I remember the first time the sky bled. It wasn't a storm, nor the sun burning too close—it was something older, something angry, something that had waited in the shadows of the heavens for eons. I was sixteen then, living in the small village of Thalir, where the mountains kissed the clouds and the rivers whispered secrets of forgotten gods. My name—though it meant little then—was Eryndor, and my life was as ordinary as the dust beneath my feet. Or so I thought.
That morning, the villagers gathered near the cliff's edge to watch the horizon. A ripple of unease passed through the crowd as the clouds twisted into shapes no mortal eyes were meant to see. They writhed like serpents, glowing with silver fire, and the air itself trembled. My father, a humble blacksmith, muttered prayers to gods long silent. My mother clutched my younger sister, her lips moving silently in fear.
And then it fell.
A fragment of the sky, as if the heavens themselves had cracked open, plummeted toward the earth. The impact was deafening, shaking mountains and stirring the sea into a frenzied roar. When the dust cleared, I saw it—a crystal unlike any stone I had ever known, pulsating with light that seemed to breathe, a heartbeat of a world beyond our own.
It was alive.
The elders screamed, warning the villagers to flee, but I was drawn toward it. Something called me, a voice older than memory, whispering in a language that felt like both fire and water. I reached out, and the moment my fingers touched the crystal, my vision shattered.
I saw worlds folding over themselves, cities floating like clouds, oceans frozen in time. I saw gods, not statues or stories, but living beings of impossible beauty and terrible wrath. And then I saw myself—not as Eryndor of Thalir, but as something else, something chosen.
The crystal's light surged into me, burning, reshaping, awakening. I fell to my knees, screaming, not in pain, but in recognition. My life, the one I had always known, ended that day. The villagers would later call it a miracle. I knew it was a curse.
In the weeks that followed, nothing was the same. I could hear the mountains whispering secrets, see the currents of the river twisting into shapes that hinted at prophecy. I dreamt of wars that had yet to happen, of heroes rising and falling, of gods scheming in shadowed halls. And always, the crystal's voice hummed inside me: "Eryndor, bearer of the Shattered Sky. The world dies and rises through you."
I tried to live as before, helping my father at the forge, chasing my sister through the meadows, laughing with friends by the river. But the world no longer followed the rules I had known. Shadows lingered where they shouldn't. Storms whispered my name. And in the night, I felt the eyes of something eternal upon me.
It was then that I met her—Aelira, the Wanderer. She appeared on the cliffs one evening, wrapped in robes that shimmered like liquid starlight, her eyes reflecting constellations I had never seen. "You've touched the Shattered Sky," she said, not as a question but as a verdict. "The old world has ended for you, Eryndor. And the new world waits for its reckoning."
I asked her who she was, but she only smiled, a crescent moon of knowing. "I serve the Watchers," she said, "beings older than your gods, older than time itself. They saw the fracture in your sky and chose you. You will walk between realms, Eryndor. And in your steps, the fate of mortals—and immortals—will tremble."
I wanted to refuse, to run back to my village, to the simplicity of dust and fire. But when I looked down, the crystal had appeared in my hands again, pulsing with the heartbeat of a thousand worlds. Resistance was not an option.
That night, I left Thalir. I left my home, my family, my life behind. I walked into the forest, following a path that seemed to materialize under my feet, guided by a voice that was both terrifying and tender. The trees leaned toward me, their leaves whispering, the wind carrying fragments of prophecy. And all the while, I felt the weight of the Shattered Sky within me, a fire that would burn through my blood until the world either remembered or was destroyed.
I am Eryndor. Once, I was a boy of dust and river. Now, I am a vessel, a bridge between the dying world and the one that waits. The gods will rise. Monsters will awaken. Wars will burn through the ages. And somewhere in the chaos, I must find the truth: not only of the Shattered Sky, but of myself.
Because if I fail…
The world will never rise again.