The sky had always belonged to the gods.
So the people of Aedryn believed.
It arched above their marble towers like a painted dome—blue by day, silver by night—untouched by war, famine, or the small cruelties of men. Storms came and passed. Seasons turned. The heavens remained distant and divine.
Until the night they broke.
It began with a tremor no one felt.
Not in the streets.
Not in the palace.
Not even in the deep crypts beneath the Obsidian Spire.
It began in the sky.
The stars flickered.
Just once.
A blink so brief it might have been imagination.
Then the moon dimmed.
A ripple spread across the heavens, subtle as a breath drawn too sharply. Clouds gathered where there had been none, coiling in slow, deliberate spirals. They did not move with the wind. They moved against it.
A child pointed upward from the market square.
"Mother," she whispered, "why is the sky bleeding?"
At first, the red was faint—like sunset bleeding through thin mist. But it deepened quickly, staining the clouds crimson and gold. The air grew heavy, metallic on the tongue.
Then came the sound.
Not thunder.
Not wind.
A low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate inside bone and blood alike. Windows shivered in their frames. Dogs howled. The great bells of Aedryn began to ring—not by human hands, but because the towers themselves were shaking.
Panic did not erupt immediately.
It crept.
Whispers turned to murmurs.
Murmurs to cries.
Within minutes, the marble streets flooded with bodies. Nobles in silks and servants in rough wool alike stared upward, faces painted in red light. Priests from the Temple of Lume stumbled into the square, clutching sacred tomes, chanting prayers that wavered in their throats.
"An omen—"
"No, a curse—"
"The end of days—"
Above them, the clouds tore open.
Not parted.
Tore.
As though something vast and furious had clawed its way through the skin of the world.
Fire spilled from the wound in the sky.
Not rain.
Not lightning.
Fire.
It fell in long, burning threads that vanished before striking the ground, leaving only smoke and the scent of ash. The hum grew louder, building into a roar that shook the very foundations of the city.
High above the chaos, upon the balcony of the Obsidian Spire, King Altherion Valecross stood motionless.
He had been waiting for this night his entire life.
The Spire itself seemed to drink the red light, its black stone swallowing flame and reflecting nothing. It was older than Aedryn, older than the kingdom, older even than recorded history. Built around something no one spoke of.
Altherion's crown gleamed dull gold upon his brow, though its light paled against the sky's inferno.
Behind him, the Oracle of Thorns knelt upon cold stone.
She had been silent for hours.
Since the first star flickered.
Her veil—woven from living bramble, forever in bloom and thorn—trembled as she rocked back and forth, whispering fragments of prophecy.
"The seal weakens… the chain breaks… the blood remembers…"
"Speak plainly," the king said, though his voice lacked command.
The Oracle lifted her head slowly.
Black thorns had pierced her skin. Blood ran freely down her cheeks, yet she did not seem to feel it.
"The Crown wakes."
Altherion's jaw tightened.
"It has stirred before."
"Not like this."
The air shifted. Heat rolled across the balcony in a suffocating wave.
"Tonight," the Oracle continued, "the First Flame reaches outward. It searches."
"For what?" the king demanded.
"For its heir."
The words struck harder than the tremors.
Altherion turned back toward the sky.
For generations, House Valecross had ruled through balance—maintaining peace not by strength alone, but by keeping ancient truths buried. The Crown of Ash was not a symbol. It was a prison. A key. A weapon.
And if it was awakening—
A scream cut through the air below.
The king leaned forward over the stone railing.
The wound in the sky widened.
From within its blazing heart descended a shape vast beyond reason.
At first it seemed only shadow against flame.
Then wings unfurled.
Each beat displaced clouds like dust. Scales caught the red light and turned molten gold. Horns curved like blades. Eyes burned brighter than the sky itself.
The dragon did not descend swiftly.
It descended deliberately.
As though savoring the fear.
Aedryn froze.
No one ran.
No one breathed.
The creature's roar shattered the night.
Glass exploded outward from towers. Roof tiles cracked. Men fell to their knees, hands clamped over bleeding ears. The roar carried not just sound, but memory—a memory older than kingdoms, older than language.
It carried recognition.
The dragon hovered above the city, vast wings stirring storms into spirals.
It did not attack.
It waited.
Below, in the deepest chamber beneath the Obsidian Spire, something ancient answered.
Chains of rune-carved iron began to glow.
The chamber had no windows, no torches, no priests. Only a circular altar carved from obsidian and surrounded by bones turned to white dust. Upon the altar rested a circlet of dark metal veined with faint embers.
The Crown of Ash.
For centuries, it had been cold.
Dead.
Now it pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—strong enough to send cracks racing through the chamber floor.
Back on the balcony, the Oracle screamed.
Her voice was not entirely human.
"It has chosen!"
The dragon tilted its head, as if listening.
Altherion's hands trembled for the first time in decades.
"Where?" he demanded.
The Oracle's body convulsed. Thorns pierced deeper, drawing fresh blood.
"Not here," she gasped.
The dragon's gaze swept across the city.
Then beyond.
Beyond marble walls.
Beyond cultivated fields.
Beyond roads and borders and maps.
Its eyes fixed on the distant horizon.
On something small.
Something newly born.
Far from Aedryn, in a forgotten village wrapped in mist and quiet fields, a woman lay exhausted upon a straw mattress.
Ash drifted down outside her window though no fire burned nearby.
In her arms, a child stirred.
The moment his lungs filled with air for the first time, the world inhaled with him.
The dragon's roar softened.
Not in surrender.
In acknowledgment.
Back in the city, the dragon beat its wings once more—hard enough to send hurricane winds across the rooftops.
Then it ascended.
Not retreating.
Not defeated.
Simply leaving.
The wound in the sky slowly closed behind it, fire dimming to embers, embers to smoke, smoke to nothing.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Terrified.
The people of Aedryn would later call it a miracle that the dragon did not burn them.
The priests would call it mercy.
The king knew better.
It had not spared them.
It had marked them.
Altherion turned from the balcony and strode into the tower without another word.
"Summon the Ashwardens," he commanded.
"They will hunt," he added quietly, "until the heir is found."
Behind him, the Oracle collapsed, laughing and weeping all at once.
"The age of ash begins," she whispered to the empty sky.
And far away, in a village no map recorded, the newborn child opened his eyes.
The fire within them flickered.
And the world felt it.