They said the gods had left.
It was the first story Lyra Vale ever learned, told to her in the gentle hush of candlelight when the world felt too big and sleep refused to come. The elders told it as truth, not comfort. The gods, they said, had grown tired of mortal fear and devotion alike. So they turned their faces away, sealed their power into stone and story, and vanished beyond reach.
It was a tale meant to reassure.
If the gods were gone, then nothing watched too closely. Nothing judged. Nothing reached down to change a life without permission.
Lyra had believed it for most of her life.
On the night everything changed, she was returning from the river with damp hems and aching arms, the last light of dusk melting into indigo. The village of Greyhaven was quiet in the way only remote places could be—no markets calling, no soldiers marching, only the soft murmur of wind through dry grass and the distant creak of old wooden doors settling for the night.
She liked this hour best. It made the world feel suspended, as if anything could happen and nothing had to.
Lyra adjusted the basket on her hip and followed the narrow path home. She was thinking of nothing in particular—of bread that needed kneading, of the stubborn crack in the hearth wall, of how tomorrow would likely be the same as today—when the air shifted.
It wasn't sudden. There was no thunder, no flash of light. Just a subtle tightening, like the moment before a storm breaks or a secret is spoken.
She slowed.
The path ahead curved past the old stone ruin, half-swallowed by moss and age. Children avoided it, calling it cursed. Adults dismissed it as superstition. Lyra had passed it a hundred times without incident.
Tonight, the stones were warm.
She noticed it only when she brushed her fingers against the nearest pillar. Warm, like skin after sunlight.
Her breath caught.
The ruin had always been lifeless—a skeleton of forgotten purpose. Now, faint symbols shimmered across the surface, lines forming shapes that felt familiar and utterly alien all at once.
Lyra stepped back, heart pounding. "This isn't real," she whispered, more to steady herself than to deny what she saw.
The symbols pulsed.
Then, impossibly, a voice spoke—not aloud, but within her.
You hear us at last.
She dropped the basket. Water spilled across the dirt, unnoticed.
"No," she said. Her voice trembled. "You're not real. The gods are gone."
A pause. Heavy. Ancient.
We were never gone, the voice replied. Only forgotten.
The warmth beneath her feet intensified, and the ruin flared with soft golden light. Images flooded her mind—cities carved into mountains, rivers that sang with power, figures of light and shadow walking among mortals not as rulers, but as witnesses.
And then—pain.
Sharp, sudden, unbearable.
Lyra cried out as a burning sensation traced itself along her wrist. She clutched it, gasping, and watched in horror as a symbol appeared on her skin, glowing faintly before settling into something like a scar.
A name.
One she somehow knew had not been spoken in centuries.
Her name.
The light vanished. The stones cooled. The ruin returned to silence, as lifeless as it had ever been.
Lyra sank to her knees, shaking.
The gods were gone, the elders had said.
Yet something ancient had just spoken to her.
And worse—something had claimed her.
She did not sleep that night.
The mark burned whenever she closed her eyes, as if reminding her that what she had experienced was not a dream. Dawn found her sitting upright, staring at her wrist, tracing the symbol again and again.
The world outside continued as normal. Birds called. Smoke rose from chimneys. People laughed, argued, lived.
Lyra felt separated from it all, like she stood on the edge of something vast and unseen.
By midmorning, rumors spread.
The ruin had been seen glowing. Livestock had refused to graze nearby. An old woman swore she heard singing on the wind—songs in a language no one remembered.
And then there was the stranger.
He arrived before noon, riding alone, his armor worn and unadorned. Not a knight, not quite a mercenary. His presence drew eyes the way storms draw birds to shelter.
Lyra felt him before she saw him.
A weight shifted inside her chest, the mark on her wrist pulsing faintly.
When their gazes met across the square, something unspoken passed between them—recognition without understanding, tension without reason.
The stranger's eyes widened slightly.
Then he turned his horse toward her.
By nightfall, Lyra would learn that myths do not awaken gently.
By dawn, she would no longer belong solely to herself.
And somewhere beyond the veil of forgotten stories, the gods had begun to listen again.