The night Kael was born, the sky did not behave like a sky. It churned and twisted as though it were a living thing in pain, clouds folding into one another with a restless urgency while thunder rolled endlessly across the cliffs overlooking the black sea. The village midwife would later swear that the storm did not simply pass overhead, but circled the house where his mother labored, as if waiting for permission to leave. When Kael finally opened his eyes, the lightning struck so close that the windows shattered inward, and yet the infant did not cry; instead, he stared upward with a calm so unsettling that even the storm seemed to hesitate.
The night Kael was born, the sky did not behave like a sky. It churned and twisted as though it were a living thing in pain, clouds folding into one another with a restless urgency while thunder rolled endlessly across the cliffs overlooking the black sea. The village midwife would later swear th...