Chapter One: The Tear in the Sky

The first sign was the flickering stars.

Yren had spent his entire life beneath Seams' shifting twilight, where the sky never darkened fully, nor did the light ever grow harsh. The stars, scattered like stray threads across the heavens, pulsed with a steady rhythm. But tonight, they flickered, as if something beyond the sky was pulling at them, unraveling their glow.

He stood on the crumbling ledge of a floating isle, peering into the misty abyss below. The air carried the scent of old magic, thick and metallic, laced with the hum of something unseen.

Then, the second sign came.

A jagged tear split the sky. It was no ordinary storm, no rippling of the sky's ever-changing hues—this was something raw, something wrong. A black gash, deeper than night, stretching open as if Seams itself was wounded. It did not glow, did not shimmer. It simply was, a void where there should have been color.

And from that void came a sound.

A whisper, impossibly distant yet spoken directly into his bones.

"It begins."

Yren stumbled back, breath sharp, heart hammering against his ribs. He had heard the old stories, the ones the elders whispered by the emberlight—tales of the Loom slowing, of the fabric of Seams fraying. But stories were meant to remain stories.

This was real.

A gust of wind rushed through the floating isle, stirring the ribbons of his worn cloak. In the village below, lanterns flickered as people gathered in uneasy clusters, pointing skyward, their voices hushed with fear. They saw it too.

Something was watching them.

Something had torn through the veil of Seams.

And it was only the beginning.