The skies above Aethoria were alive with song.
It was not a song sung by voices, nor written in any scroll, but a symphony of wind, cloud, and silence—a melody of movement echoing through the floating mountains, cloud cities, and radiant skies that hung suspended in the Realm of Skies.
Aviari, capital of the Skystrider Clans, drifted like a jewel upon that vast expanse of air. Carved from pale stone and crystalline ore mined from the floating cliffs of the Cloudhaven Peaks, it rose in elegant towers shaped like feathers in flight. Windbridges arched between the spires, delicate but strong, glittering with frost-light and silkstream moss. The city hummed softly, the vibration of a thousand wings, turbines, gliders, and the quiet murmur of magic embedded in its foundations.
At the very southern edge of Aviari, high above the endless chasm of the Great Sky Canyon, stood a wind-carved terrace called the Skyledge. And on the edge of that terrace, a lone figure balanced on the marble railing, arms stretched wide to embrace the wind.
Lyra Flynn.
She was twenty-two, lean and tall, with the fierce poise of a falcon ready to strike. Her face was sun-bronzed from gliding across the peaks, with high cheekbones and storm-blue eyes that sparkled with restless fire. Her raven-black hair was braided back into a tight cascade, streaked with pale skyblonde threads—marks of her Skystrider heritage. She wore a long duster of cobalt wind-leather, fitted with climbing harnesses and blade loops, and her boots were reinforced with talon-steel for gripping windstone. A pair of curved short swords, crafted from stormglass and silver, hung at her hips.
Lyra had always stood at the edge of things. The edge of her city. The edge of her clan's expectations. The edge of legend.
Today, she stood at the edge of history.
In her gloved hands, she held a scroll wrapped in silver cord and bound with a seal of cracked obsidian wax. Ancient script wound across its surface—Aerthian glyphs, older than the city of Aviari itself. Etched faintly in luminous ink was a symbol only spoken of in myths:
Eldarath.
The Lost City.
The name sent a thrill down her spine every time she looked at it. Not the way others told the story, no. Lyra had always suspected there was more to it than children's rhymes and old Skypriest warnings. The Aerthys Empire had ruled Aethoria once, long before the skies were divided by clans and regions—before even the Aetherstream flowed through the mountains.
And then they vanished.
No one knew how. No one knew why. Their structures remained, buried in ruin across the land—magical wards still humming softly centuries after the last Aerthian had spoken. Most called them echoes.
Lyra called them invitations.
And now, this scroll—a piece of a forgotten map—had come into her hands after nearly losing her life retrieving it from a sealed vault beneath the Aviari Arena's library.
But she hadn't come alone.
"I figured I'd find you up here," said a voice from behind.
Lyra didn't turn. "You're late."
Kael Dareth stepped forward, holding out two steaming mugs. "I brought tea. You're welcome."
He was taller than Lyra by half a head, with copper-brown skin and short, wind-tousled auburn hair. A Skystrider like her, though he wore his badge with more formality: polished leathers, a clean white undershirt, and the silver sash of a senior scout. His eyes—hazel and calm—held a warmth that always contrasted her storm.
She took the tea and sipped. "Mintroot."
"I figured you needed something to bring you back from whatever madness you're cooking."
Lyra lifted the scroll. "It's not madness. It's real."
Kael exhaled. "You said that last time. When you almost got eaten by a skywyrm in the Cradle Cliffs."
Lyra grinned. "Still made it out, didn't I?"
"With half your gear missing and a broken wingfeather."
"A story's worth the bruises."
He studied her face. "You're serious about this."
She nodded. "There's more than just marks on this scroll. It's calling to me."
Kael raised a brow. "Calling?"
She reached into her satchel and pulled out a spherical object no larger than an apple—smooth, silver, and alive with faintly shifting symbols. A soft blue glow pulsed from its center like a heartbeat.
Cael.
The enchanted artifact had been found with the scroll—sealed in a box marked with the Aerthys sigil and hidden for centuries. The moment she'd touched it, it had bonded to her, recognizing her somehow.
And it had spoken.
Only she could hear it.
"The city stirs. The wind remembers," it whispered now in her mind. "The storm draws near."
Lyra closed her fingers around it.
Kael frowned. "It's glowing again."
"It knows we're close."
"To what? A floating ruin no one's seen in a thousand years?"
Lyra stared past him, across the vast horizon where clouds gathered in strange, deliberate spirals.
"To destiny."
By midday, Lyra stood beneath the high arches of the Aviari Arena—center of combat, trials, and tradition.
Crowds gathered in the upper balconies, murmuring with excitement. The Trial of Feathers was today—a rite in which aspiring Skystriders demonstrated skill in swordplay, wind-gliding, and aerial maneuvering against beasts summoned from the training pens.
Lyra wasn't competing.
She was challenging.
The central platform—an enormous circular stage suspended by braided skyvines—waited above the stormfloor. Crystal braziers floated around its edge, casting light across the polished stone.
Across from her stood her opponent.
Captain Tharos Renn.
Commander of the Southern Wingguard, and her father's oldest rival.
Tall, broad-shouldered, with platinum hair cropped short and a long scar bisecting his left eyebrow, Tharos wore heavy crimson leathers and a windsteel breastplate etched with Skystrider runes.
"You should've stayed in the archives, girl," he said, drawing his sword with a sharp whisper of steel. "This isn't a game."
Lyra drew her twin blades. "Neither is history."
The crowd leaned forward.
A chime rang.
And they clashed.
Tharos came in fast, sweeping low with a brutal cross-cut. Lyra twisted aside, blades ringing as she deflected and countered, sparks flying from stormglass.
He pressed forward, brute strength behind each strike. Lyra ducked, kicked his leg, rolled under a slash, then rebounded with a flurry of strikes—fast as lightning, graceful as a sky hawk.
Cheers erupted.
"Enough!" Tharos snarled, striking hard.
Lyra blocked—barely.
Then Cael pulsed.
"Danger rises. Behind."
She spun—and a shadow dropped from above.
A skybeast—released early from the cages.
Its form was like a wyvern woven from clouds and windstone, with glowing eyes and claws that sparked as it landed. The crowd screamed. Tharos fell back.
Lyra moved.
She sprinted, leapt off a coilstone column, and landed squarely on the beast's neck. Her blades slashed—one across its crest, the other down its flank.
The beast roared, bucked, flailed.
She held fast.
"Now," Cael whispered.
She drove both blades into the core at its spine—where the summoning crystal pulsed—and the beast vanished in a burst of wind and silver light.
Silence.
Then thunderous applause.
Lyra stood, panting, sword lowered.
Captain Tharos bowed.
"You fight like your mother."
Lyra blinked, throat tightening.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
That night, she stood once more at the Skyledge. Kael beside her. Cael glowing softly.
She had proven herself. The council had granted her leave.
The journey to Eldarath would begin.
"Sure you want to do this?" Kael asked.
"No," Lyra admitted. "But I have to."
They stared out at the horizon. Lightning danced far to the south, where the Devouring Storm churned endlessly.
Far beyond it—hidden in the myths, maps, and echoes—waited the Lost City.
Lyra closed her eyes, and the wind whispered around her:
"Seek the storm. Remember the wind. Eldarath calls."
She stepped off the edge—
—and vanished into the clouds