The dreams always began with the sound of wings.
Ethan Veyra woke gasping, his sheets tangled like funeral shrouds, the taste of iron sharp on his tongue. For weeks, it had been the same: a raven with eyes like cracked obsidian, a labyrinth of stone walls slick with moss, and a voice that was not a voice—a resonance, humming in his bones. Find it before the veil tears.
He blamed the stress. The crumbling estate in the remote hills of Valenmoor, inherited after his estranged father's sudden death, was a tomb of dust and unanswered questions. Ethan had spent days sifting through relics of a family he barely knew—yellowed letters sealed with a wax raven, daggers tarnished black, and portraits of ancestors whose gazes seemed to track him like prey.
But tonight, the dream had clawed deeper.
The house groaned as Ethan descended the stairs, flashlight beam cutting through the gloom. Moonlight pooled in the grand foyer, illuminating the massive Veyra crest carved into the floor, a raven mid-flight, its talons clutching a seven-pointed star. His father had ripped up the carpet to expose it years ago, calling it "the family's shame" in one of his rare, wine-soaked rants.
"Some legacies are curses, boy. Pray yours stays buried."
Ethan's boot scuffed the star's center. A hollow thud echoed.
He froze.
Kneeling, he pried at the edges with a rusted letter opener until the wood gave way. Beneath lay a compartment, its contents wrapped in moth-eaten velvet. His pulse spiked as he unfurled the fabric. Inside was a book—no, a codex, its cover forged of a metal that shimmered like liquid mercury. Symbols glowed faintly along its spine, a language of spirals and jagged slashes that made his temples throb.
The Resonance, he realized. The same hum from his dreams.
As his fingers brushed the cover, the symbols flared crimson. A searing pain lanced up his arm, and the world dissolved.
He stood in a desert beneath a fractured sky, twin moons bleeding into a horizon choked with smoke. Figures in obsidian robes chanted around a monolith, their voices weaving a hymn that shook the earth.
At their center, a woman—his grandmother?—pressed her palms to the stone, her eyes twin voids as shadows writhed from her fingertips. "The pact is a lie," she whispered, blood trickling from her lips. "The Thirteenth Star rises. You must—"
The vision shattered.
Ethan recoiled, the codex clattering to the floor. His breath came in ragged bursts. Hallucination. Sleep deprivation. But his shaking hands betrayed him. The codex's symbols still pulsed, slower now, like a heartbeat fading.
A cold draft snaked through the room. The estate's grandfather clock, silent for decades, began to toll.
One. Two. Three.
At the twelfth strike, the raven crest on the floor moved. Stone wings flexed, and the star in its talons split open, revealing a hidden staircase spiraling into darkness.
Ethan didn't hesitate.
The air grew colder as he descended, the walls shifting from brick to slick, black stone etched with more glowing symbols. At the bottom lay a circular chamber, its ceiling a mosaic of constellations he didn't recognize—one star, larger than the rest, throbbed a sickly green.
In the center stood a pedestal, its surface scarred with claw marks. A single object rested there a locket, its surface engraved with the same raven and star.
Inside, a miniature portrait of a severe-faced woman—his grandmother, Liora Veyra. Her eyes were kind, but the artist had painted her clutching a dagger, its blade stained black.
"You're late, little guardian."
Ethan whirled. The voice had come from everywhere and nowhere, a dry rasp like parchment tearing. Shadows pooled in the corner of the room, thickening into a shape—a man in a tattered coat, his face obscured by a hood.
No, not a man. His edges flickered, as though reality itself resisted his presence.
"The Order already hunts the codex," the figure hissed. "They'll peel the flesh from your bones to claim it. But you… you can still outrun fate. Give me the locket. Let the Veyras' sins die with you."
Ethan stumbled back. "Who are you?"
The figure laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "A friend of your grandmother's. She begged me to spare you, you know. Such a waste of sentiment."
A guttural roar shook the chamber. The walls trembled as the green star in the mosaic flared, cracks spiderwebbing across the ceiling. The figure dissolved into smoke, his final words echoing.
"Run, Ethan Veyra. They're coming."
Aboveground, dawn bled across the hills. Ethan clutched the locket and codex, his mind reeling. The estate loomed behind him, its windows now resembling watching eyes.
He didn't notice the raven perched on the gate, its head cocked unnaturally.
Nor the sigil freshly carved into the oak door—a spiral, dripping with sap like blood.
And far below, in the chamber, the shattered mosaic began to repair itself.
The Thirteenth Star was waking.