The dawn never came.
When Edrin opened his eyes, the sky above him was still drowned in starlight. Not the gentle stars he remembered as a child, but cold, jagged constellations that seemed stitched into the heavens with silver fire. The village was silent—too silent. Even the ruins felt as though they were holding their breath.
His chest ached. The strange pulse within him had not faded. Instead, it had grown louder, resonating with the very air around him. Each beat seemed to tug at something unseen, something vast.
He sat up slowly, wincing as the memory of the Remnant returned. Its scream still echoed in his ears. He had survived—but only because the power inside him had lashed out on its own.
Power that wasn't supposed to exist.
Power that shouldn't belong to a mortal.
Edrin pressed a hand over his heart. The Harvester failed to reap me… and left this behind.
The thought chilled him more than the night air.
Before he could gather himself, he heard movement. Stones shifting, rubble breaking. He froze and crouched low, peering through the cracked walls of the house.
Two figures in cloaks moved silently through the ruins. Their faces were hidden beneath masks of polished bone, their hands clutching lanterns that burned with pale, soul-like fire. With every step, their lanterns pulled wisps of light from the ground—residual essence from the villagers who had died here.
Edrin's stomach turned cold.
Harvesters.
Not the same one who had come for him, but others. Reapers of souls, collectors of the Astral Council.
He pressed himself against the wall, heart pounding. If they discovered he still lived… if they sensed what he had become…
The taller of the two suddenly paused. The lantern in his hand flickered violently. He turned his masked face toward the ruined well.
Edrin bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. He forced himself to stay perfectly still.
"There's residue," the taller one said, his voice hollow, echoing as though it came from inside the mask. "A Harvester was here."
The other figure knelt beside the well, trailing skeletal fingers across the stones. "Yes. But the reaping is incomplete. The soul did not cross fully."
The first tilted his head. "An error?"
"A failure."
Edrin's blood ran cold.
The cloaked figures rose, their lanterns sweeping across the ruins. Light stretched like tendrils, brushing dangerously close to his hiding spot.
He clenched his fists. If the strange power inside him decided to flare again, he'd be exposed. But if it stayed quiet, maybe… just maybe…
The tendril of light recoiled suddenly, like a snake snapping back. The cloaked figures stiffened.
"Something interferes," the second one said. "A shield not of our making."
They both looked up at the sky.
Edrin followed their gaze and nearly lost his breath.
The stars themselves were moving.
Slowly, faintly, the constellations shifted, like gears in some enormous, celestial machine. The sky trembled, and the cloaked figures knelt immediately, pressing their foreheads to the ground.
"The Council watches," one whispered.
Edrin swallowed hard. His body felt heavy, pinned beneath that starlit gaze. He wanted to scream, to demand answers, but he couldn't even move. The stars were watching—not them, not the Harvesters. Him.
He forced himself to crawl backward, deeper into the ruins, heart hammering. The lantern light didn't follow. The cloaked figures remained prostrate, waiting for the stars to still.
By the time they rose, Edrin was gone.
---
He didn't stop running until his lungs burned. The village was far behind him, its silence swallowed by the dense forest. He collapsed against a tree, gasping for breath.
The forest was wrong too. Leaves shimmered faintly in the starlight, veins glowing like constellations. Every bird, every insect, every beast had gone silent.
Edrin pressed his back against the bark and shut his eyes.
What am I supposed to do? Where do I go?
He had no answers. His family, his neighbors, his entire village was gone—souls harvested, bodies left to rot. Only he remained, carrying a burden that wasn't his.
A soft sound broke the silence. Not footsteps. Not a howl.
A voice.
It whispered, faint but clear, curling like smoke inside his mind.
> "Edrin Kael… the soul that refused to be reaped…"
His eyes snapped open. The forest around him was still empty. Yet the voice lingered, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Who are you?" he whispered hoarsely.
The air shimmered. A figure formed before him—half-light, half-shadow. Not flesh, not spirit. Its face was indistinct, but its eyes glowed like dying stars.
"I am not your enemy," the voice said, though its tone was neither kind nor cruel. "I am a fragment… a witness… one who has seen the Council's lies."
Edrin's fists clenched. "The Council? You mean the Harvesters? They slaughtered everyone—"
"Not slaughter. Collection," the voice interrupted. "To them, you were never alive. You were fuel. A flicker of essence to be consumed."
Rage boiled in his chest, but beneath it was fear. He remembered the cloaked figures kneeling, their reverence toward the stars. Whatever the Council was… it was vast, far beyond his understanding.
"Why me?" Edrin demanded. "Why did I survive?"
The figure tilted its head. "Because you resisted. Because your soul clung to itself even when the Harvester's scythe tore it free. That defiance has marked you. It has given you something they cannot control."
Edrin's breath caught. He remembered the Remnant disintegrating under his touch, the barrier that had shielded him.
"…Power," he whispered.
The figure's eyes burned brighter. "Yes. Power born from refusal. Power to unmake what they harvest."
Edrin's heart pounded. The weight of it threatened to crush him, yet a spark of fire lit in his chest. For the first time since the Harvester's visit, he felt something other than fear.
He felt choice.
"What do I do now?" he asked.
The figure's form flickered, fading. "Survive. Learn. And when the time comes… defy."
Then it was gone, leaving only the forest, the stars, and the impossible burden inside him.
Edrin pressed his forehead against the bark of the tree, eyes burning with unshed tears. He was no warrior, no prophet, no hero. Just a boy who should have died with the rest of his village.
And yet, the cosmos itself had refused to let him go.
Somewhere deep within, he knew: this was only the beginning.