The rope bit through Ren's palm before his mind could catch up.
Muscle memory threw a knot, a quick tap to the splice that kept the cabin anchored to the cliff's lip.
Dawn had not yet bled over the horizon; the world below was a blank of cloud, a living ocean that swallowed sound.
Ren's breath steamed in the thin air.
The pendant at his throat warmed against his sternum—an odd, quick heat that tugged like a loose thread.
"Careful," Old Li's muffled voice came from the next room. "Those lines won't forgive slack hands."
Ren tightened the last turn and let go.
The house leaned, settled—satisfied.
Quiet returned, sharp as a blade.
Routine, small and exact, held the edge between this island and the abyss beneath.
For a moment, that balance felt both trivial and enormous.
"Stretch like I told you," Li called. "Reach for the sky, boy. Pretend you can touch the Cloud Road."
Ren obliged, muscles elongating into the morning ritual.
Fingers reached, toes flexed; each movement measured to test tendon and will.
The tunic whispered, the brazalets clinked.
Below, the sea of clouds breathed slow and steady.
"You really fix the lines yourself now?" Li asked, coming into the doorway with a basket that smelled of damp kelp and smoke.
"Yes." Ren's knuckles scraped the wood as he folded the rope. "Old knots, same hands."
Li hutched a grin. "Good. Saves me from falling asleep in fancy inns."
"Wouldn't risk you missing supper." Ren's reply arrived soft, more habit than heat.
Fingers brushed the pendant; the fossil scale flashed like the memory of a lightning strike.
A scar under Ren's jaw ached—an old fissure from a childhood misstep into a wind tunnel.
The scar tugged at the skin above it every time the air grew thin.
Ren traced the ridge with the pad of his thumb until habit stopped him.
A distant bell clanged from the village—market time.
Li set the basket down, net coiled across his shoulder.
"Go on, then. The nets need sorting. The day drifts on its own if nobody tugs it."
On the descent path, the cliff's edge thrummed with wind.
The amarras that held the houses shivered like waking beasts.
Each step brought the smell of the market: smoky broth, hot oil, the tang of living mist caught in mesh—luminescent jellies the fishermen called "fog-fish."
They bobbed in glass jars, their tentacles curling like ancient calligraphy.
A boy at the pier shouted, waving a dripping net. "Got a beauty today! Look at the glow—pale blue like moon-rice!"
Ren laughed and joined the sorting.
Nets slid through practiced hands; jellybellies pulsed, leaving a faint saline on Ren's fingertips.
The light in the jars made small stars under the gray sky.
"Those will make good stew tonight," a woman said. "And maybe some Heavenly Grains for the elders."
"Heavenly Grains?" Ren asked, handing off a net.
"They're light as thought," Li answered beside him. "Harvested from the upper terraces. Keeps bones warm in the fall."
Li's voice carried something else now—a tightening around the words.
The net slipped from Ren's hand for a beat.
The pendant stung and went dull.
A fleck of dizziness tightened his vision like the edge of a paper.
"Rest?" Li offered, steady as a rock.
"Fine." Ren blinked, rubbing at his temple.
The pendant's heat receded, leaving a faint ash like the memory of a burn.
He stood straighter, worked his fingers again, letting the rhythm lock him.
The market's chatter swelled.
Ren passed the alley where Kira's shop sat between a windmill and a forge.
"Kurogane!"
A voice snapped sharp as a file.
Kira emerged, hands smeared with oil, goggles pushed up into a halo of soldered hair. "You promised me the glider's hinges last week."
"I know." Ren kept his palms open, an offering. "I'll bring the parts tonight. I swear—"
"You swear like a man who's never once missed a dawn." Kira crossed her arms. "Words are light here, Ren. Metal remembers."
"You always put the village first," Kira said, jab of a grin hiding something like relief. "But your father's glider won't wait forever. If the hinges fail in a gust—"
"That's why I'll fix them tonight." Ren's voice tightened. "I promised your father I would keep it flying."
Kira's jaw softened for a breath.
"You promised him more than that. You promised you wouldn't go chasing storms with nothing but swagger and an old pendant."
Silence folded between them; the market noise edged into background.
Ren's fingers found the pendant under his shirt.
Heat or no, habit made him worry it like a loose coin.
The scar under his jaw twitched at that touch like a small animal.
"Your father flew that glider across the Cecilia Ridge," Kira said, voice low. "Said he'd come back with a map. Never did."
She levelled a gaze that refused pity.
"So you fix it, or I strip the wings and sell them for parts."
"Then I'll fix it." Ren's reply hit like a hammer. "Tonight. I'll be there after Li's supper."
Kira spat a laugh and pushed past him, touching his shoulder like an inspection.
"You better. Or I'll ride it myself and prove it falls apart."
"Try not to break the village in the process," Li warned from the edge of the stall, voice mellow.
The market dissolved back into its rhythm.
Ren moved through it, aware now of a small increase in the beat under his ribs.
The pendant's glow had faded, but the aftertaste of warmth lingered in his mouth like iron.
A child tumbled nearby, a jar rolling.
Ren dove, palms slamming into cobblestone.
The jar skittered, stopped, the jelly's glow swinging like a lantern.
Laughter eroded the moment.
Ren's shoulder smarted—bruised from the impact.
Li clapped him on the back.
"Leave your heroics for storms you can see," Li grumbled, but his eyes shone.
Evening fell fast, folded in like a curtain pulled from the cliff.
Lanterns lit the village; smoke threaded into the clouds.
At Li's hut, supper spread across a rough table—broth steaming, slices of sea-vegetable crisp, and a small pile of Heavenly Grains wrapped in cloth.
"Li, you said—Days of Fall?" Ren asked, spoon hovering.
"Rare," Li said. "But they come. Strong winds that tear anchors, storms that hollow the islands from beneath. Last cycle took a roof and two oxen from the lower terraces."
Ren's hand tightened on the spoon until the wood creaked.
The pendant sat between dishes, its scale dull in the lamplight.
Without thinking, Ren rolled it between his fingers.
The fossil scale flared hot.
The spoon rattled against the bowl.
"Again?" Li watched the object, voice a notch colder.
"Just a flick." Ren kept his voice even.
Breath sharpened like a knife at the back of the throat.
Heat crawled up his arm; a bead of sweat formed at his temple.
The table slid slightly.
A tremor crossed his fingers.
A wash of nausea made him fold his elbows against the table to steady.
Li's eyes searched Ren's face as if looking for a ledger.
"You should not toy with those things, Ren. Ancestor things don't like to be handled without need."
"I won't," Ren said, mouth set.
The pendant cooled like a tide receding.
The village clock—an old wind-bell—tocked slow and patient.
The room felt thinner, like a held breath.
After supper, Ren walked Kira to her shop.
She peered at his hands, then the pendant.
"Promise me one thing," she said. "If you wake to any strange heat, come find me. I'll weld you a cage for that trinket."
"I promise." Ren's promise landed solid; the air tasted of metal and soup.
Kira tapped the pendant with a soldering iron like testing a stubborn seam.
"If it wakes you, don't hide it. Show me. We fix what's broken."
"Show you," Ren echoed.
The pledge felt heavier than words.
Returning to Li's hut, Ren set the pendant on his small bedside table.
Li hummed an old tune and swept the floor.
Outside, the cliff sighed, wind passing through amarras and rope.
The night pressed close, thick with the scent of wet stone and the faint tang of sea-mist.
Ren lay down but kept his fingers curled around the pendant's chain until the last of Kira's laughter dissolved into the wind.
Silence sharpened into attention.
A dog barked once, strange and flat.
From beyond the clouds, a distant sound moved—low, rolling, neither wind nor routine life.
A series of distant booms sliced through the silence.
Not thunder.
They were explosions.
The night sky, above the eternal clouds, began to glow with a sickly red.