The village of Windrest sat at the edge of the Great Expanse, where the sky stretched endlessly and storms whispered secrets to the clouds. A humble place of farmers and skywatchers, it was home to a boy named Kael.
Kael was seventeen, a wanderer in his own thoughts. He often stared into the skies for hours, listening to the wind, sketching cloud formations, and reading ancient scrolls left behind by his grandfather, a forgotten scholar who believed the Sky Lords were real.
Others called Kael mad.
"Still dreaming of the gods in the sky?" the blacksmith would chuckle. "Why not become useful and hammer steel instead?"
But Kael didn't care. Every night, he dreamed of wings made of stormlight and voices calling his name from above.
And then, on the day of the Solar Alignment, the skies split.
A blazing fragment of fire and light crashed down into the hills beyond Windrest. The ground trembled. Thunder roared. And Kael felt it something awakening inside him. A heartbeat not his own, beating with power older than time.
That night, drawn by the storm, Kael climbed the hill.
There, in a smoking crater, lay a shard of glowing crystal lightning, dancing across its surface.
When he touched it, the sky answered