---
Before he became Aether, he had another name.
But it was gone now—lost like breath in winter.
Still, the memories clung like thorns in his mind, fragments surfacing in dreams he never asked for. Dreams where the sky was blue and cities stood tall without magic. Where machines moved without runes and men believed themselves gods, not because of power… but because of pride.
Aether stood alone in the Sanctum's Heartwell, a chamber sealed from time and sound. Beneath his feet pulsed the ley-crystal core—the very soul of the Sanctum. Its glow reflected in his eyes as the past unraveled within him.
> A classroom.
> Fluorescent lights. Monotone voices. The weight of mediocrity.
> A boy, forgotten. Unseen. But watching everything.
"I wasn't special there," Aether whispered to the silent crystal. "Just a shadow with no shape. No voice."
And then—one day—
> Pain. Sharp, total, unimaginable.
> A scream.
> Then… darkness.
> Then this world.
---
The transfer hadn't been a blessing. Not at first.
He had awoken alone, buried in mud, in a forest that twisted itself at night. His first breath in this new world was full of rot. His second, of fear.
But something **welcomed** him.
Not with words, but with resonance.
The voice that would one day become the **Sanctum**.
It had found him before he found himself.
> "You are not from this page," it had whispered.
> "But you are a line the story needs."
Back then, he hadn't understood.
Now, he did.
The world was a book too long read. Its plots recycled, its kings weak imitations, its wars no longer fought for ideals but for old debts. And in that stale repetition…
…*he was the error.*
The necessary one.
---
A soft knock.
It was **Tollin**, quiet as always.
"I've finished deciphering the third glyph tree," the boy said, stepping into the Heartwell chamber. "It's… not language."
Aether turned. "What is it?"
Tollin hesitated. "It's a memory. A message burned into the Sanctum itself."
He handed Aether a crystal pane. As his fingers brushed it, images spilled into his mind.
> A throne in the sky.
> A king of silence.
> A fall—no, a *choice to fall.*
> A weapon sealed inside a concept.
> A promise made in the void.
> "If the world forgets truth, I will remember it.
> If gods lie, I will build a truth stronger.
> If kingdoms fall, I will raise one not born of thrones."
---
When Aether's vision cleared, he staggered back.
Tollin caught him, barely.
"It was you," the boy whispered, eyes wide. "You were here before. Not just once. Many times."
Aether stared into the core's light.
"Not me," he said slowly. "Someone… like me. A fragment. A forerunner. A shadow cast ahead of time."
His voice deepened. "This place wasn't built for me. It was built by what I would become."
---
Elsewhere, the world reacted.
In Solaire, Queen Elvanna wept in silence, not from grief, but from terror. Her dreams no longer obeyed her. The hymn had entered even *her* palace now.
In Vassareth, the Grand Oracle stopped breathing for an hour. When she awoke, her voice was no longer her own.
In the shattered desert of Xhel'Azir, the Sand-Tyrant stood atop a cliff and roared to the sky, demanding answers.
Only silence answered.
Except in the east.
There, a man in chains smiled as the sun dimmed for a moment.
> "So… he remembers."
---
That night, Aether stood atop the Sanctum's newly risen spire.
The wind tugged at his cloak, but he stood still, eyes closed.
He didn't just hear the world now.
He *felt* it.
> A queen threading assassins with golden needles.
> A rebellion sharpening its teeth beneath a false cathedral.
> A dragon-saint dreaming of its last prayer.
> A boy, lost in the woods, unknowingly walking toward fate.
The threads were moving.
The loom had turned.
And he—*he*—was the weaver now.
---
Mirelle joined him without speaking.
After a moment, she said, "Your eyes… they've changed."
"Do they frighten you?"
"No. But they no longer belong to a man. They belong to something *becoming*."
He said nothing.
Instead, he pointed east.
"Soon, they will come not to fight… but to ask."
"To ask what?"
"To kneel," Aether said simply. "Or to become part of what's next."
---
As the night deepened, and the stars blinked into view like curious watchers, Aether spoke the words written in the Sanctum's vault:
> "If there is no place in the world for truth,
> Then I shall build it myself.
> Not with swords, nor gods.
> But with shadow… and resolve."
---
**To be countinue....