The sky above Veren wasn't blue that morning.
It was… layered.
As if an unseen hand had stacked panes of transparent crystal over the dome of the world—then began turning each pane in a different direction. Where the layers brushed against one another, there was no glass-on-glass scrape, only brief flashes: tiny symbols that sparked for a heartbeat and died, like words refusing to be read.
Kael stood at the harbor's edge, one hand on the iron rail, staring.
He knew the sea. He'd grown up counting ships, watching tides, breathing tar and salt. But today the sea had no smell.
It had a sound.
A cold, broken rhythm—nothing like surf or wind. More like a meter measuring something, then changing the way it measured. Each wave rose and collapsed against the rocks and left behind thin luminous strokes—short chains of strange shapes—vanishing before the eye could seize them.
Then the city went dark.
Not one lantern, not two—everything at once, as if Veren's heart had stopped. Crystal streetlamps died. Tower lifts froze. The "wind channels" that carried voice-messages between districts fell silent.
Even a distant spire—Stormwatch Tower—dimmed, its rotating rings losing their hum.
A heavy hush dropped over the docks.
And then people spoke all at once.
"What is this?"
"Is it a sorcery-storm?"
"Where are the wardens?"
Kael tried to laugh, to loosen the knot in his chest, but the sound came out clipped and wrong. Something in the air pressed against the ribs, like the world had drawn breath and refused to exhale.
Then the strangest thing happened.
Above a salt-stained wooden crate beside him, a pale line of light appeared:
Crate: Saltwood — Durability 12%
Kael blinked hard. A trick of the eyes—surely. He stepped closer, touched the wood—
The light wavered, then settled, as if it belonged to reality.
He turned quickly.
Above a stone post:
Pillar: Limestone — High Brittleness
Above a rope tied to a moored ship:
Rope: Fiber — Load 23 lbs
Others were seeing it too. Some screamed. Some fell to their knees, whispering prayers. Some swept their hands through the floating words and touched nothing.
And then the sky split—cleanly.
A thin vertical line appeared above the harbor, widening like a wound opened slowly. No light poured out.
Emptiness did—emptiness with a color the world did not deserve.
At the same time, the ground trembled, as if answering a question no one had asked.
From Stormwatch Tower came a new tone—not a familiar magical drone, but something regular, measured, like the beginning of an announcement.
Then the first sentence fell into everyone's mind—not as a screen, not as a voice, but as a finished meaning poured straight into the skull:
Assessment has begun.
Kael froze.
It wasn't someone speaking. It wasn't even sound.
It was certainty.
And when he tried to breathe again, he saw something moving beneath the water near the pier—movement that wasn't fish, nor tide.
Movement like something remembering its shape.