The moon above Emberwatch was unusually dim that night.
Not clouded. Not hidden.
Dim — as if something had drained its light.
Kaela stood alone atop the tower, her senses sharpened. The Flame in her veins, a gift from her time with Darian, trembled as if recoiling from something vast, unknown, and dangerously close.
A storm was coming. Not of weather — but of word.
---
Far away, in a place that did not exist on maps, the Librarian dipped his quill into ink made from the forgotten.
He sat at a desk carved from the ribs of an ancient beast, inside a dome stitched from the dreams of dying gods.
Before him lay the Manuscript of the Void — the last untouched page in a realm Darian had sealed.
Until now.
"Creation was imperfect," the Librarian whispered, quill hovering above the page. "Perfection lies not in freedom… but structure."
He began to write.
And with each stroke, realities shifted.
In Emberwatch, a child's name vanished from their mother's tongue.
