Chapter 1: Born Beneath a Hollow Star
The night Seryth Kha'Zar was born, the stars did not sing.
In the realm of Valkyneth — a land where the sky shimmered like woven dreams and rivers whispered prophecy — this silence was no small thing. The stars were not mere light to the people of Valkyneth. They were memory, voice, judgment, and echo — celestial witnesses to every birth, death, and moment of great change. It was tradition for newborns of noble blood to be welcomed by the sky with a chorus of light and tone — each harmonic revealing signs about their soul's path.
But on this night, there was no song.
Instead, a single dark star, one that should not exist, flickered into being at the edge of the heavens. A hollow star — black, rimmed with violet, as though the void itself had blinked open. The Starbinders of the city of Aurenshaal saw it and went silent. Their crystal rods, attuned to the celestial harmonics, produced no tone. One fell to her knees and wept.
Inside the Spire of Black Glass, a child was being born.
Lady Melethra Kha'Zar, High Arcanist and warden of the forbidden libraries, lay surrounded by her kin, her breath shallow but her mind iron-clad with focus. She chanted old words, runes of stability and anchoring, as her soul-weaver attendants guided the delivery. Her husband, Lord Tyran Veyr-Kha'Zar — scholar, warrior, and keeper of the Moonlit Gate — stood close but dared not speak.
When the child came, the air stilled.
There was no cry.
The boy emerged wide-eyed and utterly calm, as though already aware of the world, as though he had merely returned.
"He does not scream," whispered the soul-weaver.
"He listens," Melethra said, her voice hoarse but sure. "He always has."
They named him Seryth, from the old tongue, meaning 'whisper between worlds.'
---
From his earliest days, Seryth was different.
Where other children clutched toys or cried for warmth, Seryth stared. His eyes, a pale grey veined with opalescent threads, would fix on spaces where others saw nothing. He followed invisible movements with his gaze. And when he slept, the temperature of the room would drop, and strange frost patterns appeared on the walls — glyphs that could not be translated by even the elder archivists.
Nursemaids came and left. Some claimed they heard voices in the shadows near his cradle. Others simply felt watched. By his third month, only Melethra remained close. She cradled him not with lullabies but with ancient chants. She did not fear his silence — she met it with understanding.
By the age of two, Seryth was speaking full sentences in the Scholar's Tongue. By three, he was fluent in seven languages, including two that were believed extinct.
But by the time he turned five, he stopped speaking altogether.
He listened.
To things no one else heard.
---
His childhood was spent mostly in the Echoing Library, where even adult minds risked unraveling from exposure to too much forgotten knowledge. Yet Seryth roamed freely among crystal shelves and memory-bound grimoires. His mother gave him scrolls none dared open. He deciphered them within hours.
At age seven, he first mentioned the Door.
It was the time of the Dream Festival, when noble children shared their dreams with the Seers of the Inner Flame. They told tales of flight and kingdoms. When Seryth's turn came, he said:
"I dreamed of a door made of silence. It floats in a place with no stars. Something behind it is waiting."
The Seers went still. One of them, Vaelion Flame-Eyes, regarded the boy with ancient dread.
"Did it call your name?" Vaelion asked.
Seryth nodded. "But not aloud."
The flames dimmed.
"Seal his sleep," Vaelion said gravely. "The boy must never dream again."
They tried. They failed.
---
As Seryth aged, his talents grew more frightening. He could enter locked rooms without keys. He spoke to machines built in the Time-Before. He once touched a rune-sculpted vault and awakened a song from the metal — a forgotten lullaby of the first Skyborn.
At age nine, he walked alone to the Memory Spire. None below thirty had ever survived its climb. At the summit, he stared up at the sky and whispered.
"I hear you."
And one star — black and hollow — pulsed back.
---
Lord Tyran feared for his son. He loved him, yes, but he also sensed the magnitude of the unknown swirling within the boy. The Council began whispering. Some called Seryth an anomaly. Others, a herald. There were those who feared the hollow star was not a sign, but a lock — and Seryth, its key.
By age twelve, the boy had uncovered half of the sealed knowledge of Valkyneth. The Elder Librarians placed silent wards on the tomes, but he walked through them. At thirteen, he painted a mural — a vision of a future war, showing towers shattered and skies broken. That same week, one of those towers cracked without cause.
---
The world around him began to change. Insects followed him. Echoes mimicked his footsteps. Some nights, the moon would not rise, only to return the next night larger, as though watching him.
On his fourteenth birthday, he disappeared for six days. When he returned, he was unharmed but said only:
"I saw it again. The Door is listening now."
When pressed, he added, "It waits for permission."
From who?
He only stared.
---
He was fifteen when the city of Aurenshaal held its secret council.
"We cannot control him," one whispered.
"He is still a child," said another.
"He is not only that," said Melethra, who had become quieter in the years since his birth.
The council voted to assign him a Watcher — an elder guardian to report his actions.
That Watcher, an assassin-scholar named Rhain, would later defect, choosing instead to protect Seryth, claiming:
"I saw within his mind. He is not the threat. He is the answer."
---
One of the soul-weavers, tasked with recording Seryth's growth, attempted a forbidden scrying. She wanted to see the Door he spoke of.
Her body was found in the Spire of Echoes — eyes burned out, mouth frozen in a silent scream. Etched on the walls around her were words in a forgotten tongue.
Only Seryth could read them.
"It is not behind the Door," he said calmly.
"It is the Door."
And thus, the world began to turn.
---
(To Be Continued....)