Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Weight of Light
The white marble of Caelum-Regis's grand halls had never known cold, yet on that night, the air in Aethelgard felt too dense to breathe.
Anchored high above the sky that ordinary mortals believed to be nothing more than blue and empty, the celestial fortress was a privilege guarded under lock and key. Only beings endowed with true magical affinity, ancient lineages, and supernatural creatures could raise their eyes to the horizon and behold the grandeur of the crystal towers floating above the clouds. To common humanity down below, Aethelgard was invisible—a forgotten legend existing in a parallel plane of perception.
Many of the nobles and entities of the floating city often descended to the mortal realm. They mingled with the crowd, indulging in human technology, profane pleasures, art, and the luxuries of Earth before returning to their sacred domains. But for the Crown Prince, Earth was a distant concept. Verity had never enjoyed the luxury of strolling down there.
In the highest chambers of the Crystal Palace, far from the banquets, Verity Zahramir kept his arms crossed behind his back. His golden hair, the color of ripe wheat, fell messily across his forehead, contrasting with the flawless cut of his royal tunic. Beneath the high collar and the noble fabric, he tried to hide the dull, aching pain consuming his body from within.
With a restrained sigh, Verity slowly pulled off the leather glove from his right hand.
Under his pale skin, the veins had turned into rigid, pale-violet branching lines, crystallizing beneath his epidermis. The curse of light advanced without truce.
"And when the nameless darkness threatened to swallow all of existence, the heavens turned their eyes toward the Earth. Ancient tomes tell that the First Zahramir did not ask for power, but her soul was pure enough to reflect the Aether. Blessed by the Primordial Light, she cleaved the night, raising Aethelgard far beyond the reach of mortals. Since that day, the Zahramir bloodline became the pillar between the two worlds: the light that repels the shadow, the shield that sustains creation."
Verity closed his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek. The legend that tutors repeated endlessly felt like a cruel sentence. To the magical creatures traveling between Aethelgard and Earth, the light of the Zahramirs was a guarantee of peace. To Verity, it was the poison consuming him from the inside out.
— The First Lineage always made the same mistake, Your Highness.
The voice cut through the silence of the hall without warning. There was no sound of footsteps. Just the sudden presence of a figure emerging from the shadows of the columns.
Verity adjusted his glove with aristocratic composure before turning to face the intruder. His violet eyes locked onto the man wrapped in a dark wool cloak.
— They believed they were the sole masters of the light, — the stranger continued, his voice slow and deliberate. — They forgot that the First Zahramir merely pushed the darkness away... she never destroyed it. And your kingdom’s fuse, Prince... is already far too short. While your nobles entertain themselves in the mortal world, Aethelgard’s Aether is rotting away.
— Who granted you passage to the upper halls? — Verity asked, his voice cold and dangerously polished.
Before the intruder could answer, the structure of the palace trembled.
The translucent bridges supporting the floating city oscillated violently. The golden glow of the Aether flickered, taking on a sickly purplish hue.
BOOM!
The sky above the Crystal Palace tore open. The Anomalies—twisted creatures of black crystal and smoke—plunged down from the rift like a plague.
— Stay behind me, — Verity ordered, stepping in front of the stranger out of pure protective instinct.
Ripping off his glove, Verity clenched his fist. A massive glyph of violet and gold light expanded beneath his feet. With a swift strike of his arm, he fired an arcane blade that sliced three Anomalies in half. The power was devastating, but the backlash on his body was instantaneous: an agonizing pang of pain brought the prince to one knee, as he watched the crystallization creep a few more centimeters up his wrist.
— The Aether is collapsing! — the figure behind him shouted, retreating into the shadows. — You cannot contain this storm alone!
Two gigantic creatures slammed into the palace's barrier. Without a moment's hesitation, Verity pressed his hands together, channeling every drop of magic left in his body to raise a containment dome. But the collision between pure Aether and the corruption of the Anomalies bent the very fabric of space.
A dimensional rift tore open at the center of the hall, pulling everything in with immense force.
With his magic exhausted and his body paralyzed by pain, Verity lost his balance as the dome shattered. The shockwave threw him backward, straight into the heart of the black vortex. Aethelgard and the Crystal Palace vanished in a blur.
The impact with the ground was hard and unyielding.
Verity coughed, tasting the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. The air here was heavy, laden with the scent of fresh rain, burnt fuel, and urban smoke.
Propping himself up on his elbows with difficulty, he looked around. There were no floating islands. He was sprawled on the wet asphalt of a dark alleyway in the mortal world. Above him rose colossal skyscrapers sliced by glowing neon panels. Vehicles hummed by on the streets just outside the alley’s entrance.
He knew Aethelgard was still up there in the sky, above the clouds—invisible to the humans rushing along the sidewalk. But to him, devoid of magic to fly or cross the veil between worlds, that distant city felt utterly unreachable.
Verity Zahramir, the Crown Prince, was trapped, injured, and completely defenseless on the cold ground of the mortal world.