There were worlds where noise never stopped.
Cities that roared day and night, skies crowded with machines, and lands where power clashed so often that destruction became ordinary. This, however, was not one of those worlds.
Here, silence still had weight.
The wind moved gently across the plains, bending tall grass in soft waves as if the land itself were breathing. Above, the sky stretched endlessly—clear, pale, and indifferent. No floating palaces. No blazing constellations. No signs of gods watching from above.
Just a quiet world, turning as it always had.
Most people believed that this was all there was.
They lived, worked, aged, and died within the same small boundaries, never questioning what lay beyond the horizon or above the clouds. Power, to them, was simple: strength of the body, sharpness of the mind, and luck granted by birth.
They did not know that the world was layered.
They did not know that this calm surface hid something vast, ancient, and patient.
And they certainly did not know that the silence they lived in was not peace—but restraint.
Aeryn Vael stood at the edge of a weathered stone bridge, watching the river below flow endlessly toward a destination no one could see.
The water was cold and clear, reflecting the sky in broken fragments. It had been flowing like this long before he was born, and it would continue long after he was gone. That thought used to comfort him.
Lately, it did not.
Aeryn was seventeen years old, though he looked slightly older than his age. Not because of height or strength—he had neither in abundance—but because his eyes carried a heaviness that did not belong to youth.
They were observant. Quiet. Always thinking.
People in the town described him with simple words.
"Average."
"Unremarkable."
"Polite, but distant."
No one called him talented. No one called him gifted.
And no one expected anything from him.
Aeryn didn't blame them.
In a world where strength determined value, he ranked low by every measurable standard. His body was weaker than most. His stamina failed faster than others. Even his reflexes, trained through years of effort, never quite matched his peers.
He worked harder than anyone he knew—and achieved less.
That was the truth he lived with.
The bridge creaked softly beneath his feet as he shifted his weight. Below, the river swallowed the sound without complaint.
"Still thinking too much?"
The voice came from behind him, familiar and rough around the edges.
Aeryn turned slightly. An older man leaned against the stone railing, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded. His clothes were plain, his posture relaxed, but there was something about him that never quite fit the town.
Old Garron had been a guard once. Or a soldier. The stories changed depending on who told them.
What never changed was that Garron had seen more of the world than most people here ever would.
"I wasn't thinking," Aeryn replied calmly. "Just watching."
Garron snorted. "That's what thinking looks like on you."
Aeryn didn't argue.
For a moment, they stood together in silence, watching the river move forward without hesitation or doubt.
"Tomorrow's the evaluation," Garron said eventually.
"I know."
"You ready?"
Aeryn's fingers tightened slightly around the stone railing. "As ready as I can be."
That wasn't confidence. It wasn't fear either.
It was acceptance.
Every year, youths of the town underwent a simple evaluation—a ritual passed down for generations. Most treated it like a formality. A chance to confirm what everyone already knew.
Strong stayed strong. Weak stayed weak.
Sometimes, rarely, someone awakened something more.
Those people never stayed long.
Garron glanced at Aeryn from the corner of his eye. "You ever wonder why you keep trying?"
The question wasn't mocking. It was curious.
Aeryn considered it.
"I don't like standing still," he said finally. "Even if I'm bad at moving forward."
Garron smiled faintly. "Dangerous answer."
"Why?"
"Because worlds don't forgive people who refuse to accept their place."
Aeryn looked back at the river. "Then maybe the world should choose better places."
For a heartbeat, Garron's expression changed.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then it was gone.
"Hah," the older man chuckled. "Careful. That kind of thinking gets people noticed."
"By who?"
Garron didn't answer immediately.
"By things that don't care whether you're ready or not," he said at last.
That night, Aeryn lay awake long after the town had fallen silent.
The small room he rented above a workshop was clean, sparse, and familiar. He knew every crack in the ceiling, every sound the building made as it cooled. Normally, those details grounded him.
Tonight, they felt distant.
His chest felt… heavy.
Not painful. Not tight.
Just heavy.
A strange sensation lingered beneath his skin, like a quiet pressure waiting for something to shift. He had felt it before, faintly, in moments of exhaustion or deep focus—but never like this.
He closed his eyes and breathed slowly.
Nothing happened.
Minutes passed.
Then—
A thought surfaced, uninvited and clear.
This is wrong.
Aeryn's eyes snapped open.
The room looked the same. The silence remained. Yet the feeling persisted, stronger now—an unshakable certainty that something fundamental had been overlooked.
As if his life had been moving along a path designed by someone else.
As if the world had rules he had never been allowed to see.
His heart began to beat faster.
"Get a grip," he muttered to himself.
And then—
Something flickered at the edge of his vision.
So faint he almost dismissed it as fatigue.
Almost.
A thin, translucent shimmer hovered in the air before him, barely visible, like heat rising from stone. Symbols—no, patterns—shifted within it, unfamiliar yet oddly intuitive.
Aeryn froze.
The pressure in his chest vanished.
Replaced by a chilling calm.
The shimmer pulsed once… and disappeared.
Silence returned.
Deeper than before.
Aeryn sat up slowly, every sense alert.
Whatever that was, it hadn't been imagination.
And for the first time in his life, a thought rooted itself firmly in his mind—quiet, dangerous, and impossible to ignore.
The world was not as simple as it pretended to be.
And tomorrow… something was going to change.