Between Ash and Star

The sky was cloaked in a night of three moons. Alera, the palest, hung low in the west, stained in blood-red, while Zeril, the brightest, had just risen in the east. This rare celestial alignment occurred only once every seven hundred years. And it marked something mentioned only in ancient texts: The Awakening. On the edge of the Zuhan Valley, among crooked, half-collapsed shacks, a child was born. No one knew why the stars had gone silent that night. But the wind whispered with the mother’s final scream: "If the light that falls into blackness does not choke the dark, the world will be shattered once again." The child’s eyes were pure white—no brown, no blue, no trace of black. Empty, some would say. But anyone who looked into them swore something stared back. Something... ancient. They named him Kael. His mother died during birth. His father? Unknown. Thus, Kael was raised by the Eyan Priestesses. Years passed. Kael was unlike the others. He survived lightning strikes more times than anyone could count. He heard a woman’s voice in his dreams. And sometimes, with his eyes closed, he claimed he could see the other side of the world. The villagers feared him. They called him “Cursed.” But the Priestesses believed otherwise. To them, Kael was blessed—because the night he was born, the Fire Star fell from the sky and pierced the peak of a distant mountain. From that day, the mountain was known as Riftpeak. On Kael’s sixteenth birthday, someone arrived—someone the valley had never seen before. Clad in armor black as night, with a cloak darker than a starless sky. No horse. But with each step, the earth beneath his feet scorched. No one saw his face. He asked only one thing: > “Where is the Son of Ash?” And in that moment, Kael’s life was torn apart. The Priestesses smuggled him away through a hidden passage. They gave him an old sword—rusted, forgotten. Yet the moment Kael touched it, flames ignited along its blade. The high priestess, Thira, blind and ancient, gave him one last warning: > “Your fate lies between three worlds: spirit, ash, and star. Whichever you choose... the other two will seek your end. Trust not your eyes, Kael. They will lie to you.” Kael set out on a path from which he could never return. But the thing chasing him... was not human. And at the journey’s end, only one truth awaited.