Night fell like a whisper....slow, soft, and deceptive.
Aurelianth sat on the edge of his bed, heart hammering, skin still humming from the dream of the original him. The hollow eyes. The voice that wasn't a voice.
"Write a new rule.
Or become me."
That sentence refused to fade.
Lioren paced in front of him, wringing her hands around her lantern's handle.
"You're pale," she muttered. "Your runes are flickering. You're shaking. You should rest...."
"No," Aurelianth said.
His voice cut through her panic like a blade of moonlight.
"I can't rest. Not on the first night. Not after what he told me."
Lioren stopped walking.
"You believe… the original you?"
Aurelianth nodded slowly.
"He wasn't lying. He wasn't… anything. Just a leftover echo in the Before."
"The Before?" she repeated.
"It's like the place where fate is written," he said. "Where everything begins. Where stories decide what they can be."
"And the Pulse… can reach that place?" she whispered.
Aurelianth's fingers curled tightly into the blanket beneath him.
"It can consume the unwritten. That's why it took him."
She swallowed.
"And why it wants you?"
"…yes."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Aurelianth stood.
And for the first time since waking in this world, he looked like someone ready to challenge the sky.
His mismatched eyes glowed faintly...gold and silver, dusk and dawn, rule and rulebreaker.
"Tonight," he said, "I'm going to break the first rule."
Lioren's breath hitched.
"Which rule?"
He walked past her, gently brushing his fingers over her hand as he passed....a small, grounding touch.
"The rule that says I must always wait for the Hollow Pulse."
The Forbidden Training Ground
The cliffside forbidden training platform lay quiet and empty when they arrived. Wind swirled around the carved runes, carrying the scent of salt, stone, and faint moonlight.
Aurelianth stepped onto the stone circle.
Instantly, the runes beneath his feet awakened.
Not softly.
Not politely.
They flared in erratic pulses, responding to his presence like metal reacting to lightning.
Lioren's lantern sputtered.
"Aurelianth… this place isn't stable. The Pulse weakened the seals last night."
"That's why I'm here."
He placed his palm on the central rune.
The symbol hissed, glowing intensely.
He grit his teeth.
"Last night, it pulled at me because it felt me. Because it knows where I am. Because I'm following its rhythm."
Lioren clutched her lantern tighter.
"And you want to… stop following?"
"No." His eyes narrowed. "I want to step ahead of it."
The runes beneath him vibrated violently...as if in warning.
Lioren stepped closer.
"What are you trying to do?"
Aurelianth exhaled slowly.
"I'm going to initiate a resonance."
Lioren's eyes widened in pure terror.
"Aurelianth...NO. Only elders can do that! It attracts the Pulse! It destabilizes the barrier! If you make even the smallest mistake...."
"It will come for me?" he finished.
"Astra....YES!"
"Good," he said.
"GOOD!?" she screeched.
He gave her a tremor-soft smile.
"The Pulse comes when it chooses the moment. When it controls the timing. When the world bends to its schedule."
His veins glowed brighter....white-silver threads pulsing beneath the skin.
"But what if I choose the moment instead?"
Lioren froze.
"You're insane."
"Probably."
"You'll kill yourself."
"Possibly."
"You're going to die."
"Not tonight."
She stared at him, caught between horror and awe.
Finally, she exhaled sharply and stepped onto the platform beside him.
"If you're going to be stupid," she said shakily, "I'm going to be stupid with you."
He looked at her.
"…Thank you."
"Don't thank me," she muttered. "Thank me after we somehow survive this."
Aurelianth's First Rulebend
Aurelianth placed both hands on the runes.
They responded immediately....veins of glowing light snaking across the platform, tracing spirals beneath his feet.
He closed his eyes.
And reached inward.
Not deep....deeper.
Past the fear.
Past the hunger.
Past the Pulse's echo in his veins.
Into something that felt…unfinished.
The original Aurelianth's voice echoed inside him:
"You are not one story."
Aurelianth inhaled....
His breath turning luminous in the cold air.
Lioren's voice dropped to a whisper:
"Aurelianth… something's happening to your eyes."
He didn't respond.
He was somewhere else.
He stood in a dim space....a half-created memory,a blank-room of flickering shadows.
A place between worlds.
Between pages.
The Before.
But this time, it wasn't empty.
Symbols floated in the air....white lines, shifting shapes, possibilities that had not been written yet.
Aurelianth swallowed.
"So this is where fate is edited…"
A faint shadow moved within the Before.
Not the Pulse.
Not the original Aurelianth.
Something older.
Something that didn't even bother pretending to be a shape.
"What do you seek?"
the presence whispered.
Aurelianth steadied himself.
"To break a rule."
"Which?"
He lifted his chin, defiance burning through his exhausted bones.
"The one that says the Pulse chooses the night of its attempt."
Silence.
Then.....
"Impossible."
"Good," Aurelianth said. "Then it's worth trying."
The presence shifted like a slow exhale.
"One cannot change the Pulse.
One can only change oneself."
Aurelianth stepped forward.
"Then I'll change me."
His chest glowed...the runes on his skin rearranging, twisting, rewriting themselves.
He gasped.....
Pain ripping through him like fire through cloth.
Lioren screamed from the physical world.
"AURELIANTH! STOP....YOUR VEINS....
YOU'RE BURNING....!"
But he didn't stop.
He reached up, caught one floating symbol....
A glowing, half-formed rule.
Not yet decided.
Not yet claimed.
He closed his hand around it.
The world cracked a sound like breaking glass and thunder and a heartbeat all at once.
The presence whispered:
"You choose defiance."
"I choose… WRITING."
He slammed the symbol into his own chest.
The First Rulebreak
Aurelianth's body convulsed violently.
His scream sliced the night.
The runes on the platform exploded in radiant patterns.
Lioren grabbed him desperately....
His back arched.
His eyes opened wide....
And his voice spoke a sentence in a language that did not exist yesterday:
"The Pulse follows MY timing."
The world fell still.
Dead still.
Wind froze.
Lanterns stilled mid-flicker.
The air itself held its breath.
Aurelianth collapsed into Lioren's arms.
She trembled harder than he did.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" she cried.
Aurelianth gasped for breath.
His runes stopped flickering.
His veins dimmed.
And a faint new mark etched itself over his heart....a circular sigil glowing with soft white-silver light.
He stared at it in awe.
"…I changed the rule."
Lioren blinked.
Swallowed.
Stared at him like she'd never seen him before.
"Aurelianth," she whispered shakily, voice trembling with both fear and wonder.
"You just told the Hollow Pulse it doesn't get to decide the night."
He sagged against her, exhausted beyond words.
"It's my story too," he breathed.
And then....
A sound rose across the ridgeline.
Not a whisper.
Not a click.
A laugh.
Cold.
Deep.
Amused.
Aurelianth's blood ran cold.
Because the Pulse was listening.
And it was...delighted.