hearts above the clouds

The floating city of Celestria drifted high above the clouds, a glittering beacon of wealth and power, sustained by the ancient magic of Aetherion. Its people, born in the sky, never questioned the power that kept them aloft, living in the heights where the air was thin and the ground was a distant memory. Below them, the world below—the Grounders, as they were called—lived in the shadows, struggling to survive in a world the floating cities had long forgotten.

Aurelia Skylar was one of them.

Born to the crumbling remnants of a world forgotten by the floating cities, Aurelia had grown up in the dirt and decay of the Lower Levels, a forgotten territory far beneath the gleaming towers of Celestria. She was a thief by necessity, her life spent stealing from those who barely had enough to eat, always looking over her shoulder for the watchful eyes of the city guards. Magic, for people like her, was a distant myth—a fairy tale told by the rich who never saw the struggle of the people who lived below.

But that was before the Skyshard.

On a storm-swept night, deep in the Ruins—the forgotten, crumbling remnants of an old world buried beneath the floating cities—Aurelia discovered it: a Skyshard, a fragment of the very magic that kept the floating cities in the sky. It pulsed with a strange, unfamiliar energy, far more powerful than anything she had ever encountered. When her fingers brushed against its surface, the ground beneath her feet trembled, and the air around her crackled with a force she could barely comprehend.

Above her, in the gleaming heights of Celestria, Caius Vaelen, heir to one of the most powerful families in the floating city, stood on his balcony, gazing out at the ever-encroaching storm. His life had always been one of luxury and privilege, but in that moment, as a strange pulse of energy surged through the city, Caius felt it—a connection, deep within him, as if the very sky was calling to him.

The Aetherion that had sustained Celestria for centuries had begun to unravel, its power rippling through the air like a storm on the horizon. Neither Caius nor Aurelia knew that their fates had already been bound by the awakening of the Skyshards.

The cities above and the ground below were about to collide.