The sky was too quiet.
Not the calm of peace — but the hush that comes just before something ancient breaks.
Twin moons hung above the Skyshard Plateau, swollen and pale, drifting toward one another like twin blades about to clash. Their glow painted the stone circle in a silver-red haze, throwing long shadows across the eight ritual platforms etched into the mountaintop.
Eight circles.
Seven Codices.
And one candidate too many.
Kairos stood in the outer ring.
The lines beneath his feet glowed faintly, etched in sigils so old even the High Seers no longer spoke their names aloud. The stone was cold through the soles of his boots, but not dead. It pulsed, ever so slightly — like something sleeping just beneath.
He hadn't spoken since they arrived.
Hadn't met anyone's eyes.
He didn't need to. He already knew what they thought.
Eight chosen, they said, but only seven called.
Everyone knew the eighth was ceremonial. A bloodless sacrifice. A stabilizer — not a vessel. You picked someone unimpressive, unimportant. Someone to stand there and absorb imbalance while the real Codices chose their hosts.
That was his role.
That had always been his role.
He watched the others instead, studying their stillness, their symmetry.
Prince Caelum Ardent stood in the first ring, draped in gold and arrogance. He held himself like this was all preordained, like the sky itself was waiting to fall into his open hand.
Lady Sylvae Rin had already closed her eyes, palms lifted, her white hair glowing faintly in the rising eclipse light. She looked carved from the moons themselves — too perfect, too distant.
Jiran Thornmaw, beside her, rolled his shoulders like a beast pacing its cage. His staff was wrapped in fresh vine. His eyes never stopped moving.
Then came Nael Korrin, short and wiry, silver eyes flitting across every angle of the circle, like he could outrun the judgment if he moved fast enough.
Ryne Celaith stood with his back straight, fingers twitching in precise, calculated intervals, his robes unwrinkled, every movement measured.
Serei Duskveil radiated cold, veiled in smoke-dark silk, her mouth barely visible beneath a translucent mask. She didn't blink. Not once.
And then there was Liora Vale — loose-limbed, grinning, swaying on the balls of her feet as if the stone beneath her played a tune no one else could hear.
All seven of them looked born to be there.
And Kairos?
He felt like a smudge on a sacred scroll.
I shouldn't be here.
That truth pulsed beneath every breath he took. It wasn't fear, exactly. He was used to being overlooked. But this wasn't oversight. This was deliberate.
They had chosen him to be nothing.
And now he had to survive it.
The High Seer raised her arms.
"Let the Codices weigh the vessels," she intoned.
Her voice echoed — not outward, but downward. Into the stone.
Into the sky.
And the Codices answered.
It didn't happen all at once.
It was more like the world began holding its breath.
Then, light.
Seven of them.
Each Codex descended with its own gravity.
Solar — golden, radiant, sharp as a blade honed by pride. It folded itself around Caelum like it had been waiting for him his whole life.
Lunar came gentler, a cool tide pulling inward. Sylvae accepted it with a reverent bow, her expression untouched.
Verdant broke the stone at Jiran's feet, roots spreading like veins in the earth. He grinned and welcomed the chaos.
Zephyr came like a whisper, a flurry of wind that spun Nael's coat and filled his eyes with tears and awe.
Aether flickered into Ryne's space in perfect symmetry — geometry drawn in light and logic.
Obsidian didn't descend. It bled upward from the shadows, cloaking Serei in something deeper than dark.
Pulse thrummed through Liora like a dance she already knew, her eyes bright with sound that had no source.
Each Codex chose.
Each circle ignited.
And the eighth remained still.
Kairos looked down.
The runes under his boots had cooled.
He felt his lungs tightening. His throat burned — from the pressure, from the silence, from something older than shame.
I told myself not to hope.
The others were lifting.
Their circles blazed.
The High Seer hadn't even looked at him.
They never expected you to rise.
And neither did you.
Then—something shifted.
The stone under his feet pulsed once. Then again. But differently now.
Not warm.
Not cold.
Recognizing.
The hair on his arms stood up.
There was no light this time.
What came was slower.
Older.
It didn't fall from above like the others.
It rose from below — like a breath the mountain had been holding for centuries.
The runes in his circle began to twist — not glow.
They changed. Rewriting themselves mid-sentence. As if remembering an older language. One no one else here could read.
And then came the presence.
Not a roar. Not a rush.
A revelation.
Like a mirror that had waited for someone to look deep enough.
The others turned, one by one.
Liora first. Her hum faltered.
Nael blinked.
Serei tilted her head.
Caelum frowned, as if the air itself had just dared to disagree with him.
Kairos's heart thundered.
The thing around him — not a Codex, not like the others — was folding itself into him.
Not claiming him.
Matching him.
The ache in his chest was not fear.
It was recognition.
Not of who he was…
…but of who he could be.
And then came pain.
Not fire. Not heat.
Just clarity.
The way a wound stings when you finally clean it.
The way truth hurts when it's said out loud.
He dropped to one knee, gasping, arms shaking.
Marks burned into his skin — spiraling shapes that didn't belong to any Codex he'd ever seen.
But they felt right.
They felt like his.
No one spoke.
Even the High Seer was silent now.
And then — the others were gone.
Drawn into their Codex Trials.
Their circles dimmed.
All but one.
The eighth glowed with a low, pulsing rhythm.
And Kairos stood in the middle of it.
Alone.
Breathing.
Awake.
They put me here to fail.
But this circle… it wasn't empty.
It was waiting.
~To be continued…~