Night had no stars that evening—only fire.
The village of Eldreth[1] burned under a black sky, the moon swallowed by smoke. Houses of wood and stone collapsed inward, embers spilling like falling stars. The air reeked of ash and melted iron; the ground glowed red from beneath, pulsing faintly, as though the earth itself was bleeding.
A sound rose above the crackling — not screams, not yet — but a hum, low and constant, like the grinding of something vast beneath the surface. Then the screaming began.
Figures burst from the smoke — not quite human anymore. Their flesh shimmered like wet coal, veins glowing crimson. Their faces still bore the shape of who they once were — a father, a merchant, a guard — but twisted, hollowed, the eyes burning with unholy light. They moved too fast, snapping bones with claws that hadn't existed minutes ago.
A child ran from a collapsing hut, barefoot, her hair aflame. A woman—her mother—chased her, only to be caught by one of the twisted. The creature didn't tear or feed; it breathed black smoke into her mouth. She convulsed, screamed once, then stilled. When she opened her eyes, they glowed red, and she turned on her own child.
The demons didn't conquer with blades. They corrupted.
The village bell tolled once, then cracked in half. The air shimmered with heat; the sky itself burned crimson. In the center of it all, a figure stood watching — tall, cloaked in shadow, eyes like two burning brands. His voice carried through the flames, quiet and almost sorrowful.
"The world rebuilds its pain too easily. Let it remember again."
Then he vanished, and the fire swallowed everything.
The flames faded. Smoke became mist. The sound of cracking wood melted into the sigh of wind.
And then there was silence.
Kaenmor Lyren opened his eyes.
The cliff where he sat was still, but the air around him trembled faintly, carrying whispers from far away. The others were there — Aria, Deyr, Suvarn, and her team — watching him with uneasy faces.
He exhaled softly, lowering his head.
"Another village," he said quietly. "Another hundred lost."
Aria hesitated. "You… saw that?"
"I feel it," he replied. "The wind carries what the world cannot bear to speak. Every death leaves a mark, and the wind remembers them all."
Deyr folded his arms. "So the Demon Lord's spreading fast."
Suvarn nodded grimly. "Zephyrion's corruption grows with despair. When hope dies, he finds a door."
Kaenmor's gaze stayed on the horizon.
"They do not die because of strength or weakness. They die because the world has forgotten balance. Aether itself is screaming."
Aria frowned. "Aether? You mean the same power that made all of you… Aetherbounds?"
Kaenmor looked at her — not unkindly, but with something deeper.
"Aether is life itself — the current that flows through all things. Once, it was steady. But mortals took more than they gave, and its rivers turned wild. The Aetherbounds were born not as gods, but as corrections — wounds that tried to heal themselves."
Deyr scoffed softly. "You make it sound poetic. We were just people caught in the wrong storm."
"Exactly," Kaenmor said. "We were never gods. We were humans. Fractured, ordinary, afraid. Until the world decided to use us as its bandages."
His eyes drifted to Aria.
"People never think about what we were before the Veins. They just sing the legends. Let me tell you how the wind first learned to weep."
The air around them shimmered. A faint green light pulsed at Kaenmor's feet, and the ground turned translucent, showing glimpses of another time.
He began to speak.
"I was born in the city of Myrhal — a city of healers and liars. We cured kings but ignored the poor. We called it mercy. I was one of them — a healer, gifted with empathy. Too gifted."
The scene unfolded below their feet: a young man in simple robes, hands trembling as he tended to a soldier's wounds. When the soldier groaned in pain, Kaenmor's own breath caught, his fingers twitching as if the blade had cut him too.
"I could feel pain," he continued. "Not see it. Feel it. Every wound I treated left a mark on me. I thought it was a gift from the heavens. I thought it meant I was chosen. I was wrong."
The image shifted — Myrhal burning. The king had ordered war against its neighbor, and Kaenmor stood in a hall filled with wounded soldiers. Their moans filled the air like thunder. His hands shook as he tried to heal them faster than they died.
"They made us heal killers so they could kill again. I stopped believing mercy was real."
One night, Kaenmor refused an order — to heal a battalion meant to raze a village. For that, they stripped his title, bound him in chains, and left him outside the city gates as the battle raged.
The sky turned red. The wind screamed.
"I remember every face," he whispered. "Men, women, children — all crying for the same thing. Not life, not victory. Just silence."
He raised his head then, eyes far away.
"The Aether heard them. All of them. It needed something — someone — to contain the pain it could no longer bear."
Aria's breath caught. "It chose you."
"No," Kaenmor said softly. "It begged me."
The world around them shifted again — Kaenmor, still in chains, on a desolate field of corpses. The wind spiraled around him, howling louder with every heartbeat.
"I screamed at it. I told it I was done. That I had nothing left to give."
The chains rattled. His body convulsed as if invisible fire tore through him. His blood turned silver. The wind pierced through his chest — not killing him, but filling him.
"And the wind answered:
'Then be what the world needs, not what it wants.'"
A blinding white light consumed everything.
When it faded, the field was silent. The bodies were still, their faces peaceful. The wind brushed their cheeks as though tucking them into eternal rest.
Kaenmor knelt in the center, his chains turned to dust.
"I had become the Vein of Wind or rather what the world says now, the Vein of Harmony— not because I was strong, but because I had finally broken enough to let the world breathe through me."
Back on the cliff, the vision faded. The forest around them rustled faintly, as if mourning the memory.
Aria's voice was soft. "So… the Aetherbounds aren't born. They're made."
Kaenmor nodded. "Made from the places where humanity cracked. Where pain overflowed and needed form. We are not gods. We are wounds given will."
Suvarn lowered his head. "You bore mercy when the world had none."
Kaenmor smiled faintly. "And you bore hope when it no longer deserved it. We all paid a price."
Aria's hands trembled slightly. "Why would these legends even help now? After everything?"
He looked at her — really looked, as though through her and into the wind itself.
"Because the world keeps forgetting the lesson we died for. And this time, it summoned you to remember it."
Silence followed. The breeze shifted, carrying faint sounds — laughter, screams, life, death — the entire world in one breath.
Deyr broke it first, muttering under his breath. "Mercy, hope, power, chaos, rage. Five pieces of the same broken mirror."
Kaenmor inclined his head. "And somewhere, the last piece still hides in shadow."
A chill ran through the air. Even the leaves seemed to still.
"Dravon Valeis," Suvarn murmured.
Kaenmor's expression darkened. "Yes. The Vein of Shadow. The balance we lost."
The horizon flickered — a faint glimmer of red lightning far to the north.
"When the wind turns cold and even the shadows burn," Kaenmor said quietly, "you will know he has awakened."
The words lingered in the air like prophecy.
Aria's heart beat faster. She looked toward the fading light of the distant firestorm — the one she now knew was real. The one that had disrupted the balance.
Kaenmor turned his gaze to her once more.
"You wish to save this world, Hero," he said. "Then learn this first — salvation is not granted. It's endured."
The wind rose, carrying his words across the cliff, through the forest, and into the farthest corners of Elyndra, where the scent of ash still hung in the air.
Far away, in a burning plain, a figure cloaked in darkness lifted his head.
His eyes burned crimson.
And for the first time in centuries, Dravon Valeis grinned.
[1] A village in Western Elyndra