Prologue.
The palace was silent, yet the air thrummed with something unseen, a weight that pressed against stone and bone alike. Aspen stood at the edge of the balcony, eyes wide open for the first time in his life, drinking in the world that had once been hidden from him. Light, shadow, movement—everything was new, vivid, overwhelming. And yet, he felt it too: a pull in the corners of his vision, something that should not be there, a presence older than the kingdom itself.
Eldric knelt beside him, blind, but seeing more than most could ever hope to. He had given up his sight so Aspen could claim his own, and now he felt the tremor of something ancient and terrible stirring in the world, in the air, maybe even in the boy who had finally begun to see.
Morakai, the Shadow Sovereign, waited beyond mortal understanding, patient and hungry, a god filled with grief and rage, whose return would bring nothing but reckoning. And though no one knew if Aspen could contain him—if he was the vessel foretold—signs had begun: whispers in empty halls, shadows that bent toward him, a reflection in the mirror that moved when he did not.
Eldric’s hand found Aspen’s. “Whatever comes,” he said, voice steady, “we face it together.”
Aspen tightened his grip, senses sharpened and heart pounding. For the first time, he understood that the world itself hung by a thread—and when the vessel breaks… the world will follow.
