Lyra Ashfall adjusted the delicate gears within the starlight engine, her fingers trembling as sparks flickered beneath her touch. Above, the sky cracked again—a thin, spiderwebbing fracture slicing through layers of violet and gold. The city of Elysara, suspended among clouds, shuddered. Citizens screamed in alarm as market stalls overturned, sending glittering trinkets scattering across crystal pathways.
"Lyra, we're running out of time!" Aric called from below, urgency in his voice echoing through the maintenance shaft. He'd been her apprentice barely a month; now their roles reversed as chaos spilled into the world around them.
"I know!" Lyra snapped, pushing damp hair from her forehead. Sweat stung her eyes, blurring the delicate threads of crystallized starlight she tried desperately to reconnect. Her tattoo, intricate whorls of silver-blue etched down her left arm, pulsed faintly. Not now, she pleaded silently, sensing its magic ebbing dangerously low.
Another shudder rocked Elysara, harder this time. Below, screams intensified, mixed with a new, unsettling silence—the sound of hope slipping away.
Lyra gritted her teeth. "Aric, activate the bypass valve. Give me whatever power remains!"
Aric hesitated. "If it burns out—"
"Do it!"
He nodded sharply, throwing the lever. A surge of starlight energy roared through the circuits, blinding and raw. Pain shot up her arm as the tattoo flared vividly, burning her skin. Ignoring the agony, Lyra guided the energy, stitching fractured crystal filaments back together. Slowly, mercifully, the engine stabilized.
Lyra exhaled shakily, stepping back to survey her work. It would hold—for now.
But relief was fleeting. Heavy boots pounded toward them, shattering her brief moment of calm. Guardsmen, clad in armored uniforms etched with golden insignia of the Skyward Clan, burst into the maintenance bay.
"Lyra Ashfall!" barked Captain Renard, a fierce woman whose gaze could pierce stone. "You're under arrest for sabotage!"
"What?" Lyra staggered back, incredulous. "I just saved this city!"
Renard threw a contaminated wrench at Lyra's feet, its metal corroded and blackened. Void contamination. "Found in your quarters. We have orders."
Aric stepped forward, fists clenched. "Captain, there must be—"
"Silence, apprentice!" Renard snapped. "Lyra knows exactly what she's done."
"Wait," Lyra whispered. But Renard's eyes held no mercy.
The guards lunged forward. Lyra reacted instinctively, touching her tattoo. It sparked feebly—almost drained, but enough. Starlight burst outward in a blinding flash, throwing the guards off balance.
"Run!" Aric yelled desperately.
She didn't need to be told twice. Lyra dashed from the maintenance bay, racing through crowded streets lit by panicked chaos. Guards shouted behind her, alarms blaring through the crystalline city. Adrenaline sharpened her senses—she knew these streets intimately, every bridge, every alley carved into Elysara's floating foundation.
But they'd prepared for her escape. Guards appeared ahead, swords drawn, blocking every familiar exit.
Lyra swerved sharply into a narrow alley. Heart pounding, she glanced skyward. The fracture in the sky widened ominously, darkness seeping from its edges like bleeding ink.
The Void. Fear shivered through her limbs.
She reached an intersection, hesitating for a heartbeat. Too long—guards rushed in from behind, hemming her in.
Trapped.
Lyra's breath came in ragged gasps as her eyes flickered desperately around her. No paths left, except—
She raised her eyes to the edge of the floating city. A sheer drop into nothingness.
"Don't be foolish, Ashfall!" Captain Renard shouted, advancing cautiously. "You can't escape."
Lyra's eyes hardened. She stepped onto the narrow edge, feeling the cool wind swirl around her, tugging at her clothes, urging her forward. Her tattoo flared again, painfully depleted.
No choice left.
She closed her eyes and let herself fall.
Wind rushed past, roaring in her ears. Lyra stretched her fingers outward desperately, activating her final, barely tested tattoo, a delicate rune hidden on her wrist. Heat surged through her arm, unbearable, searing pain as magic ripped through her veins. Just before oblivion, something snagged her, invisible yet tangible, suspending her above the abyss.
She opened her eyes, gasping. She floated midair, starlight energy shimmering around her, illuminating the vast emptiness below.
"Foolish," said a voice from nowhere and everywhere, like a whisper brushing her mind. A figure cloaked in shadows hovered nearby, watching calmly. The stranger's presence was strangely comforting, even amid the madness.
"Who are you?" Lyra rasped, struggling against exhaustion.
"That matters less than who you are," the stranger murmured. "The Void knows your name, Lyra Ashfall. It calls for you."
As the mysterious figure faded away, Lyra felt gravity reclaim her slowly, guiding her gently to a distant lower island cloaked in mist.
Exhaustion pulled at her consciousness, but a single thought lingered, hauntingly clear:
The Void knows my name.