Chapter 1
Arin Vale always hated silence.
It wasn't the kind of silence that came when the market stalls closed or when the crickets in the fields stopped chirping. This silence was different. He could hear it above everything—he could feel it pressing down, heavy and endless, from the sky.
The sky of his world was a black shroud. No moon. No stars. No faint silver light to break the endless curtain. When Arin was little, he used to ask, "Where are the stars?" His mother would shush him quickly, eyes darting nervously toward the neighbors.
"There are no stars," she would whisper. "Never speak of such things."
But even as a child, Arin never believed it. Somewhere deep in his chest, when the village slept and the fields were quiet, he heard it—soft murmurs, like a thousand voices weeping from above. Sometimes he would wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, convinced someone had called his name from the sky.
By the time he was eighteen, he'd learned to keep those secrets to himself.
---
That night, the village of Hallowfen was alive with drunken laughter. It was the Harvest Festival, and the air smelled of roasted meat, ale, and smoke from the bonfires. Children chased each other with lanterns, their laughter echoing between the crooked wooden houses.
Arin leaned against the side of the old well in the square, watching it all with a faint smile. The people were happy tonight. Even in a world of darkness, humans found excuses to laugh.
"Arin!" a voice shouted.
He turned to see Joren, a broad-shouldered boy with straw-colored hair, waving him over with a mug of ale. "Don't just lurk in the shadows. Come drink with us!"
Arin raised a hand in polite refusal. "I'll pass. Someone has to keep you all from falling into the fire."
Joren laughed, already stumbling as he joined a circle of dancers.
Arin shook his head. Truthfully, he didn't feel like celebrating. Today wasn't just the Harvest Festival—it was his eighteenth birthday. The age when most boys began apprenticeships, joined the guard, or left to find work in the cities.
But what future did he have? His father had vanished when Arin was ten, swallowed by one of the mysterious "raids" that sometimes struck border towns. His mother worked herself ragged in the weaving shop just to keep them fed. And him? He was just the boy who sometimes muttered to himself at night, who stared too long at the sky as if he expected it to change.
He turned his gaze upward now. Black. Always black.
And then—
Arin…
The voice slid into his mind like water slipping through cracks. He froze, his breath caught in his throat.
It wasn't the first time he'd heard it. But tonight, it was stronger. Louder.
Arin Vale… hear us…
His pulse quickened. The voices weren't madness. They couldn't be. He could feel them like a living current beneath his skin.
"Not now," he muttered, pressing his palms to his ears. "Not here."
But the voice ignored him. It grew clearer, layered, as if thousands of whispers spoke at once.
The chains weaken. The sky remembers. You must come.
Arin stumbled away from the square, past the laughter and music, his chest tight. He didn't stop until he reached the edge of the fields, where the tall grass swayed in the night wind. He fell to his knees, gripping the dirt.
"What do you want from me?" he hissed.
The answer came with a strange vibration in the air. The silence of the sky deepened, heavy, suffocating—and then, for the briefest heartbeat, a faint shimmer flickered above.
Arin gasped.
A light.
Not a lantern. Not a fire. Something high, impossibly high, glimmering against the void.
A star.
It vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving him trembling, his mind spinning.
"Impossible…"
---
The ground shifted beneath him. No, not the ground—shadows. From the edge of the field, dark shapes rose, twisting, clawing forms made of smoke and void. Their eyes burned faintly red.
Arin staggered back. He had never seen creatures like this.
One of them hissed, its voice like broken glass scraping: The cursed one… must not awaken…
Panic surged through him. He turned to run—too slow. The shadow lunged.
Instinct took over. Arin threw up his hands—and light exploded from his palms.
Not fire. Not lightning. Something purer, raw, a burst of silvery-white energy that burned through the darkness like a spear. The shadow screamed as it dissolved into nothing.
Arin fell back, staring at his own trembling hands, still faintly glowing.
"What… what did I just—?"
Before he could think, the other shadows shrieked and rushed him. He braced, heart hammering—
And then another light cut through the night.
A girl stood between him and the creatures, her cloak whipping in the wind. She held a blade that shimmered like moonlight, and with a single arc, she cleaved the shadows apart.
The field went silent.
Arin stared. He had never seen her before. Pale hair like silver, eyes glowing faintly blue, as if carrying the very starlight he had glimpsed.
She turned to him, her voice steady, urgent.
"You heard them, didn't you?" she said. "The voices from the sky."
Arin's mouth went dry. "…Yes."
Her expression softened with something between relief and sorrow.
"Then you're the one they've been waiting for."
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✨ End of Chapter 1