Jincheng, Northern Province–Year 38 of the Reclamation era.

  The snow fell in silence, like it feared being heard.

  In the shadow of the Red Mountain Temple, a boy sat alone on the orphanage steps, a silver charm wrapped tightly around his shivering fingers.

  He was barely fifteen—a little small for his age, thinner than most, his dark brown hair dusted with melting snowflakes. His name was Jude, though few ever used it. The charm around his wrist bore the inscription, but in this place, names meant little. The orphanage preferred numbers.

  "009." That was what they called him.

  Numbers were easier to forget. Easier to abandon.

  He didn't know who his parents were. He didn't know where he came from. And he didn't know why the visions had started.

  They were uncannily real, he once woke up drowning in the middle of an empty sea. That was the first time he had ever died; it wasn't his death, not really, but what he felt in that moment, he couldn't describe it.

  It had been a few weeks since they began. But this morning had been different.

  He didn't wake up cold and hungry. He had woken up… vitalized.

  Powerful. Composed. And disturbingly distant, like watching the world through a pane of glass.

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  He had been sitting on the orphanage steps for hours now. The cold no longer bit. His breath fogged the air like smoke, but inside, deep in his gut, a warmth had begun to grow.

  The monks hadn't said anything, but he saw the way they looked at him. The way their steps slowed when passing. The way they whispered when they thought he couldn't hear.

  A bald monk finally gave voice to what the others feared:

  "He's starting Harmonization."

  The Harmonized were rare—one in ten thousand, maybe less. Most lived and died without ever awakening.

  They were born beneath constellations that aligned at the moment of their first breath. Or so the scholars claimed. Whether chosen by fate or punished by it, no one could agree. What was certain, however, was this: when the soul aligned with a celestial constellation, something awakened.

  That awakening was called Harmonization.

  The first signs of harmonization were harmless—emotional spikes, loss of appetite, surges of strength. For some, it took weeks. For others, a single night.

  Each soul resonated with one of the 88 Constellations.

  They were categorized into three types: combat-type, support-type, and specialized-type.

  Jude had very little knowledge of the world outside the orphanage. The little knowledge he did have, he had learned by sneaking out the orphanage.

  He had never seen someone harmonize, but that morning, he instinctively felt his body changing.

  The air around him felt heavier. Thicker. Even the snow seemed to slow as it fell, reluctant to touch him.

  He should have been terrified.

  But all he felt was clarity.

  The bell rang from the tower, a deep toll that rippled across the temple grounds like the breath of a sleeping god.

  A bald monk approached him, his robes rustling softly. His voice was firm but not unkind.

  "Listen carefully, 009. Standard procedure in the Northern Province is to surveil your symptoms. In ten days, you will be transported to the nearest Astra Sanctum entrance."

  Jude said nothing.

  The Astra Sanctum. The place where Harmonized were trialed, or disposed of.

  It was what he dreaded most.