Beneath the Hollow Sky

The wind hadn't stopped whispering since that day in the clearing.

Kael noticed it in the small things: the way tree branches shifted with no breeze, or how animals paused to look toward something that wasn't there. The village remained peaceful on the surface — same fires lit, same voices in the market, same smiles from strangers — but Kael could feel it.

A change was coming.

And it was getting closer.

---

It was early morning when it first touched him.

Not physically — not like a hand or shadow — but deeper, like a ripple across still water. Kael sat in his usual place by the stream, legs folded beneath him, eyes closed in quiet focus.

The Lattice — as Elira called it — had grown more vibrant lately. Stronger. Like the world itself had started humming in anticipation.

Kael opened himself to it. Listened.

And then—

Pain.

Just a sliver, like a needle behind the eye. Cold. Intrusive.

He gasped and fell forward, catching himself on both hands in the grass. The sensation vanished as fast as it had come, but it left a residue — like soot after fire.

He wasn't alone anymore. Something had found the thread.

Something had touched him back.

---

That afternoon, Kael found Elira again — but not at the pine tree.

He followed the pull in the threads, the strange resonance he could now recognize as her presence, and found her sitting beneath a half-collapsed stone arch deep in the woods, legs dangling over the edge like she had been waiting for him.

"I felt it too," she said, before he even spoke.

Kael sat beside her, staring out at the trees. "It hurt."

She nodded. "It wasn't natural. Something clawed at the Lattice. Roughly. Like it didn't care it was being felt."

Kael clenched his small fists. "It's looking for something."

"For us," she said simply.

That truth hung between them like a drawn blade.

---

"Have you ever fought before?" Kael asked, quietly.

Elira shook her head. "No. I've escaped. Hidden. Made people forget I was even there. But I've never had to fight."

Kael looked down at his small fingers — dirty, callused, still growing. In his other life, his hands had gripped weapons, bled on battlefields, snapped bone and shattered illusions.

Now they barely wrapped around a loaf of bread.

"I have," he said.

Elira looked at him, but didn't ask for more. She could see it in him. The grief. The distance.

"Do you think we'll have to?" she asked.

He nodded once. "Sooner than we want."

---

That evening, the air went wrong.

It started just before sunset — the light dimmed too fast. Shadows stretched unnaturally long across the village paths. People glanced skyward, puzzled, muttering about the clouds. But there were no clouds.

Just a strange haze, like the sky itself had thinned. As if something on the other side was pressing down, watching.

Kael stepped outside and felt it immediately — pressure on his skin, behind his eyes. Not enough to harm. Just enough to warn.

Dren came up behind him, resting a large hand on his shoulder. "Storm coming, maybe."

Kael didn't answer.

Because he knew better.

---

That night, Kael didn't sleep.

Not because he wasn't tired — but because the presence had returned.

Closer.

Watching.

He sat at his bedroom window, legs tucked to his chest, staring out at the hills in the distance. The moon was full but veiled in that same thin mist, as though the world were exhaling something old and unwelcome.

And then, for a moment, he saw it.

Far beyond the tree line — just a shape. A distortion.

Tall. Lean. Unmoving.

Watching the village.

Kael's blood turned cold. He blinked once, twice — and it was gone.

But it had been there.

---

By morning, it had left no trace. No one else spoke of it. Birds chirped again. The haze had lifted. The sky was clean and blue.

But Kael knew what he'd seen.

And that day, as he met Elira once more in their quiet grove, he said it aloud.

"We're being hunted."

Elira didn't argue.

Instead, she drew a small sigil in the dirt between them. One Kael didn't recognize. It shimmered faintly before fading.

"What was that?" he asked.

"A binding," she whispered. "Old magic. Not strong. But it might make it harder for things to see us here."

Kael stared at the place where the sigil had been, his throat dry.

"So it's starting."

She met his eyes. "No. It started long before we were born."

---

As dusk fell again, Kael sat outside the cottage with his parents. Lira was humming softly while stirring a pot of stew. Dren carved by firelight, whistling a tune Kael couldn't name.

It was all so peaceful.

And it wouldn't last.

Kael felt it now — the thinness of the veil, the way threads of magic were beginning to fray at the edges of the world.

The gods that had ruined his past life…

They were stirring.

And this time, Kael would not run.

He would not serve.

He would burn them if he had to.

He looked up at the stars overhead — the same ones Elira said remembered.

And quietly, to himself, he made a promise:

Next time, I'll strike first.