anu had, in the retelling, defied the heavens and vanished.
He was cloaked in grey, his frame slender, almost slight, yet there was something curiously unmoved about him. His hair fell like black silk over his brow, hiding one eye, but the other gleamed with a luster that unsettled the air. It was not the gleam of youth, nor the spark of talent, but a far-seeing look. An eye that carried stillness like a god might carry silence.
Imius, the town scribe's son, leaned closer, his whisper shaded with awe. "You watched the whole thing without blinking. Were you... remembering something?"
The boy did not answer.
Imius chuckled nervously. "I mean, not remembering, obviously. It's just a story. But it felt real, didn't it?"
A bell rang in the higher towers. From the elevated glassways, figures descended on skystep carriages—slow-moving platforms of luminous jade, piloted by hovering glyphs. The Saevareth insignia, a radiant flame-crystal over a floating citadel, gleamed on their robes.
Lady Ishal, youngest of the Saevareth highblood line, was among them. She had watched the play from her cloud-balcony, but now her interest shifted subtly toward the pondium crowd. Her gaze swept over the youths like wind over tall grass, then stopped.
She saw him.
The cloaked boy.
Her expression changed—a flicker, something near confusion, then fascination. She whispered to her attendant, a white-robed elder whose name none but nobles ever learned. The elder gave a hesitant nod.
Soon, a voice called out.
"You, grey-cloaked one. The Lady wishes a word."
The boy turned.
His movement was slow, as if the air resisted him. As if he were not meant to be approached, and yet here they were.
Imius blinked. "You're in trouble." Then a pause. "Or... something else entirely."
The boy stood.
And the wind, without warning, quieted.
Not a leaf stirred. Not a whisper dared.
The pearl plaza, moments ago full of laughter, held its breath.
He walked forward, barefooted, dust touching his heel like it welcomed him home.
Lady Ishal watched him come. And though she was of one of the continent's mightiest bloodlines, whose family forged skycrafts that ferried stars, whose ancestors molded weapons that once pierced a storm-king's breath—she, for the first time in her long-blooded life, felt as though she were not the heir, but the question.
And the boy?
The answer that no story had dared write.