In the silence that followed the Queen's sacrifice, no one in the capital knew what had happened. The festival went on. The music played. People laughed and danced. But across the thirteen realms — far from the palace — there was no joy.
They had all felt it.
Not magic.
Not prophecy.
Something deeper. Something new.
The Demon King stood in his obsidian fortress, eyes glowing dimly.
"Something has entered this world... and it doesn't belong to us," he whispered.
The Dragon King, high above the clouds, flared his wings and roared to the sky.
"A presence without chains... unwritten by fate."
The Angel King wept silently in his golden chamber, knowing without knowing why.
"We were not meant to guide them. They were meant to choose."
The God-King placed down his crown for the first time in centuries.
"I cannot see their future. That alone is terrifying."
Kaelthys, Warden of Ice, deep in his frozen realm, spoke aloud for the first time in years:
"I felt warmth. And that means change."
The King of Beasts clawed at the earth until it bled.
The Queen of Spirits trembled in her ethereal halls.
The Queen of Poison let her venom spill onto sacred stone.
Tharos, Lord of Lightning, split the heavens with a strike.
Veynar, Stormlord, raised storms that drowned entire coasts.
Erevos, Sovereign of Shadows, hid deeper into the dark.
And Aurelia, the Aurora Sentinel, lit her skies with colors unseen.
Each of them felt it.
A disturbance.
A spark.
A breath that did not come from destiny.
They looked to the sky, to the wind, to the seas, to the stars — and they all asked the same question in their own tongue:
"Who was born?"
For days after the festival, their sages searched scrolls, their prophets screamed in confusion, and even the gods grew restless.
But the answer never came.
Because the eight children were gone. Hidden in places no one could track.
Lyena. Livar. Zephyrion. Nivor. Glacien. Xavius. Kaelen. Chronas.
And somewhere, far away, when the last of them opened their eyes for the first time, a storm howled across the universe.
End of Chapter 2 – The Kings Who Felt the Silence