The sky was overcast.
Not with clouds, but with dust caught in the upper winds, casting a dull gray over Veyrune. The kind of light that made everything look faded. The kind of air that felt like it remembered storms that hadn't happened yet.
Kaien sat on the steps of an abandoned shrine, tucked behind a collapsed wall near the city's edge. The structure had once been painted in gold and red, but the rain and time had taken it all. Now, only the stone remained, etched faintly with symbols that no one could read anymore.
He had found it years ago. A place no one visited. A place that didn't ask questions.
The wind pushed softly at the grass around the steps. Far off, the city pulsed with low noise. Not the usual chaos of shouting vendors or laughing children, but something slower. Thicker. The sound of people waiting.
Tomorrow, the gates would open.
Rin had gone early to help prepare with the courier runners. Kaien had declined the offer to join. He didn't need to be near the gates. Not yet.
He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them.
He thought of the old woman's words. The hum. The cold. The folding world.
He thought of the seal etched into the Inner Ring's sky. The divine patterns that danced above the towers, too far away to touch but always watching. He wondered what it would feel like to belong to something. To be called by blood instead of ignored by it.
He had never felt small before. Poor, yes. Forgotten, yes. But not small.
Now, with the weight of tomorrow pressing down, he felt like a single stone at the edge of a cliff. Like something waiting to fall.
He closed his eyes.
The air was too still again.
Somewhere in the quiet, a memory rose. Not one he could name. A sound. A voice. A shape behind a veil. Something with no face, watching him before he was born.
Then it vanished.
Kaien opened his eyes.
The wind returned.
A leaf scraped past the stone floor. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang.
He stood.
There was nothing else to do today.
He walked back to the slums with steady steps, and for the first time in years, he felt the world watching him.