The sky had not been blue for as long as Lira could remember. It had been a pale gray, almost silver, since her earliest childhood memories—never truly day, never fully night. The sun, or what was left of it, lingered at the edge of the horizon, its once-golden light dimmed to a sickly hue. The wind, though constant, carried no warmth. The land, broken into floating islands, hung suspended like shards of a shattered dream.
Lira stood on the edge of the cliff, her toes brushing the cool stone beneath her, and stared out across the sea of floating islands that stretched as far as her eyes could see. The broken city of Aurelion lay behind her, its spires and towers half-fallen, abandoned by the rulers who had long since retreated into their secrets. The faint echoes of the kingdom's once-glorious past whispered in the wind, but no one alive could remember the golden age when the sun had been whole.
Her long, platinum hair swirled around her face in the breeze, its sheen more silver than white today. Her violet eyes, sharp and searching, flickered as the sunlight brushed across them, a temporary flash of gold like a distant memory. She had been told that her eyes had once been brighter—when she was younger, when the sun had been stronger—but she couldn't remember that time. It felt like someone else's story now.
Or was it?
The unease inside her churned, a sensation that had become familiar, a quiet nagging whisper that was always with her. Something was wrong. She was wrong.
The feeling had become unbearable over the last few months—this sensation that something inside her was stirring, something that she could not understand. It was like a distant song, soft and faint, echoing from a place she couldn't quite reach. Sometimes, in her dreams, she saw flashes of another life—different faces, different places—but always the same endless twilight sky.
She turned away from the edge of the cliff and began walking back toward the dilapidated temple where she lived. It was small, barely more than a ruin, but it was home. The temple had once belonged to a forgotten order of mages who worshipped the sun, but it had been abandoned long before Lira's birth. All she knew was that she had been found here as a baby, left on the steps of the temple with no memory of her parents, no name but the one she had taken for herself.
The temple, like the world, was full of cracks—worn stones, broken windows, and faded murals of a time when light had reigned. It was empty now, except for her. She wasn't sure why she stayed. Perhaps because it was the only place that had ever felt like home.
She paused outside the temple's cracked doorway, her eyes drawn to the ancient symbols carved into the stone. There were markings she didn't understand—patterns that seemed to shift when she wasn't looking directly at them. She'd tried to decipher them once, but they made her head spin, a strange pressure building behind her eyes whenever she came close. Something about them felt too familiar, like a door that should not be opened.
A sharp cough broke through her thoughts. She turned to see a figure approaching from the shadows of the ruined temple's courtyard.
It was Thorne.
He had been coming and going for the last few weeks, though she never asked where he went or what he was doing. There was something about him—something sharp, like the edge of a blade—that kept her at a distance. He was tall and wiry, with a dark complexion that seemed to absorb the dim light of the twilight world. His eyes, amber and piercing, never seemed to blink, as if he were always searching for something just out of reach.
"Lost in thought again?" he asked, his voice low and smooth, as though he were accustomed to speaking in secrets.
"I suppose you could say that," Lira replied, offering a brief smile that didn't reach her eyes. "It's hard not to be lost in this world."
Thorne's lips quirked into a half-smile, though it never quite reached his eyes either. He was good at hiding whatever it was that he carried beneath the surface. "You know, there's something about this place that makes me think it's been forgotten for a reason."
She watched him for a moment, then shrugged, stepping back into the shadow of the temple's archway. "Maybe it's not about being forgotten. Maybe it's about remembering what we lost."
Thorne studied her with an unreadable expression before stepping closer. His boots scraped across the stone, the only sound in the otherwise silent world. "You know you're not like the others. You've felt it too, haven't you? That... pull, deep inside you?"
Lira didn't answer right away. She couldn't. It was true. Something inside her was waking up. Every night, in her dreams, she saw flashes of things she didn't understand. Faces. Places. Powerful forces at war. The sun, alive and burning, and then... a fall into darkness.
The pull had become stronger in the last few weeks, like an unseen thread tugging at her heart. It had been faint at first, a whisper that danced at the edge of her consciousness. But now it was more like a scream, distant but undeniable. She was changing. Something was changing within her, but she didn't know how or why.
"I don't know what it is," she said quietly, her voice tinged with frustration. "I've been dreaming about it. The sun... darkness... power." She shook her head. "I just want to understand what's happening to me."
Thorne's gaze softened slightly, though the tension in his shoulders remained. "You're not just any orphan, Lira. You never have been. And I think it's time you learned the truth."
Her heart skipped a beat. She looked up sharply. "The truth? What do you mean?"
Thorne paused, then stepped closer, lowering his voice. "You're not the only one who feels it. The world is dying, Lira. The sun is fading, and there's only one thing that can stop it."
Her pulse quickened, and she knew, deep in her bones, that whatever he was about to say, it would change everything.
"You," he said, his voice a whisper now, "are the Sungod reborn."
Lira's breath caught in her throat.
The world seemed to freeze, the twilight sky hanging heavy above her, as if holding its breath, waiting for her response.