The world was called Aerthos, a realm of impossible contrasts. In the sky, constellations writhed like luminous serpents, their ancient light dictating the flow of magic across the continents. Below, forests of crystalline trees chimed with every passing breeze, their notes weaving minor-key spells that settled in the soil. Cities carved from the hearts of mountains hummed with the combined Aura of their inhabitants—a living battery of ambition, fear, and hope. This was a world where a farmer's calloused hands could, after years of toil, channel enough Spiritual power to make barren lands bloom, and where a smith's hammer, swung with perfect martial intent, could forge a blade capable of cutting not just steel, but the very threads of fate. Demons lurked in the fissures between dimensions, drawn by the scent of mortal souls, while celestial beings, indifferent and vast, played games with the lives of lesser beings as a grandmaster might move pieces on a Go board. And somewhere, in the quiet spaces between a heartbeat and the next, the path to Supremacy awaited anyone willing to bleed for it.
***
The salt-laced wind whipping off the Serpent's Tooth Strait carried more than the scent of brine and decay. For Kaelen, standing on the jagged precipice, it carried the faint, coppery tang of blood magic. His senses, honed by a decade of brutal training, strained against the howling gale. He could feel the dissonance in the world's Aura, a sour note in the symphony of the natural order. It originated from the shantytown below, a sprawl of tar-stained driftwood and scavenged ship hulls clinging to the cliffside like barnacles to a leviathan's belly. They called it Port Scab.
"Get a move on, whelp," a gravelly voice snarled from behind him. "The tide won't wait for your philosophical brooding."
Bram, a man whose face was a roadmap of every bad decision he'd ever made, shoved a coil of rope into Kaelen's arms. The rough hemp scratched his skin, a familiar irritation. "Master Vorlag wants the shipment up before moonrise. He doesn't care if the local mages are sacrificing kittens to their drowned gods down there. You have a job."
Kaelen didn't turn. His eyes, the color of a storm-wracked sea, remained fixed on the settlement. "They're not sacrificing kittens, Bram. The resonance is too complex. It's… older. And angrier." He could feel it now, a thrumming vibration that set his teeth on edge. It wasn't the clumsy, foul-smelling magic of a hedge wizard. This was structured. It had intent.
Bram spat a stream of brown juice over the edge. "Older? Angrier? Good. Maybe they'll scorch the whole damn nest. Now, move."
Reluctantly, Kaelen turned. He knew arguing was pointless. Bram saw only the task, the coin, the next bottle. He couldn't feel the subtle tear in the fabric of their reality, the way the constellations above seemed to dim, ever so slightly, in response to whatever was happening below. Kaelen could. It was a curse, this sensitivity of his. A gift, Master Vorlag called it. A gift that got him extra watch shifts and the most dangerous errands.
He slung the rope over his shoulder and began the treacherous descent down the cliff face, using the iron spikes driven into the rock as makeshift ladders. The wind buffeted him, trying to tear him from the mountainside. Below, the lights of Port Scab flickered, a cancerous glow against the deep indigo of the encroaching night. As he climbed lower, the thrumming grew stronger, a discordant hum resonating in the marrow of his bones.The iron spike shifted under Kaelen's boot with a dull, grinding whine.
He froze.
The wind screamed past him, tearing at his cloak, but Kaelen stilled his breathing until it matched the rhythm of the cliff—slow, patient, enduring. He tested the spike with a fraction of his weight. It held. Barely. Rust flaked away and vanished into the abyss below.
Someone's been cutting corners, he thought grimly.
Another reminder that Port Scab devoured more than ships.
He continued downward, muscles burning as the climb forced his focus inward. Years of conditioning under Master Vorlag had taught him how to listen to his body the way a mage listened to ley lines. The tremor in his left forearm warned of fatigue. The tightness behind his eyes told him the Aura distortion was worsening.
By the time his boots touched the lowest scaffold, the hum had become a pulse.
Thum… thum… thum.
Not a heartbeat. Something older. Something vast enough that the world itself was reacting.
Port Scab smelled like rot, salt, and desperation. Lanterns hung from crooked beams, their glass blackened with soot. Faces turned toward him as he stepped onto the plankway—too quickly, too uniformly. Dockhands paused mid-task. A woman clutching a basket of eel meat crossed herself and whispered a ward under her breath.
They could feel it too. Not consciously, perhaps—but fear was a language the body understood even when the mind refused to listen.
Kaelen adjusted the rope on his shoulder and moved through the narrow lanes, boots thudding softly against warped boards. The structures leaned inward, as though the entire settlement were conspiring to crush whatever walked its streets. Chalk sigils marked doorframes—some protective, some pleading, some carved so deeply they bled sap from the wood beneath.
Blood magic.
Subtle, but unmistakable now.
He followed the pulse.
It led him away from the docks and deeper into the shantytown, toward an area even Port Scab's residents avoided. Here, the lanterns burned low and red, their flames fed with oils that stank of iron. The air felt thick, resistant, as though every step pushed against unseen currents.
A scream tore through the night.
It cut off abruptly.
Kaelen broke into a run.
He skidded to a halt at the edge of a circular clearing carved into the rock itself. Driftwood poles ringed the space, bound together with rope and bone charms. At the center, a sigil had been etched into the stone—vast, intricate, and wrong.
It wasn't drawn. It was carved.
Each line was precise, deliberate, and deep enough to catch and hold blood. Fresh blood gleamed wetly in the grooves, reflecting the crimson lanternlight like a living thing.
Three figures knelt at the perimeter of the sigil, their robes stitched from sailcloth and skin. Their chanting rose and fell in a language that scraped against Kaelen's mind, syllables twisting in ways no mortal tongue should bend.
And at the center—
A girl.
No older than twelve. Bound. Gagged. Eyes wide and shining with terror as the sigil beneath her began to glow.
Kaelen's Aura flared.
The pressure snapped like a drawn bowstring.
The chanters stiffened, heads jerking toward him in unison.
"You should not be here," one hissed, voice layered with something that was not human.
Kaelen let the rope fall from his shoulder.
"I get that a lot," he said quietly, and stepped into the circle.
The world seemed to inhale.
Far above, unseen, the constellations of Aerthos shifted—just a fraction—rearranging themselves in response to a choice that could no longer be taken back.
The instant Kaelen stepped into the sigil, the air screamed.
Not sound—pressure. The stone beneath his boots vibrated as the carved lines ignited, blood within them steaming as if the world itself rejected what had been written into it. The rhythm he'd felt during the descent spiked into a violent crescendo.
One of the robed figures cried out and collapsed forward, palms slapping uselessly against the glowing stone.
"The gate—!" another rasped. "Hold the cadence!"
Kaelen didn't hesitate.
He exhaled slowly, grounding himself the way Vorlag had beaten into him—feet aligned, spine straight, intent drawn inward and compressed. His Aura tightened, no longer a passive sense but a tool, pushed outward in a controlled surge.
The pressure hit the cultists like a physical blow.
The nearest was ripped off his knees and hurled backward into a driftwood pillar. Bone charms exploded into shards, clattering across the clearing. The man didn't rise.
The second cultist shrieked and slashed his own forearm, smearing fresh blood into the sigil to reinforce the broken rhythm. The circle responded instantly, pulsing brighter, faster—hungry.
They're feeding it emotion, Kaelen realized. Fear. Desperation.
He lunged before the pattern could stabilize.
Kaelen caught the cultist's wrist mid-motion. The man's skin was slick and burning hot, veins standing out like cords beneath the surface. Kaelen twisted sharply, redirecting the man's weight and tearing his bloodied hand away from the sigil.
The carved line flickered.
Cracked.
The ground bucked.
Something pushed back.
The third cultist laughed.
It was a wrong sound—too layered, echoing as if spoken by several mouths at once. He tore back his hood, revealing eyes flooded with crimson light.
"Too late," he whispered, reverent. "It has already heard us."
He bit down hard.
Blood poured freely into the heart of the sigil.
The circle detonated.
Kaelen threw himself forward without thinking, wrapping his body around the bound girl as the clearing exploded in force and light. Lanterns shattered. Driftwood poles snapped like kindling. A roar tore through reality—not from the air, but from everywhere at once.
Pain slammed into Kaelen's spine.
Not flesh-deep.
Soul-deep.
For a single, terrible instant, something vast brushed against him—an awareness so immense it reduced his existence to a spark flickering in a storm.
You are noticed.
Kaelen snarled and forced his will inward, compressing his Aura into a rigid shell. Discipline over fear. Control over instinct. He anchored himself to the girl's weight, to the stone beneath him, to the memory of a thousand hours spent breaking and rebuilding himself.
The pressure receded.
Silence fell like a held breath finally released.
When Kaelen pushed himself up, the sigil lay shattered—its lines scorched black and lifeless. The cultists were alive, but broken, their bodies twisted in ways that spoke of backlash rather than mercy.
The girl sobbed beneath him.
Kaelen cut her bonds and pulled her gently to her feet. She stared at him for a heartbeat, eyes wide and shining, then ran—bare feet slapping against wood until she vanished into the maze of Port Scab.
Kaelen remained.
His hands shook.
The air felt wrong, thin and strained, as if something had been stretched and allowed to snap back imperfectly. He could feel it now—a faint pressure deep within his chest.
Not pain.
A mark.
Footsteps gathered at the edge of the clearing. Dockworkers. Fisherfolk. Faces pale with fear and uncertainty. No one stepped closer.
A bell rang uphill—sharp, urgent.
Tidewardens, Kaelen thought.
He bent, retrieving the rope where it had fallen, and straightened just as Bram pushed through the crowd, breath ragged.
"You couldn't just haul cargo," Bram muttered. "You always find a way to make things worse."
Kaelen's gaze drifted once more to the ruined stone. To the place where something ancient had pressed its attention against the world.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I noticed."
High above, unseen by mortal eyes, the constellations shifted—just slightly—locking into a pattern that had not been traced in generations.
And far beyond the veil, something remembered him.