The Blade Prophet

The wind carried no birdsong. No wings stirred above the battlements. Even the stars had vanished.

Selena noticed their absence as she stood watch over the column of soldiers marching west. Their breath fogged the frigid air in steady rhythm, boots crunching over snow-laced stone and brittle roots buried in frost. But overhead, the sky yawned black and empty—no moon, no constellations, no sign that the heavens still remembered them. The night was a void.

Vela had said it began the night after Aetherhold fell. One by one, the stars blinked out like candles snuffed in a storm. No one knew why. The priests murmured of ill omens. The Frostkin feared the gods had turned their gaze elsewhere. But Selena felt something worse—an emptiness that pressed at her skull like pressure from the deep.