The first thing I registered was a low, persistent hum. It wasn't loud, but it was everywhere, a dull vibration that settled deep in my skull. It felt… wrong. Like something was supposed to be there, a vibrant song of existence, but instead there was just this flat, artificial drone.

  My mind felt like shattered glass. Fragments of thoughts, images, sensations skittered just out of reach. Power. Fire. A name? Solorion. The feeling of something vast, infinite, being compressed into nothing. And pain. Intense, tearing pain.

  I tried to move, to sit up, but my body was slow, clumsy. Disconnected. My limbs felt too short, too thin. Panic sparked – cold and sharp. This isn't right. I was supposed to be… bigger. Stronger. A deep, core certainty warred with the immediate, undeniable reality of this small, frail body.

  My eyes fluttered open. The light was soft, diffused, coming from panels in a smooth ceiling. The walls were a pale, neutral color, featureless and clean. I was lying in a small, low cot, tucked into an alcove. Rows of identical cots lined the room. It looked like… a nursery?

  Footsteps. Soft, even steps on a material that didn't echo. A woman in a simple grey uniform appeared beside my cot. Her face was kind, her expression practiced and gentle, but there was no spark of recognition in her eyes, nothing that suggested she saw anything unusual about me.

  "Kael? You're awake early today," she said, her voice calm and flat, lacking any of the subtle, magical inflections I… remembered?

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  Kael. Was that my name? It felt small. Insignificant. Like a placeholder. "Solorion," the name echoed internally, vast and resonant, a stark contrast to the single syllable she used. Who was Kael? Who was Solorion?

  I tried to speak, to ask a thousand questions swirling in my broken thoughts, but only a small, reedy sound escaped my throat. My voice felt just as disconnected as my limbs.

  The woman smiled slightly, a kind, distant expression. "Still quiet? That's alright. The Sky-Cradle takes some getting used to."

  Sky-Cradle? I managed to push myself up, sitting on the edge of the cot. My gaze was drawn to the window beside me. It wasn't glass, but a clear, seamless surface. Below, there was no ground. Only clouds. An endless expanse of white and grey, stretching to the horizon. This place, whatever it was, floated above the world.

  The pieces started to fit together, forming a terrifying, nonsensical picture. A child's body. A place called the Sky-Cradle. Floating among the clouds. And the constant, artificial hum of… what was it? It felt like power, but choked, contained, wrong.

  I looked down at my small, pale hands. They were just hands. No residual heat from Ember, no faint glow from Glint, no sense of fundamental solidity from Shard. Nothing. A terrifying void where immense power should reside.

  But then my eyes fell to my chest. Beneath the thin fabric of the simple shirt, just above my heart, was a mark. It wasn't a birthmark. It was a swirling pattern, faint against my skin, but as I focused on it, it felt warm. A tiny ember glowing in the emptiness. For a second, maybe less, I thought I saw it pulse with a soft, golden light before fading back to just ink-like lines.

  It felt familiar. Like a key. Or maybe, a piece left behind.

  I pressed my small fingers against the mark. The humming of the Sky-Cradle filled the room. Outside, the clouds drifted by in silent procession. I was Kael. A child in a sky nursery. But the echo of Solorion was undeniably real, and it resonated from this strange mark on my chest. I had to understand. I had to remember.