The ash never stopped falling.
It sifted down from the heavens in pale-gray veils, soft as snow but bitter on the tongue, a dry poison that scraped at the lungs when one forgot to bind a cloth across the mouth. It clung to the skin, gathered in hair, and stained the streets of Nerith in shades of sorrow. People called it the sky's curse, a reminder that the world had burned a thousand years ago and never recovered.
For Caelum Veyne, ash was more than a curse. It was the only thing that kept him alive.
He swung his pick against the wall of the mine, sparks scattering where metal bit into brittle rock. Each strike rattled his bones, but he kept the rhythm steady. Swing, strike, breathe. Swing, strike, breathe. It was the rhythm of survival.
The air was thick here, far beneath the desert surface. Lamps hung from the jagged ceiling, their shardlight dim and unsteady, shadows shifting with every sway. The tunnels reeked of sweat and dust, a stench that burrowed into one's skin no matter how often one washed.
"Keep your hands moving, rats!" the overseer's voice cracked down the tunnel. "The Empire doesn't pay for bones to rest!"
Caelum ground his teeth beneath the cloth mask wrapped around his face. The overseer's words were lies; the Empire barely paid at all. But he kept his silence and worked.
Around him, miners labored with hollow eyes, their bodies gaunt, their hands raw. Men twice Caelum's age looked like brittle husks, bent backs and shaking knees threatening to collapse at any moment. Few lasted long in the ash pits.
A life for a shard. That was the bargain.
The Empire hungered for Godshards, crystals born from the corpses of fallen deities buried beneath the endless desert. They glowed faintly with colors—red for flame, green for nature, blue for water—and granted fleeting power to those who dared use them. Fleeting, because shards burned their wielders from the inside.
Still, even a fragment the size of a nail was worth more than a week's bread. Enough to keep his younger sister fed. Enough to keep her from the Empire's orphan sweeps.
Caelum paused to wipe the sweat dripping from his brow. For a moment, he let himself imagine Liora waiting at home, sitting by their small lamp, humming one of the old songs their mother used to sing. She was only sixteen but clever and sharp, far brighter than him. Too bright for Nerith.
The pickaxe swung again.
This time, the wall screamed.
Not with sound made of breath and throat, but with something that resonated in the marrow of his bones. His ears rang, his skull buzzed, and the pick lodged itself deep in a crack that hadn't been there a heartbeat before.
The rock split, glowing faintly from within.
Miners froze. One spat and muttered a prayer, hands trembling as he backed away. Another crossed his arms over his chest in the sign of warding.
Caelum's heart hammered. He had seen shards before. Dull fragments that glowed faintly, fragile enough to crumble in a strong grip. But this—this was different.
The thing embedded in the stone pulsed like a living organ. Jagged, obsidian-black, its veins glimmered with silver fire that writhed and coiled as though alive. Each beat echoed in Caelum's chest.
The overseer stormed forward, lantern swinging. When his eyes fell on the shard, his face blanched.
"Back!" he barked, shoving miners aside. "Nobody touches it. Not without the priests."
Murmurs spread. Everyone knew what shards meant: coin, yes—but also corruption, madness, death. And this one was wrong. Too alive. Too aware.
Caelum should have stepped away, but his eyes were locked on the shard. He couldn't look elsewhere.
—Caelum.
The whisper slid through his skull like cold water. He jerked, clutching at his mask.
"Did you hear that?" he rasped.
The miners stared at him, confused. They had heard nothing.
—Caelum. The voice was soft, coaxing, as if it had been waiting for centuries. Take me. I have waited long enough.
His legs weakened. He staggered back, but the shard pulsed harder, light spilling through the crack like veins crawling toward him.
The overseer shoved Caelum aside, breaking the connection. "Out, boy! Get out!"
Caelum stumbled, but the whisper did not fade. It lodged deep inside him, a hook buried in flesh.
---
By the time dusk fell, the city was already whispering. A shard unlike any other had been unearthed. The Empire's priests would arrive soon. They always did.
Caelum sat on a straw mat in the one-room hovel he shared with Liora, staring at the shuttered window. Outside, the ashstorm howled, fine gray dust slipping through cracks and coating the floor.
"You're trembling again," Liora said softly.
He turned. She sat cross-legged on her mat, wrapped in a patched blanket. Her eyes, wide and luminous despite the dim light, studied him with concern. Sixteen, yet her gaze was sharper than anyone he knew.
"I'm fine," Caelum lied.
"You're not."
Her voice was steady, but worry flickered across her face. She had always been able to see through him.
He hesitated. Then, in a whisper, "We found a shard today. Different from the others."
Her breath caught. "Did it… choose someone?"
The word made him flinch. Sometimes shards resonated with miners, clinging to them like parasites. Those chosen rarely lived long before madness devoured them.
"No," he said too quickly.
But the whisper coiled in his chest like smoke.
—Liar. You are mine already.
He clenched his fists until his nails broke skin.
Liora narrowed her eyes but said nothing more. She trusted him, perhaps too much. He wished he could shield her from all of it—the Empire, the priests, the shards.
Sleep never came.
---
The priests arrived with dawn.
The procession swept through the ash-choked streets like a tide of black. Cloaked figures marched in perfect step, their faces hidden behind bronze masks etched with divine runes. They carried lanterns that burned with shardlight instead of flame.
At their center walked a man taller than the rest. His mask was silver, his robes embroidered with veins of crystal that pulsed faintly with inner fire. The crowd parted in silence. Children clung to mothers, men lowered their gazes.
High Inquisitor Draeth.
Caelum's stomach knotted as he pulled Liora into an alley. The priests were headed straight for the mines. Soon they would seal the chamber, claim the shard, and take anyone it had touched.
He told himself to stay away. To stay hidden.
But by dusk, the square was filled with gathered miners.
Draeth stood upon the temple steps, his silver mask gleaming in the shardlight fires. Guards dragged forward several men—those who had worked near the shard. Caelum's chest tightened. He recognized their faces. Men he had labored beside only yesterday.
And among them—Liora.
His breath stopped.
She looked so small between armored soldiers. Her hair whipped in the wind, her eyes wide, searching the crowd until they found him.
She struggled, crying out his name, but her voice was lost to the murmuring crowd.
Caelum surged forward, but rough hands clamped around him, holding him back.
"Chosen!" Draeth's voice rang out, deep and resonant, carrying across the square as though amplified by unseen power. "The shard has spoken. It requires Vessels. Those taken are blessed to serve the divine flame."
Blessed. That was what they called it. Everyone knew the truth: Vessels were hollowed out, their bodies used as experiments until nothing of them remained.
Caelum thrashed against the hands restraining him, rage and terror igniting in his chest.
The whisper screamed inside him.
—Now. Take me. Break your chains.
Agony exploded behind his eyes. Silver veins seared across his vision, cracks in reality itself. His body convulsed as though something inside him had awakened, clawing free.
The guards holding him staggered, faces pale. Shadows writhed at his feet, rising like smoke given flesh. The air thickened, pressing down on the crowd.
A voice—not his own—spilled from his throat, low and resonant.
"Release her."
The square erupted in panic. People stumbled back, some fleeing, others dropping to their knees in fear.
Even Draeth tilted his head, intrigued.
Caelum's bones burned, his skin crawling with veins of silver light. He felt both himself and not-him—an ancient will awakening, speaking through him.
—Yes, the whisper exulted. Together, we rise.
His shadow lashed out, tendrils striking the ground with enough force to crack stone. Guards stumbled, dropping their weapons.
Liora screamed his name, tears streaking her face.
Draeth lifted a hand. The crystals in his robe flared, radiating heat like a furnace.
"So," he said, his voice calm. "The shard has chosen you."
Caelum staggered, clutching his skull. The world tilted, ash and fire blending together.
"I… didn't… choose…"
—You were chosen the moment you touched me. You are my flesh, my vengeance, my rise.
The crowd dissolved into chaos. Some fled, others whispered prayers.
Draeth's command cut through the din.
"Seize him alive."
Caelum's vision darkened. The last thing he saw was Liora's face—eyes wide with terror—as the world collapsed into black.