Chapter 1 The Awakening of the Eclipseborn
When the sky finally broke, the world didn't exactly fall. It folded—clumsily, painfully—like some giant hand had tried to shut a book that refused to close. It wasn't a single disaster but a thousand tiny betrayals happening all at once: rivers bending sideways like spilled ink, mountains loosening from their roots with long, tired sighs, islandas drifting apart as if the horizon had suddenly grown teeth. Even the air learned new languages—strange, broken dialects of gravity, time, and silence—and everything that used to be simple forgot how to behave.
They woke at the bottom of a crater.
It wasn't a clean battlefield crater, the kind left behind by armies and bad choices. This one felt older, almost ancient—a stone bowl the size of a cathedral, rimmed with torn obsidian and cracked glass veins that hummed faintly like bells that had been buried alive. Above the pit, six shards of crystal orbited slowly, each one impossibly shaped and impossibly calm. Two were clear as winter water, one flickered like a dying sun trying to relight itself, another pulsed dull red like old, tired blood. A fifth shimmered with a sky full of tiny stars. And the last—the smallest, darkest, and somehow the loudest even though it made no sound—was a thing that didn't want to be looked at too long. It made the air feel like it was holding its breath.
They lay where the earth had dropped them, eyes open in a way that didn't feel normal. Everything around them bent at the corners, as if the world had been drawn wrong and someone tried to erase it halfway. For a moment, the only thought they had was breath. Breath is small, but it's hard work, and work creates attention, and attention becomes thought. Sometimes that's enough to start a life.
Memories came back slowly, like water dripping through cracks. A face with no name. A dusty lullaby in a language that forgot its own vowels. Heat that tasted like burnt iron. And underneath all of it, the trembling chorus of six hearts—each one beating a different rhythm inside their chest. The memory that mattered wasn't even really a memory. It felt more like an accusation: you were made of pieces you never asked for.
They pushed themselves to their knees. The crater smelled of cold metal and wet stone. When their fingers touched one of the orbiting shards, it didn't burn. It shivered—like the shard recognized them before they recognized themselves. A thin light flickered under their skin, crawling like a nervous moth toward their throat.
Footsteps approached—not the heavy march of soldiers but the soft, determined steps of someone used to walking through danger and not being impressed by it anymore. The woman appeared at the rim of the crater with a calm that felt older than her face. Wheat-colored hair, tired eyes that had seen too much, a cloak threaded with silver runes. She carried a staff that left cold scratches in the air, the faint smell of frost following her movements.
"Hold," she said. Not a command, not quite a request. Just a word the world understood instinctively. The shards froze in place for the first time. Even the darkest one stopped trembling, like it was listening.
They didn't answer. Something in them wasn't ready to believe in voices yet.
"You shouldn't be here," the woman said. Her tone was like a teacher warning a stubborn child. "The fractures make foolish people braver than they should be."
"I… I don't—" The words felt unsteady, like stepping onto ice. "I don't remember."
She studied the shards calmly, like she was watching the tide instead of something dangerous. "Few remember. The fractures steal memory and sell it back in pieces. Sit. Breathe."
Her help wasn't gentle, exactly. It was practical. She set a polished wooden rod across their wrists—not binding them, just anchoring them. "Names matter less than weight," she said as she tied it loosely. "You'll need both."
"Who are you?" they managed.
"Seraphine. Chronoscribe." She touched their wrist lightly, and something under their skin twitched. "We read time the way others read braids. We know how things were meant to be. You—" she eyed their chest, "—were never meant to hold six hearts."
As if angry at being mentioned, the smallest shard—black and cold as a dead star—shivered. It tapped softly against the stone with a sound that shouldn't have been so frightening.
"That one," Seraphine said quietly, "is the Forbidden Heart. Don't let it touch you."
But the shard's shadow slid toward them anyway, crawling like spilled ink. For a heartbeat, the world faded to a pale gray blur. A whisper drifted through their mind—something sharp pretending to be soft.
Remember. Remember the door. Remember the key.
They tried to pull their hand away but their body didn't obey. Their palm pressed to the shard.
Cold pain spread through them—not stabbing, just stretching, like their bones were being pulled thin. The other shards shards flared wildly; the earth shook; time itself flickered like a broken lantern. They saw steps they had not taken yet. A storm a year away brushed their cheek. A scream from a place they'd never seen echoed in their head.
Seraphine's voice cut through the chaos, chanting words that felt older than sunlight. She pressed her palm to their sternum. The pressure was grounding—like being stitched back together.
"Don't let it swallow you," she said firmly. "Don't mistake its hunger for a song. Name yourself."
The word came to them like a stone hitting a drum.
"Eclipseborn," they said.
The name tasted raw, unfinished, but real. The black shard stilled.
"Good," Seraphine said, almost smiling. "Let's see what an Eclipseborn can do."
The ground trembled again. Shadows spilled over the crater's rim—not wispy dream-things but jagged, broken creatures shaped like animals that had been ruined and reassembled wrong. Blades for limbs. Hollow faces with no expression left in them. The world had noticed the Eclipseborn, and it was testing the new thing in its bowl.
"Prepare yourself," Seraphine warned.
She struck her staff against the stone. A ripple of slowed time crawled over the crater like invisible frost.
The Eclipseborn moved without thinking. Maybe instinct, maybe fate. The first shadow-creature leapt—too fast, too sharp. It aimed for Seraphine, but she stepped aside neatly, like a teacher avoiding a clumsy student.
They had no training. No weapon. Only six strange hearts and the icy light trembling inside their throat.
The light flared.,
Time thinned.
The creature slowed in midair—its teeth frozen in a snarl, its blade-arms caught in a moment stretched too far. The Eclipseborn reached out almost gently and touched it.
Their fingers sank into the creature's memory, feeling for the thread that made it alive. Hands know more than they should. They tugged something—instinct or luck—and the creature's hunger collapsed into confusion. It stumbled, shuddering, and fell.
Seraphine didn't even blink. "You can pull truth from things," she said. "Steal the cause, leave the effect confused. Dangerous… and useful."
Their heartbeat felt layered, as if more than one person lived in their chest.
Seraphine pointed across the horizon where a floating city glowed faintly through the fractured sky. "Dawnreach. The Chronoscribes will want you. And the Void will want to eat you. Either way, hiding is no longer an option."
The black shard pulsed once, as if agreeing.
Seraphine offered her hand. Not commanding—inviting. "Come, Eclipseborn. We'll teach you lies and names. And truth, if you don't break first."
They took her hand. It was warm and steady. She pulled them from the crater as a distant bell rang once—one single heartbeat echoing another.
The sky above them was a shattered map of floating islands and cracked colors. A copper-bright bird crossed the air, leaving a smear of light like a promise. For a moment, the Eclipseborn saw a shape of the life waiting ahead—dangerous, painful, glowing.
"Don't call yourself alone," Seraphine said. "Alone is the Void's favorite lie."
They carried the memory of the shard like a bruise and stepped toward the floating city.
Theey were the Eclipseborn.
A miracle or a curse time would decide.
But weight always came before meaning, and the world had already put something heavy in their hands.
To be continued…