Chapter 1 – The Omen
The first sign came at dawn, when the eastern sky burned red long after the sun had risen.
Aelira stood at the edge of the fields, sickle hanging forgotten at her side, watching the light bleed across the clouds. The air felt wrong—too heavy, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Birds refused to sing. Even the wind, which usually whispered through the wheat, had fallen silent.
“It’s just a storm,” she murmured, though she did not believe it.
Behind her, the village of Brackenhold was waking. Doors creaked open. Voices rose in uneasy tones. People pointed toward the sky, crossing themselves or whispering old prayers their grandparents had taught them—prayers meant for darker times.
Aelira had grown up on stories of dragons, but they were always spoken of in the past tense. Legends, nothing more. Creatures of fire and scale that had vanished generations ago, taking their wars and magic with them. The kingdom had been safer for it, the elders said.
Yet as the red light intensified, warmth spread beneath Aelira’s skin, deep in her chest, like embers stirring from sleep.
She gasped and dropped the sickle. The sensation pulsed once—twice—then faded, leaving her breathless and shaken.
At the temple bell tower, the bell began to ring.
Not the measured toll of prayer, but the sharp, urgent clang reserved for warnings.
Aelira turned as old Maeron, the village priest, hurried into the square, his face pale beneath his gray beard.
“An omen,” he said, his voice trembling. “The old signs are awakening. Fire in the sky. Silence in the air. The prophecy speaks of this day.”
Aelira’s heart pounded. She had heard that prophecy only once, whispered late at night when she was a child and thought asleep.
When the sky burns and the world grows still, the blood of dragons will stir once more.
A shadow passed over the fields.
Aelira looked up just as the red clouds parted—just enough to reveal something vast moving far above them. Not a bird. Not a cloud.
Something with wings.
Gasps rippled through the village. Someone screamed.
The shape vanished as quickly as it appeared, swallowed by the burning sky. The bell fell silent. The wind returned in a sudden rush, bending the wheat as if nothing had happened at all.
But Aelira knew better.
The warmth in her chest flared one last time, sharper now, almost painful.
Whatever had passed overhead had seen her.
And the world she knew was already ending.
