Part I: The House on Riftwatch Hill
The wind whispered across the high ridge of Riftwatch Hill, carrying with it the faint scent of burning alloy and distant ozone—remnants of an old world forever altered by the arrival of another.
Twelve-year-old Zeiran Aethros crouched low in the tall bluegrass behind his family's old weather-dome, watching the city of Nirevalis shimmer beneath the twin moons. The city stretched out like a tapestry woven with glass and neon, its skyline a contrast of ancient Earth structures and alien tech from Xaldris. Glowing vertical lines etched into buildings pulsed with Ether currents—energy that powered nearly everything since the Rift.
Beside him, the night-breeze fluttered the hem of his thin coat. It was patched in places, stitched by his mother's weakened hands. He still wore it like armor.
Zeiran's eyes weren't on the city, though. They were fixed on a glimmering broadcast hovering in mid-air—an aerial stream, projected between two translucent rods embedded in the ground. A public feed.
A tall man stood at the center of it, wrapped in a black-and-crimson battlecoat lined with kinetic shielding. His right eye burned with white Ether, his voice low and commanding:
"A Prime does not serve a people. A Prime guides them. When light fails, we ignite the path with will alone."
The crowd in the broadcast roared.
It was Prime Askar Vael, the 5th Prime, also known as the "Sundering Warden." His Sentiencer—Kaerun, a ten-foot Xaldrian titan draped in living armor—stood behind him with folded arms, its violet eyes glowing like twin galaxies.
Zeiran watched with wide eyes, awe burning behind his silence.
"Zeiran!" a voice called from the house below. "Dinner!"
He didn't respond immediately. His fingers were tight around a small obsidian shard on a necklace—his father's. The edges were smooth now from years of anxious rubbing. Prime Askar was a myth to most, but to Zeiran… he was what could be. What should be.
"Coming!" he shouted finally, yanking the necklace back under his shirt and brushing dust off his pants. He stood, gave one last look at the flickering broadcast, then sprinted down the hill.
The Aethros family home wasn't grand. It was a hybrid construct: stone and steel, its framework old Earth, its insulation and inner cores distinctly Xaldran. The second level had once been a lab—his father's study. Now it remained sealed. Unpowered. Untouched.
He entered through the sliding door, ducking under a light fixture that still blinked erratically after the last Ether surge.
"About time," Elyra Aethros, his mother, teased gently as she set down a steaming bowl of synthrice and vegetable paste. Her long auburn hair was tied in a messy braid. One hand held the tray steadily; the other—gloved in silver thread—trembled slightly from the lasting damage of an Etherburn she sustained during the First Rift War.
Seated across the table was Lyelle, Zeiran's younger sister by three years. Her silver eyes lit up as she saw him. "Zei! I saved you the crunchy part!"
He smiled and ruffled her hair as he sat. "Best sister ever."
She beamed.
They ate in mostly quiet comfort, broken only by Lyelle's occasional humming and the soft clinking of spoons. The lights above flickered twice, a reminder of the unstable power grid. Elyra didn't even flinch anymore. She had learned to live with broken things.
"So," Elyra began softly, "Did you watch the induction broadcast?"
Zeiran paused mid-bite.
"Yes."
"And?"
"I want to be like him," Zeiran said quietly.
Elyra looked at him with those tired, knowing eyes. "You say that every year."
"I mean it this time."
"You meant it last time."
"Then I mean it more now."
Lyelle giggled.
Elyra reached over and cupped his face gently with her gloved hand. "Your father said something once. He said, 'The path of power is lit by sacrifice, not spotlight.' Becoming a Prime is not a destiny, Zeiran. It's a consequence."
"I know," he whispered.
"You don't," she corrected, but she kissed his forehead anyway.
Part II: The Locked Study
That night, after Lyelle was asleep and Elyra sat reading with her gloved hand gripping a mug of heatwine, Zeiran climbed the stairs to the second floor.
The hall was dim. Dust floated in the moonlight leaking from a cracked skylight. At the end was a tall metal door with a biometric seal.
His father's study.
No one had entered since the last day of the First Rift War—when Kairon Aethros vanished during the collapse of the 3rd Nexus Gate. The Sentiencer bound to Kairon, an ancient war-class unit named Vharik, had returned in pieces.
The door pulsed once in response to Zeiran's presence.
IDENTITY: PARTIAL MATCH. ACCESS DENIED.
He sighed and pressed his forehead to the cold metal.
"Dad… what were you trying to protect?"
Then, a soft click echoed behind him.
Lyelle stood at the stairwell, rubbing her eyes. "Zei?"
He turned. "Couldn't sleep."
She nodded. "The machines in my dreams keep whispering your name."
His chest tightened. Lyelle had always been… different. Born during a Riftquake, she sometimes spoke of machines in her dreams or colors that didn't exist. Elyra had her tested. No illness. No anomalies. Just something Xaldran in her blood. Some called it "Resonance."
"You're fine," Zeiran said, walking over and hugging her. "You're safe."
She nodded again, but whispered: "You're going to change the world, Zei."
His heart skipped.
"I'm not—"
"I saw it. In the fracturelight."
Then she walked away, leaving Zeiran staring at the locked door and the shadows it held.
Year: 2127 A.X. | Location: New Harmona, Earth Sector 7
The morning haze of District Khaelis shimmered across the silver-blue rooftops as the sun pierced through the fog like a blade through veil-thread. A soft pulse echoed in the air—residual hum from interplanetary bridges flickering briefly in the sky above. The resonance of alien worlds never fully vanished now. Earth had changed.
So had the Aethros family.
Zeiran stood outside the rust-streaked gates of the Aethros residence, his boots damp from the dew-soaked stone. Their house, a hybrid of ancient Harmonian metalwork and Earth-modern polymer frames, stood silent. Lifeless. At least from the outside.
Inside, it throbbed with quiet tension.
He hesitated. Not because of fear. But because he knew that once he crossed that threshold, he would hear her again. The gasps. The struggle. The pain she tried to hide behind laughter and scolding.
He entered.
The air inside was thick with the sterile scent of synthesized medicine. Machinery clicked and hissed softly in the background, built into the kitchen walls—designed to assist with even the smallest movement.
At the dining table, Elyra Aethros—his mother—was gripping a cup between trembling hands. Her fingers twitched unnaturally, artificial nerve-webbing still visible beneath her skin from a failed experimental treatment two years ago. She noticed him and quickly placed the cup down, smiling like nothing had happened.
"Did you skip school again?" she asked.
Zeiran didn't answer. He dropped his bag by the counter and began helping her with the dishes, brushing her hand aside when she tried.
"No. I just took the long route."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. They always did when she knew he was lying—but she never pushed. Maybe she was afraid of what truths he might say.
Lyelle came bounding down the stairs. Zeiran's younger sister, just turned nine, was already wearing her mock "Rite Robes," flapping her sleeves like she was casting spells.
"Did you see me?" she shouted. "I was flying in my dream again. I saw the Red Belt comet and flew through it like a Prime!"
Zeiran chuckled, tousling her hair.
"Don't burn the neighborhood down, Prime Lyelle."
"I'll be the 20th Prime! You'll see!"
Elyra winced faintly at the word Prime, but masked it with a stretch. Zeiran caught it. He always caught it.
Later that evening, the living room dimmed under amber lights. Elyra sat with a blank look at the glowing fireplace—its flames simulated from a fusion core, no actual fire present.
Zeiran approached her quietly.
"Mom…"
She blinked out of her trance. "Mm?"
"Did Dad ever… say anything before he left?"
Silence.
He hadn't asked in over three years.
Elyra's lips pressed tight. Her trembling hand reached for the half-finished data journal on her lap, but she didn't open it.
"He said he believed in protocol."
Zeiran tilted his head. "What does that mean?"
She looked toward the window, eyes drifting toward the distant bridge arc in the sky.
"That some legacies don't come from love… but from duty."
Zeiran sat on the roof that night, legs dangling over the edge of their modular solar panel tiles. The skyline of New Harmona gleamed ahead—shrouded in pollution halos, refracted starlight, and the ever-watchful satellite towers.
He stared at the sky, searching for a shape he barely remembered.
The Sentiencers.
The biomechanical beings from the world of Xeraphis. They arrived after the Sunder Contact thirty years ago—when Earth's hidden axis tilted and the interstellar rift exposed the twin planet that had long orbited Earth unseen.
Now, it was common knowledge: at age 14, every human was eligible for the Concord Rite. A sacred event where one would potentially bond with a Sentiencer—a fusion of will and legacy, soul and steel.
But only a handful succeeded. And fewer still survived long after.
Those who did became warriors. Icons. Candidates for Prime.
He was barely a week from 14.
Dream Sequence Begins
In the dream, the world was on fire. Not metaphorical fire—real flames, blue and violent, licking the edges of Earth's atmosphere.
A massive form knelt before him. A being of plated obsidian and molten red—a humanoid frame that pulsed with starlight veins. It spoke in a voice that sounded like a thousand war drums crashing in reverse.
"Awaken, Zeiran Aethros. We were bound long before your birth. I am not your shadow. I am your becoming."
He tried to move but couldn't.
The flames consumed everything.
Then he saw his mother—her arms not broken, but mechanical. Shining like armor. She was fighting.
And then… he saw the silhouette of a man with a Prime cloak. Facing away. Back turned.
His father?
Dream Ends
He woke up gasping.
Not in his room. In the basement.
He must have sleepwalked.
In the corner, the old Concord Chambers glowed faintly. A relic from when his father had still been allowed to house tech from the old military era. It hadn't worked in years… and yet tonight, it pulsed.
A single glyph lit up on the chamber's glass: an "X" inside a circle of shifting lines.