THE OUTCAST OF LUMINIS
The sky-city of Luminis was dying.
Kael Ardent felt it in the way the wind howled through the skeletal remains of the once-great towers, in the way the ancient stones groaned underfoot, as if the entire floating metropolis were a living thing gasping its last breath. He crouched on the edge of a broken skybridge, his boots kicking loose pebbles into the abyss below. The clouds beneath him swirled, thick and gray, hiding the ruined earth far, far beneath.
Scavenge or starve. That was the rule in Luminis now.
Kael adjusted the strap of his satchel, fingers brushing against the rusted metal of his father's old dagger. He didn't like carrying it—didn't like the way the hilt felt in his palm, like a dead man's bones—but the lower tiers were no place for the unarmed. The warlords who ruled the broken city didn't care about a lone scavenger, but the gangs that prowled the ruins? They'd slit his throat for half a loaf of bread.
He took a deep breath and stepped onto the swaying remains of the bridge.
The Temple of Forgotten Stars
The temple was one of the last places untouched by looters—mostly because no one was stupid enough to risk the climb. It clung to the underside of Luminis like a barnacle, its entrance a jagged maw of collapsed stone and twisted metal. Kael had only found it because he'd been tracking an old map scrawled on a piece of vellum, one he'd stolen from a dead scholar's coat.
"The Temple of Forgotten Stars," the map had called it. "Where the gods left their whispers."
Kael wasn't sure he believed in gods. But he did believe in things that could be sold.
He swung down from the bridge, gripping the rusted support beams, his muscles screaming as he lowered himself into the temple's gaping entrance. The air inside was thick with dust and the scent of ozone, like the place had been struck by lightning a thousand times.
Broken pillars lined the chamber, their surfaces etched with strange, glowing symbols. Kael's breath caught. Active runes. That meant power. And power meant money.
He moved carefully, avoiding the cracks in the floor where the abyss yawned beneath. At the center of the room stood an altar—a slab of black stone, its surface covered in a fine layer of ash. And resting atop it, half-buried in the dust, was a shard of crystal.
It was no bigger than his thumb, but it pulsed with a faint, blue-white light.
Kael reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the shard, fire erupted in his veins.
The Vision
He was no longer in the temple.
He stood in the void, surrounded by stars—but they were dying, one by one, snuffed out like candles. A great, black machine loomed in the distance, its edges jagged and wrong, as if it had been torn from a nightmare. It pulsed like a heart, and with each beat, another star vanished.
"They are coming."
The voice was not a sound. It was a feeling, a pressure against his skull.
"The Devourers. The Unmakers. They will take your flesh and wear it. They will drink your sky and leave only silence."
Kael tried to speak, but he had no mouth. He tried to run, but he had no legs.
"You are the last. You must remember."
Then—
Pain.
The Chase
Kael gasped, collapsing to his knees as the vision released him. The shard was still in his hand, its light now dull. His skin where it had touched was red, as if burned, but there was no wound.
He didn't have time to think about it.
A shout echoed from above.
"There! I saw him go in!"
Kael cursed. Veyrik's enforcers. They must have tracked him.
He shoved the shard into his pocket and bolted.
The temple trembled as the first enforcer dropped down, his metal-studded boots cracking the ancient stone. Kael didn't look back. He sprinted for the far wall, where a narrow crack led to the outside.
"Don't let him reach the bridges!"
Kael dove through the gap just as a crossbow bolt shattered the stone where his head had been. Cold wind whipped at his face as he emerged onto the city's underbelly, a maze of broken walkways and dangling chains.
He jumped.
His hands caught a rusted pipe, and he swung himself onto a lower platform, heart hammering. The enforcers were still behind him, their shouts growing louder.
Kael ran.
The skybridges of Luminis were a death trap—rotting wood and fraying ropes, held together by luck and stubbornness. He leaped across gaps that dropped into nothing, his boots skidding on damp planks. Behind him, one of the enforcers wasn't so lucky. His scream faded into the clouds.
Kael didn't stop.
He reached the edge of the merchant tier, where the bridges widened into something resembling safety. A few scavengers looked up as he sprinted past, but no one moved to help. No one ever did.
Then—
A shadow passed over the sun.
Kael froze.
The enforcers behind him froze.
Above Luminis, the sky ripped open.
A ship emerged—black as oil, its surface shifting like liquid metal. It made no sound as it descended, but the air itself seemed to scream in its presence.
The Vorthax had come.
And the world began to burn.