The nights belonged to the stars.
Aelric would lie broken on the earth, ribs splintered, muscles torn, his arm useless at his side, and still his eyes would climb to the heavens. The stars burned cold and distant, uncaring, yet they never mocked him. They were constant—ancient fires that had watched his promise fall from his lips, the only witnesses that could not be stolen by envy or hate.
In them, he saw escape.
Day after day, he searched the world for a way to bring back what was taken, and day after day the world denied him. Priests offered only chains in the name of their gods. Scholars laughed at him, calling him broken. Thieves tried to bleed him dry. Even the tribe that had sheltered him now whispered curses at his back.
This world had nothing left to give him.
But the stars… they remained. They had watched from the beginning, and in their silence Aelric began to believe. If he could not find salvation here, then perhaps it waited above. Beyond.
Every failure to rise higher, every bone that cracked under the invisible weight, every time his body betrayed him—it only hardened that belief. The barrier in the sky was not punishment. It was a door. A wall that dared him to climb over it.
And if he crossed it—
If he broke through—
Then perhaps on the other side, there would be a path the earth had hidden.
The world called him cursed. Armies now marched with torches to tear him down. Yet still, his eyes stayed fixed on the heavens.
I promise.
The vow burned through his veins louder than their threats, stronger than his own pain.
So when the moment came, when the army's fires flickered at the horizon and the tribe begged him to flee, Aelric knew the truth. There was nothing left for him below. His only chance lay in the stars.
And with a broken body and a burning will, he prepared once more to rise against the sky.