Rain fell like punishment from the skies.
Heavy. Cold. Relentless.
It turned the cobbled square into a mire of mud and blood, seeping between boots and broken dreams. The crowd pressed in tight—commoners with hollow cheeks and nobles with perfumed kerchiefs, all come to see justice done. Or vengeance. The line blurred often in Veridan.
Caelan stood among them, soaked to the bone, breath shallow. His clothes clung to him—patched wool and damp leather—too thin for the storm, too weak to protect him. His fingers trembled at his sides, clenched so tight his nails broke skin. He didn't feel it. Couldn't.
On the scaffold, high above the sea of heads, his mother stood with a noose around her throat.
Althea.
The only person who ever mattered.
A healer. A firebrand. A fool.
Two guards held her by the arms, their faces hidden behind iron masks etched with the sigil of House Veylan—a coiled serpent devouring its tail. The sigil of tyrants.
A herald in crimson stepped forward, unrolling a scroll with a flair meant to impress. His voice rang out, sharp and dry.
"Althea of the Low Quarter. Charged with inciting rebellion, conspiring against the noble class, and obstructing the will of the Crown. Sentence: death by hanging."
The scroll snapped shut. The crowd murmured, shifting like a restless beast. Most said nothing. Some wept. A few grinned.
Althea didn't beg. She raised her chin, face bruised but proud. She searched the crowd. Her eyes—those storm-gray eyes Caelan had inherited—found him.
She smiled. A soft, broken thing.
"You're not supposed to be here," she mouthed.
But he was. Gods, he was. He had to be.
His legs felt like stone. His heart, like glass. He wanted to run up there, to throw himself between her and the rope, but—
He was just a boy.
A boy without a sword. Without a voice. Without power.
The executioner approached, silent and soaked in shadow. The hood went over her head.
"No, no, no—" Caelan whispered, throat raw.
A man beside him turned. Cloaked in gray, face hidden beneath a hood.
"Don't look away," the stranger said, voice low and cold. "Remember this. All power begins in pain."
Caelan blinked. The man was gone. Melted into the crowd.
A drumbeat rolled once through the square.
Then the platform dropped.
A crack echoed like thunder.
The world shattered.
Caelan didn't remember screaming, but his throat burned. He stumbled forward, eyes wide, seeing nothing, feeling everything.
And then—it happened.
The air twisted.
Not loud. Not bright. Just... wrong.
A pulse radiated out from him, invisible and heavy. Torches snuffed out in unison. A tremor passed through the earth. Somewhere nearby, a raven screamed.
The gallows creaked—then splintered. Snapped beams, snapping ropes. The scaffold collapsed in on itself like a paper house, wood exploding into shards.
Gasps. Shouts. Chaos.
People surged back. Guards stumbled. A noblewoman screamed as her cloak caught fire from a lantern knocked loose. The executioner lay crushed beneath the wreckage. The sigil of House Veylan burned in the mud.
And Caelan—he just stood there. Chest heaving. Hands shaking. Eyes stinging.
The rain had stopped.
Only silence remained. And his mother was still dead.
"It was him!" someone shouted."He cursed her!""Witchspawn!"
Eyes turned on him. Dozens. Hundreds. Hatred bloomed like fire.
He ran.
Through alleys that stank of piss and rot. Through narrow lanes slick with blood and water. Past shuttered windows and locked doors. He ran until the world blurred and his legs gave out beneath him.
He collapsed in a crumbling ruin—one of the old temples, long abandoned. The stone floor was cold. Unforgiving.
He curled around the scarf she'd made him last winter. It still smelled of herbs. Of her.
And he broke.
Not with fire or fury. But in silence.
Tears ran down his face, hot against the cold.
"Why didn't I stop them?" he whispered."Why wasn't I strong enough?"
There was no answer. Only the distant rumble of thunder.
But somewhere deep in his bones, something stirred. Like the echo of a scream trapped beneath the skin of the world.
He didn't feel stronger.
He felt broken.
And the boy named Caelan closed his eyes, not knowing that history had just shifted around him.
The eclipse had begun.