The bells of Thale tolled at dawn.
A meeting had been called. The Mage Council—those who survived the siege—gathered within the white-marble tower at the city's heart. Shattered sigils were still etched across the walls, scars of Riven's assault. The sky above the tower glowed dimly with protective wards, but none of the mages present felt safe.
Least of all Amine Toku, who stood before them as the youngest mage ever invited to a Council session.
His hands trembled slightly as he placed the Grimoire of Lirael on the central stone table.
"This isn't a spellbook," he said. "It's a warning. And we've been reading it wrong for two thousand years."
The room went still.
Mira, standing beside him, nodded. "It says we didn't develop magic. We were infected with it. And that infection—arcana—was left behind by something older than dragons. Something on the other side of the Sky Wound."
Master Halden, the oldest of the Council, narrowed his eyes. "We've guarded the Wound for centuries. We've studied its tremors. Nothing has ever come through that wasn't a dragon."
"Until now," Amine said. "I saw something through the monoliths. A… memory. From the first dragon. It wasn't a beast. It was human-shaped. It remembered a time before the dragons became monsters."
Whispers spread like wildfire.
"You expect us to believe dragons were once—"
"—messengers," Mira interrupted. "Or worse, refugees."
"Refugees from what?" another Councilor barked.
Amine looked up. "Something that eats worlds."
The debate might have continued for hours, but fate intervened.
A shadow swept over the tower.
Then another.
And then—
a scream.
Not a human one. Not a dragon's either. It was deep, vibrating, like a voice dragged across ten miles of bone.
The walls shuddered.
Every mage turned to the windows as the skies broke open.
Dragons. Not dozens. Hundreds.
But they were not attacking.
They were flying in formation—circling the city above, wings silent, eyes glowing violet. A wave of silence fell. The kind before a storm. Amine felt Thanor materialize beside him unbidden, growling softly.
And then, through the sky, a voice spoke.
Not in sound, but in thought.
"We are not your enemy."
The mages recoiled. Some dropped to their knees. Others drew weapons.
"You call us beasts. You call us invaders. You are wrong."
"We are the broken. The escaped."
"The gate you guard is a prison door."
Amine's ears rang. The voice was everywhere.
"But the lock has shattered."
"It comes."
And just like that—the dragons vanished.
Not a single one left a trace.
In the aftermath, no one spoke. Not even the Council.
Amine left the tower with Mira and Thanor in silence.
It wasn't until they reached the bridge outside the city, where the old willow trees swayed gently in the breeze, that Mira finally turned to him.
"What do we do now?"
He looked down at his hands. They didn't tremble anymore.
"We prepare."
"For what?"
Amine looked to the distant shimmer of the Sky Wound on the horizon.
"For the truth."
Volume 1 Epilogue – The Brokenborn
Night fell over Thale. The city lights burned low. Children slept, unaware of the sky's scars.
In the deepest chamber of the Arcane Tower, behind seven locked seals, a figure stirred.
Not a mage.
Not a dragon.
But something in between.
He opened his eyes.
They glowed with the fire of two worlds.
He smiled.
And he remembered everything.