The sky was never supposed to vanish.
On the night it happened, entire constellations winked out like dying embers.
Ships on the far side of the system sent panicked transmissions — then nothing. Silence.
From the wreckage that rained across worlds, fragments were recovered. Shards. Each pulsing with light that was not light, energy that was not energy. The Spire Council called them Anomalous Aetherion Objects. Most feared them. A few sought to weaponize them.
One shard found Kaelen Veyrn.
He didn't remember the exact moment — only the burning in his chest and the way the world bent inward, collapsing into a single sound: the heartbeat of something older than stars.
Far away, in a city balanced between three timelines, Lyra Thaloren heard the same heartbeat. And she knew — without reason — that it was calling her too.