The City Below the Sky
989 Words
The three of them—Addie, Kael, and Nira—moved fast.
With the fire temple behind them, and the shadowborn stirring in greater numbers, they followed a path long erased from maps. It led north, to a place none of them had seen in this life, but all remembered with painful clarity:
Zephyros.
The city in the clouds.
The last stronghold of light... before it fell.
Addie’s dreams were filled with fragments now—memories half-awake. The war, the betrayal, the one who stood with them then vanished into shadow. The fourth Lightbearer. His name still eluded her, but his face—
It haunted her.
“I feel like we’re chasing a ghost,” Kael muttered as they climbed the ridge at sunrise, the ruins of Zephyros sprawling beneath them. A city carved into cliffs, laced with bridges and towers that reached for the sky. The wind howled like it remembered loss.
“He’s not a ghost,” Nira said quietly. “He’s waiting.”
Addie looked down at the ring Corren had given her. The light had changed. Now it pulsed with two colors—gold and deep silver.
“He’s near,” she whispered.
---
They entered Zephyros through the lower gates—broken stone arches lined with rusted runes. The streets were quiet. Abandoned, yet alive with a strange hum beneath their feet.
“Do you feel that?” Nira asked. “The whole city... it’s breathing.”
Kael nodded. “It’s warded. Something ancient. Maybe he’s been using it as a shield.”
As they moved deeper into the heart of the city, they found signs—faint markings etched into walls, pillars, even broken glass.
A symbol repeated again and again:
A sword, broken in two. Surrounded by wings.
Addie stopped. Her eyes widened.
“I’ve seen this.”
Nira stepped beside her. “In the old war?”
Addie nodded. “He wore it on his back.”
Kael’s voice dropped. “Who was he?”
Addie’s voice trembled. “He was one of us. He called himself Silas.”
The name rippled in the air like a dropped stone in still water.
And from the shadows behind them—
“So you finally remember.”
They turned.
There he stood.
Silas.
Cloaked in black and silver, his hair wind-tossed, eyes glowing with something ancient—and fractured.
He was taller now. Stronger. But the boy Addie remembered still lingered in the angle of his jaw, the scar on his cheek, the way he held himself like a soldier who never stopped fighting.
“Silas,” Addie whispered.
He gave a bitter smile. “You came to save me?”
Nira’s flames flickered. Kael’s fingers twitched near his blade.
Silas lifted his hand—and the city pulsed.
A wave of energy pushed them back. Not violent. Not angry.
Just... tired.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said. “But not for you.”
His eyes locked on Addie.
“I’ve been waiting for her. Lyra. The one who left us behind.”
The Ones We Left
The wind howled through the bones of Zephyros.
Addie stared at Silas, every breath tight in her chest. He looked like a stranger—taller, sharper—but when he said her old name, Lyra, it cracked something deep inside her.
“Silas,” she said again, but softer. “We didn’t leave you.”
He tilted his head. “Didn’t you?”
Kael stepped forward. “You were with the Lightbearers. What happened to you?”
Silas laughed, but it was hollow. “Ask her.” He pointed at Addie. “She remembers now.”
Addie shook her head. “Not all of it. But I remember the battle. I remember you falling, and—”
“You remember running,” Silas snapped. His voice echoed like thunder in the hollowed city. “You remember turning your back while the world burned. While I—”
He stopped, his hands trembling. Darkness rippled beneath his skin like veins filled with ink.
Addie took a step toward him. “You tried to protect us. You held the gate. You were the last one standing.”
“I was dying,” he whispered. “And I begged for your light. But you—didn’t come back.”
Kael looked at Addie. “Is it true?”
She closed her eyes.
And suddenly—the memory returned.
---
A sky full of fire.
A broken fortress.
Silas on the ground, bleeding, holding back a wave of shadowborn alone.
Addie—Lyra—stood in the courtyard, flames in her palms, two paths before her.
One led back into the battle.
The other... to the final crystal. The last hope of sealing the Void.
She chose the crystal.
“I’ll come back,” she told him.
But by the time she returned, he was gone.
---
Addie’s eyes snapped open. “I didn’t abandon you. I tried to end the war.”
“And it did,” Silas said bitterly. “For you.”
He raised both hands. The air around them bent, shadows pouring from the stones of the city. The broken sword emblem on his chest flared with light—but it wasn’t gold. It was a twisted silver-blue.
“I touched the Void that day,” he said. “And it whispered to me.”
Nira stepped forward, her fire rising. “Silas, please. Whatever you heard—”
“I heard truth,” he hissed. “The light forgets its debts. But the dark remembers everything.”
He flicked his hand—and a shockwave of shadow surged forward.
Kael was faster. His sword lit with lightning as he deflected the blast, but the force still knocked him to his knees.
Addie lit her flame. “I don’t want to fight you.”
Silas looked her dead in the eyes. “Then kneel.”
- Writer
