Rain's POV (Past life)
Morning showed up without a hint of sun, just that soft, timeless hush that always fills the Cradle. Here, there's no real sense of seasons, no sky overhead, and time doesn't bother with a schedule. Light just sort of drifts through the chamber like crystal arches, not quite day, not quite night, it's more like the slow, steady breathing of the Aether itself. Still, this place is alive, it remembers more than any of us ever could.
I was up before the glow really settled in, like always. My body wakes before the Cradle does, running on memories that have sunk deep into my bones, some habits carved out by lifetimes of keeping watch.
I made my way to the basin by the balcony and washed up. The water shimmered, catching the faintest traces of starlight from worlds that collapsed ages ago. It did not just clean me, it calmed me. Even the fire in my blood went quiet for a while under its touch.
My skin, once burned and scarred by flame, doesn't flinch at the cold anymore. The scars are gone now, replaced by something older and deeper. Still, the ritual matters. Even gods need a little rhythm in their lives.
Acrossthechamber,mycloakwaited,itsedgesworn,sigilsstitchedin flame-thread long before the Council called me High Flame. I hadn't worn it since the fall of HIM. I wasn't sure why I kept it. Maybe to remember who I was before the weight of names.
Breakfast was nothing fancy: a sip of core fruit nectar and a thin slice of flame-root bread. Both come from the Cradle's inner groves, where time twists in on itself and only the oldest seeds dare to grow. The lower realms had never tasted them. Not because we hoarded them but because nothing mortal could survive long enough to raise them.
Behind me, Dusken stirred, his wolf-shape stretching out from the shadows near the hearth. There was no sound, just that familiar, gentle heat. The Hollow Flame. He's been bound to me since the Ritual of Binding, back when I was still just 'Rain'.
But he wasn't always mine.
Sure, Dusken was summoned by my blood, but not by my will. He crashed into my life when I was seventeen, during the trial every Flame-born heir has to face. Only mine went sideways. The circle cracked, the fire turned black, and the Council freaked out. And from that mess, Dusken appeared—half shadow, half flame, hungry and alive.
I should've died that day.
But instead, I stepped into the fire. And he did not consume me. We saw each other, two broken pieces of the same unspoken truth. And he became mine.
Or maybe I became his.
These days, we don't talk much, not with words. Our connection runs deeper than language. A twitch, a flicker of heat, a shift in the pulse between worlds. Dusken was quiet this morning, but alert, watching me get dressed like he could sense something I hadn't figured out yet.
Sylen was already there, sitting under the shifting light of the memory spires. He looked tense, but not stiff, like a blade that's learned how to bend. His long hair was tied back in a warrior's knot, his coat dusted with old sigil-ink and the scent of fire craft.
"You're late," he said, not even bothering to turn around.
I smirked as I stepped into the chamber. "There's no such thing as late here. Time just loops back on itself."
He shot back, "You sound like one of the Shard Monks."
"And yet I'm still the one doing your work."
He glanced over, raising an eyebrow. "You want to compare the weight of our tasks? Because I'll win."
I grinned. This was our thing—sharp words, familiar edges, no wasted breath. Sylen's been at my side longer than most Council members have been alive. He doesn't need a ceremony, just the truth.
We worked together, untangling the dreams, anomalies, and echoes that bled up through the Veil from the waking realms. Most days, it's a routine—watching, cataloguing, stopping disasters before they ever reach the surface.
But sometimes, the threads scream.
Like when the frost-sleepers tried to wake a star seed in the Outer Dream. That ended with a rift nobody could explain, and a piece of the sky still bleeding light into the mountains.
By mid-cycle, I'd already rethreaded three memory binds, answered a summons from the Flame Monks of Aethers, and chased a corrupted hunger-spirit halfway across the Echo Plane.
Dusken sat in the corner, still as a shadow, watching everything with pure curiosity. The flame in his chest barely flickered.
During the rest hour, Sylen's voice dropped. "Rain, you can't keep doing this alone."
"I'm not alone," I shot back. But he knew what I meant.
I glanced at him. Shadows clung under his eyes, not from lack of sleep, we don't need that here, but from all the things we never say out loud.
"You're going to burn out," he said. "Even gods fall. Even you." That truth just hung there between us, heavier than it should've been.
That evening, I headed down to the Hollow Forge. I don't go there often, only when something inside me needs grounding. The Forge Keeper bowed, and handed me the blade I'd left behind cycles ago.
I don't forge weapons anymore. I shape echoes. Threads turned to metal. Thoughts given an edge.
That night, I shaped a knife to a small, curved, delicate as a breath, but sharp enough to cut through memory. I didn't know who it was for, but I knew it would matter.
When I came back, the field outside shimmered with young flame-weavers and sigil readers, all practicing their craft. A boy bowed awkwardly when he spotted me. I just raised a hand in reply.
They used to call me High Flame. Now, most just call me Rain, the name I had before the titles, before the bloodlines and thrones, before the Veil.
Dusken curled up beside me as I sat at the balcony's edge, the two of us watching the Aether ripple like breath over water.
I reached out through the tether that still connects me to the lower realms. And I saw her again, a mortal woman praying to a name she couldn't quite remember, but she knew mine.
She carried something ancient inside her—a child. Not just touched by magic, but wrapped in it, cradled by the Aether as an echo of something lost long ago.
I felt it stir in my blood and I closed my eyes.
Maybe this is why I stay. Maybe this is why I gave everything up. Because somewhere beyond the Veil, my bloodline has awakened again. And this time, I won't let it burn alone.
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