The night the sky cracked open, Aarav Vale was trying to forget who he was. Rain slid down the window of his room in thin silver lines, blurring the streetlights outside into trembling stars. The town of Greyhaven always slept early. Nothing ever happened here. That was the rule. Aarav had learned that rules were safest when followed.
He lay on his bed, one arm over his eyes, counting the seconds between thunderclaps. One. Two. Three. The thunder didn't come. Instead, the air shifted.
It was subtle at first, a pressure change like the moment before a storm breaks but heavier. The room felt wrong, as if the shadows had leaned closer to listen. Aarav sat up. The bulb above his desk flickered and then went out. Darkness engulfed the room.
"Great," he muttered. "Perfect timing." He swung his legs off the bed and froze. Something glowed beneath his skin. Right there, on his left palm. A symbol burned into existence, lines of light weaving together into a shape he had never seen before yet somehow recognized. It pulsed slowly, breathing like a living thing. A sigil.
"No," Aarav whispered. The word felt stolen from his lungs. The glow intensified, colors shifting—blue, gold, emerald—until it settled on something darker. A fractured black light, cracked through the center like shattered glass. The air screamed. Outside, the rain stopped suddenly.
Aarav staggered back as the walls trembled. His window exploded inward, glass dissolving into mist before it could touch him. Beyond it, the night sky tore open. Not metaphorically, literally. Clouds spiraled away from a vertical tear of blinding silver light, stretching from the horizon into the heavens. Ancient symbols—runes—burned across the sky, forming constellations that twisted and realigned themselves. And then the bells rang.
They didn't come from Greyhaven. They came from somewhere else. Aarav clutched his glowing hand to his chest as a force yanked at him—not physically, but deeper. Like a hook buried in his blood.
"You've been found," whispered a voice that wasn't really a voice at all. The floor vanished. He landed hard on stone. Cold, ancient stone. Aarav gasped and scrambled upright. He stood on a vast bridge carved from moon-white rock, suspended over an endless void of rolling clouds. Wind howled past him, tugging at his clothes.
Ahead, impossibly massive, floated a city of towers and spires—an academy suspended in the sky, its walls etched with glowing runes, waterfalls spilling endlessly into nothing. Astra Noctis Academy. The name bloomed in his mind like a memory that wasn't his.
Around him, other figures appeared—boys and girls his age, dressed in modern clothes, just as stunned as he was. Some cried. Some stared. One fainted immediately. A tall figure waited at the far end of the bridge. Robes darker than the night itself. Silver eyes. A staff crowned with seven empty slots. The figure's gaze locked onto Aarav.
The world went very, very quiet. "You," the figure said softly, dread thick in the word. Aarav swallowed. "Me?" The staff struck the stone. Light erupted. Symbols ignited beneath every student's feet—glowing circles flaring to life. One by one, they faded until only Aarav's remained. His sigil blazed brighter than all the rest.
Gasps rippled through the air. The robed figure stiffened. "That mark," they said, voice tight. "Impossible." Aarav looked down at his palm. The cracked black sigil burned back. "Congratulations," the figure said slowly, fear spilling through their calm. "You have just activated a sigil that ended the last age of magic."
The sky above the academy darkened. Somewhere deep within the floating city, something ancient stirred. "And if the legends are true," the figure continued, "you shouldn't exist." Aarav's heart hammered. "Yeah," he said weakly. "I'm starting to get that." High above them, seven dormant symbols carved into the academy walls began to glow. One remained dark.