Over a vast and endless desert stretched an angry sky. The clouds churned with darkness and turmoil, rolling and tumbling as though they might collapse under their own weight and crush the earth below.
The sky should have been blue as the sea, or white as blank parchnt. Instead, it bled crimson—the color of a battlefield wound left to fester. As if the heavens themselves had fought so grueso war and lost badly.
A sandstorm swept across the desert floor, and in its path stood a city of warm stone and burnished gold.
Broad avenues lined with palm trees ran beside canals of clear blue water, their surfaces dotted with boats that now rocked violently in the rising wind. At the city's heart rose a massive palace of layered dos and terraces, towering above everything around it like a crown of empire. Mountains and dunes ringed the horizon on all sides, giving the city the feeling of sothing ancient, sothing wealthy, sothing carefully protected by both geography and power.
But sothing was wrong.
The wind had beco a storm. Windows slamd in their fras with sounds like gunshots. The palm trees bent nearly horizontal, fronds whipping wildly as if barely holding their ground against a force they couldn't see. And the waters of the canal...
They were turning red.
It was as if the land itself was being besieged by sothing no one had ever known. Sothing that bled the very sky.
A tall, dark-skinned man stood at the highest do of the palace—his palace. He had a powerful, sculpted build, the kind that ca from decades of war rather than vanity. Long black dreadlocks decorated with gold bands hung past his shoulders. His eyes glowed a sharp, unsettling blue, and his expression was carved from stone—the expression of soone who had seen enough that surprise had beco a luxury.
His face was angular, his jaw strong. He carried himself like soone for whom command was not a burden but a birthright. He wore white and gold garnts draped over one shoulder, heavy with ancient-looking jewelry that glinted in the blood-red light.
A warrior-king. A Paragon.
The Dusk Watcher.
A second later, a figure dropped from the sky.
She landed on the edge of a rod—a slender staff that had struck the do beside the man. She balanced there impossibly, as if gravity was rely a suggestion she'd declined.
She was younger than him, with smooth bronze skin and straight black hair cut with blunt bangs. Her eyes were a clear, piercing blue—calm, sharp, and utterly unreadable. She wore layered white robes with blue-and-gold ornantation, and heavy gold jewelry circled her neck and wrists.
Her expression gave nothing away. It never did.
"It is as you said, Lord Sultan. There appears to be a rift in our sky." A pause. "A very strong one."
The Dusk Watcher rely grinned and folded his arms. His dark muscles rippled like sculpture straining against its own form.
"I love being right." The grin faded slightly. "But not in this case, A. What tier could it possibly be to have such a fierce effect on the sky?"
A was silent for a mont. It was the kind of silence that made the Dusk Watcher's spine straighten—the silence of soone choosing their words carefully because the truth was worse than expected.
"Speak, A."
Her voice rolled out at the sound of her husband's thick, stormy command—flat, controlled.
"It's... there isn't just one rift, my Lord Sultan."
For the first ti, the man's stoic expression cracked. Surprise slipped through the stone.
"What?"
A stepped down from her staff. It rolled into the air behind her and dissolved into sparks of light. Then she looked at him—her husband, the Lord Sultan of the Qamarun Kingdom—and her composure didn't waver.
"Up there, Lord Sultan, there are six rifts."
Six.
"Two of which are tier nine. The remaining four are at least tier seven, possibly eight." She glanced upward at the bleeding sky. "But those two... I'm certain of it. They are tier nine."
The Dusk Watcher stood frozen, staring at the heavens with an expression he rarely wore. Lost. Unbelieving.
If it had been anyone else speaking, he would have doubted it. But Astris—his wife—was a Savant with an SSS-class talent that made her the most renowned scout in the Kingdom. She didn't guess. She didn't exaggerate. When she said sothing was certain, you could carve it into stone.
'Why?' The thought churned behind his eyes. 'Why would two tier nine rifts and four tier seven rifts appear in our sky on a random good day? Moreso—not when the ratio of rifts has been declining for years.'
He was confused, and it showed on his face. But his arms remained folded, still emanating that terrible, unconscious strength—a king even when lost.
The air between them fell silent.
Below, in the city, soldiers in golden armor were directing citizens indoors, their shouts swallowed by the wind. Others surrounded the walls, formations tightening with the discipline of n who knew what rifts could bring.
"And here I was thinking I could take a vacation to the north," the Dusk Watcher said finally, his tone lighter than the mont deserved. "Enjoy so cold air while I dump all my duties on you for a change."
A turned to face him.
Her stare could have frozen steel.
"A." He held up a hand. "Easy. We have monsters above our heads."
The magnificent young woman closed her eyes with an elegant patience that sohow managed to convey disdain. She stepped back, clasping her hands in front of her.
"I'm not the one who's King," she said. "And a Paragon. Deal with it—or call your Paragon friends."
The Dusk Watcher exhaled slowly. "Friends? I've been so introverted, the last ti I saw Burning Storm was seven years ago." He shook his head, a note of genuine annoyance slipping into his voice. "That bastard. I don't even know how he's doing now."
"What about the Principal?"
"That one?" His lip curled. "Too sketchy. I don't like him." He glanced upward again at the bleeding sky. "Besides—won't we be fried by these things before anyone gets here?"
A shrugged, and sothing almost like warmth flickered through her cold expression.
"At least we'll die believing soone is coming to save us. Until the very last mont."
The Dusk Watcher looked at his spouse with a fierce light burning in his glowing eyes.
"I am allowed to die, A. But you..." His voice dropped, rough with sothing neither of them would na aloud. "If you die, I'll find a way to wake up just to nag you for it. Who's going to take care of that brat you call a son?"
"Oh, wow." A's tone was flatter than desert stone. "'Brat.' Say it to his face."
The Dusk Watcher considered it for a mont. Actually considered it.
Then he shook his head. "No."
"You're just a coward at the end of the day."
"What?" He straightened, mock-offended. "A, I'm your husb—"
Both of them froze.
A new presence had appeared at the do—a man with bronze skin, clad in golden armor with a red cape snapping in the wind behind him. He carried a golden spear and walked toward the King and Queen with asured steps.
He bowed once, then straightened and examined them both with poorly concealed suspicion.
"Are you two arguing again? At this ti?"
The Lord Sultan managed a sheepish smile.
"Actually, Faruk, you wouldn't believe this woman. She's—"
He froze mid-sentence.
The sky let out a deep, grinding rumble—the sound of sothing tearing free from an embrace it had been held in since the beginning of ti.
Then ca the birds.
Thousands of them. No—millions. Black shapes pouring from the depths of the bleeding clouds, forming a cloud of their own that blotted out what little light remained. Their shrieks overwheld the vast Kingdom in an instant, and their presence cast an ominous shadow over everything below.
They were sickening to watch. Looking like a single writhing whole from a distance. Looking like a million screaming individuals up close.
The Dusk Watcher let out a weak, humorless chuckle.
"I guess we have to make that call after all, A."
His wife was also watching the sky. Watching the end of everything they'd built rise from the clouds like judgnt itself.
"Yes, my love."
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