The sun was warm, the air smelled of bread and smoke, and for a little while Astra forgot the world could be cruel.
She ran barefoot through the meadow, grass slick with morning dew brushing her ankles. Nima ran just ahead, his laughter cutting through the still air, carrying back to her in bursts. He was taller, faster, always teasing her for stumbling — but today she was close enough to catch him.
"Almost there!" he shouted, pointing toward the goat pens at the far end of the field.
Astra narrowed her eyes, hair whipping in the wind. She pumped her arms, her breaths sharp and quick. "Not this time!"
Her legs ached, but the fire in her chest pushed her forward. She dove the last few steps, catching his sleeve. They tumbled together into the grass, laughing, breathless, faces smeared with dirt.
"You cheated," he said, trying and failing to keep a straight face.
"You're just slow," Astra shot back, grinning.
From the pens came the sharp bleating of goats, startled by their fall. The animals shifted restlessly, hooves clattering against the wooden posts. Astra frowned, brushing mud from her knees.
"Easy," she whispered, reaching out with her palm. She had always been good with the goats. They quieted a little at her touch, but their eyes still darted to the horizon as if they had seen something she had not.
Nima followed their gaze, shading his eyes. "Strange," he muttered. "There's no hawks this time of year."
Astra looked up, but the sky was clear. A sharp wind cut through the meadow, lifting the grass in waves. The warmth of the morning seemed to falter.
She tried to shrug it off, though unease crawled beneath her skin.
By the time they returned to the village, the air felt heavier. The cobbled lanes between cottages seemed hushed, as though the usual rhythm of morning had stilled. Astra's mother knelt outside their cottage, sorting herbs into neat bundles, her brow furrowed. She looked up at Astra with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"You're late," she said.
"We were racing," Astra said, dropping to her knees to help sort.
"Racing," her mother echoed, shaking her head. She reached out, brushing a lock of dirt-streaked hair from Astra's face. "You'll break your neck one day."
Nima smirked. "She already fell on her face. Twice."
Astra shoved him, and for a moment, things felt normal again.
The hammering of the smith carried from down the lane, a steady rhythm. Smoke curled from chimneys, mingling with the smell of stew. A child's laughter drifted from one of the cottages, followed by a dog's bark.
It was the sound of home.
Then the sky dimmed.
It happened slowly at first, so gradual that no one noticed. The gold of the sun bled into copper, as if dusk had come too early. Shadows stretched long across the dirt paths. The goats bleated again, louder this time. Dogs whined. The smith's hammer fell silent.
Astra's mother froze, eyes lifting toward the heavens.
A seam of darkness split across the sun. Not cloud, not shadow, but a black wound tearing its way across the light.
The village stilled. Men left their tools hanging. Women clutched children to their skirts. Nima reached for Astra's arm, his grip trembling.
"What is it?" he whispered.
Astra's throat had gone dry. "I… I don't know."
The rift widened, bleeding copper light until the sky looked bruised. The air grew heavy, pressing against their chests. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Astra's mother's voice was sharp, panicked. "Inside! Both of you, now!"
She grabbed Astra's hand, pulling her toward the cottage. Nima stumbled after them, pale and wide-eyed.
But Astra looked back. She couldn't help it.
The seam glowed against the sun, jagged and raw, like a wound that would not close. The goats tore free of their ropes, scattering into the fields. Birds wheeled overhead, their cries thin and terrified.
The silence deepened until it rang louder than any sound.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the rift sealed. The sun blazed gold again, as though nothing had happened.
But something lingered.
On the horizon, low against the sky, a black star glowed faintly. Too sharp to be cloud, too still to be bird, too wrong to be anything natural.
Astra whispered before she even realized: "It's watching."
Evening fell uneasily.
The sun returned, yes, but no one in the village trusted it. The air still carried that faint wrongness, a weight pressing against the ribs. The goats had not returned, the smith never raised his hammer again, and smoke from cookfires curled higher than usual, drifting like signals into the darkening sky.
Astra sat at the low table in their cottage, knees tucked beneath her, staring at her stew without eating. Her mother moved stiffly, tidying herbs that did not need tidying. Her father sat silent, spoon in hand, jaw tight.
Finally Astra asked, "What was it?"
Her father's eyes flicked to her mother. The silence stretched until her mother said, softly, "A shadow."
"That wasn't a shadow," Astra whispered.
Her mother dropped a hand to hers, squeezing hard. "Don't ask again."
The firmness in her voice left no room for argument, but fear gnawed at Astra all the same.
Outside, the villagers gathered. It began as a trickle, neighbors drifting toward the central firepit out of unease, then grew into a crowd. Astra slipped from the cottage while her parents argued in hushed voices. Nima was already waiting by the well, eyes wide.
"You saw it too," he said.
"Everyone saw it."
They moved to the fire together. Flames crackled, throwing light across drawn faces. Old Marila, the healer, hunched near the edge, her hands shaking as she clutched a string of worn beads. She spat into the dirt, muttering words that made no sense to Astra.
"The sky remembers," Marila croaked. "And memory calls back what should stay dead."
Several villagers made signs with their fingers, warding off evil. Others hissed at her to hush. But she would not.
"You think it's gone? You think fire forgets? No. No, it waits."
The black star still hung faint at the horizon, and every time the flames crackled too high, villagers flinched as though it might flare again.
A man near the fire swore under his breath. "It's Vyomar's curse. Has to be. My grandsire said the cracks would open again when his fire stirred."
"Your grandsire drank more than he prayed," another shot back.
"But he was there," the first argued. "He said the sky split once before, five hundred years ago, when Vyomar fought the Devourer. He said the cracks never truly closed."
A hush fell. The fire popped. Astra leaned closer, heart thudding.
Nima whispered, "Vyomar? Like the song?"
Astra knew only fragments, scraps hummed by mothers when they thought no one listened. She mouthed the words she remembered, barely a breath:
He rose with flame, he fell with sky,His name a curse, his fire a lie…
A woman pulled her child close, shushing her.
"Don't speak his name," an elder snapped. "That name is poison. It damned the world once; it'll damn us again."
"But what if it's true?" someone muttered. "What if his blood still walks?"
"No!" the elder barked, striking his staff against the earth. "That line was ended. Burned. Buried. Do not tempt it back with your tongues."
The fire seemed to dim at his words, the flames shrinking. Silence spread, heavy and thick.
Then someone laughed, sharp and too loud, breaking the stillness. "It's nothing but a trick of the sun. You fools jump at shadows."
But no one believed him.
When Astra returned home, her mother barred the shutters as if wood could hold back the sky. Astra lay awake long after her parents slept, staring at the rafters. She could not forget the seam across the sun, the black star's stillness, the whispers of Vyomar's name.
Some part of her wished she had never heard it.
Sleep did not come easily.
The shutters were barred, the hearth burned low, but the cottage felt hollow. Every creak of timber made Astra flinch, every gust of wind against the shutters sounded like the whisper of wings. Nima's words, the healer's mutterings, the elder's staff striking the earth — they all circled in her head.
Vyomar.
His name was a shadow she could not chase away.
At last exhaustion dragged her under.
And the dream came.
She stood in a place that was not her village. Not meadow, not forest. The ground was ash, stretching endless in every direction, black and brittle beneath her bare feet. The sky above was cracked, glowing with faint red veins, bleeding light as if the heavens themselves were wounded.
In the distance, something pulsed. A glow, rhythmic and steady, like a heartbeat. Astra moved toward it, though the ash shifted under her feet, swallowing her steps without sound.
The glow grew larger, brighter. Soon she saw it — a stone egg, taller than a cottage, wide as a house. Its surface was grey and jagged, but cracks ran across it, glowing faintly from within. With every pulse of light, the cracks widened, exhaling warmth.
Astra's breath caught. She felt its heat against her face, warm but not burning, like a hearth fire pressed too close. She raised a trembling hand, touching the stone.
It was alive.
A heartbeat thundered beneath her palm. Slow. Deep. Older than mountains.
Her knees weakened. She pressed her other hand to the egg, desperate to feel more, to understand. The cracks flared brighter. Ash scattered on the wind.
A voice whispered.
Not like the villagers. Not like her parents. This voice was everywhere — in her bones, in her breath, in the space between heartbeats.
Astra…
Her name. Spoken softly, but vast.
She stumbled back, shaking her head. "Who—who's there?"
The egg pulsed. The cracks split wider, light spilling through. The warmth grew hotter, suffocating.
Astra…
Her hands shook. The ash rose around her like a storm. The sky's cracks widened, bleeding fire. She tried to run, but her feet sank into the ash. The heartbeat quickened, pounding in her chest as though it had become her own.
A fissure split down the egg's center. A single sliver of light stabbed out, searing her eyes. Something moved inside — a shadowed shape, vast wings curling, scales glowing molten beneath the shell.
The voice came again, louder, sharper.
Astra.
She screamed.
The ash roared around her. The cracks in the sky burst wide, spilling flame. And from the egg, a golden eye opened, unblinking, burning, watching her.
Then she woke.
Astra sat bolt upright in her bed, sweat soaking her hair, her chest heaving. Her mother stirred in the next room, murmuring in her sleep, but did not wake.
The cottage was still. Too still.
Then, from the distance, a sound broke the silence — a howl.
Low, drawn, shivering. The call of a wolf.
But no wolves lived near her village. None had in generations.
Another answered, further off. Then another, closer.
Astra pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her heart hammer against her ribs. But it wasn't just her heart. In the silence between the howls, she swore she still heard the egg's pulse.
Slow. Steady. Waiting.
The black star lingered at the horizon. Even as the sun rose higher the next day, its faint glow remained, fixed and unyielding. Astra saw it when she carried water from the stream, when she sat in the cottage doorway helping her mother strip herbs. No one spoke of it openly, but every glance was quick and fearful, every silence too heavy.
It was not only her village that saw.
Far to the south, in the mountains of Emberhold, firelight glowed against walls of obsidian. Lord Agnivar Vale sat upon the Vyomkara Throne, its veins of emberstone pulsing faintly beneath him. The air around it shimmered with heat, as though the stone still remembered dragonfire.
A steward knelt at his feet, voice hushed. "The omen has been seen in every village. A crack across the sun, and now a star that does not move."
Agnivar's jaw clenched. He dug his fingers into the throne's arms until his knuckles blanched. The ember veins glowed brighter at his touch.
"The sky has remembered," he said. His voice was calm, but each word was sharp as steel. "Find where it points. Before others do."
The steward bowed lower. "Yes, my lord."
Agnivar looked toward the high windows, where the star burned faint and black against the daylight. He did not blink. "If fire stirs again, we will crush it before it burns us all."
In the frozen north, wolves howled from the battlements of Vyrengar. Lord Haimar Shresh stood cloaked in furs, the wind cutting sharp across his scarred face. His men knelt in the snow, heads bowed, waiting for his word.
One of them dared speak. "The omen spreads fear. Villagers say it is Vyomar's fire, returned."
Haimar's mouth curled, a smile as cold as the wind. "Let them whisper. Fear is a leash."
He raised his hand. The wolves at his side snarled, their breath pluming white in the frost. "If the fire returns, we will snuff it out. By steel, by frost, by oath. Let the world know the wolf does not bow to flame."
The men roared their assent, their voices echoing across the frozen fields. The wolves howled with them, a chorus that carried into the night.
In Veladrys, twilight never lifted. The Dreaming Vale lay shrouded in silver mist, its trees bending as though listening. In the high hall, Chyra Elaren sat beside her father, her dark eyes fixed on the scrying pool.
The water rippled, though no hand touched it. Images swam faintly across its surface: a girl with wide eyes, standing beneath a black star.
Chyra tilted her head, lips curving. "She saw it."
Her father, Lord Swayer Elaren, did not lift his gaze from the mist. His voice was soft, almost gentle. "All of them saw it."
"No." Chyra's smile sharpened. "Not all. She saw it."
Swayer's eyes flicked to her, unreadable. Then he looked back into the mist. "Then the dream has begun."
The pool stilled. The hall fell silent but for the whisper of the leaves.
Across the coast, Lord Samur Vihan of Gravemourn stood on the Whispering Docks, sea spray lashing his cloak. Ships swayed in the harbor, their sails snapping. The merchants behind him muttered nervously about the star.
Samur silenced them with a raised hand. "Storms feed the tide. Fear fattens the purse."
He turned to his captains. "Let the other Houses bare their teeth. We will profit while they bleed."
The captains bowed.
Samur looked to the horizon, where the star hovered faint above the sea. "A black sun, a false dawn. Whatever it is, it will break them before it breaks us."
And deep beneath the obsidian highlands, Prithan Kharov carved runes into stone by firelight. Dust fell with each strike of his chisel. His son, Badrin, watched in silence.
At last, Prithan stepped back, running a hand across the etched mark. It glowed faintly, pulsing in rhythm with the black star.
"The earth remembers," Prithan murmured. "And it whispers a name we should not have forgotten."
Badrin swallowed, his voice hushed. "What do we do?"
His father's eyes did not leave the glowing rune. "We wait. Stone teaches patience. Fire teaches hunger. The world will burn soon enough."
Back in the border village, Astra lay awake on her cot, eyes fixed on the shuttered window. Sleep would not come. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt again the heat of the egg, the pulse beneath her palm, the golden eye opening.
The star still hung at the horizon. It had not moved.
And though no one spoke of it aloud, Astra knew the truth that chilled her most of all:
It was waiting.