I dreamed.
Not of stars, nor fire, nor Heaven. Not even of falling.
The first few weeks in the village passed like a blur of smoke and sunlight. And though I rose with the sun and laid down with the moon, each day brought with it a strange ache in my chest—a hollowness I couldn't name. The villagers didn't notice. Or maybe they did, but chose kindness over curiosity.
They called me Aether, the name given by Mira, the old herbalist who found me half-buried in the crater like a star that had fallen from grace. She said the name meant "the breath of the gods," though I had no breath to offer anyone when I arrived—only silence.
Still, I smiled. I learned. I lived.
The village of Brumehill was old. Time-worn, like the cobbled paths that crumbled underfoot or the wooden houses weathered by seasons. It sat nestled in the arms of hills and ancient trees, tucked so far from the world that war and kings felt like stories for drunk men and fireside tales.
Here, people rose early and worked hard. They sang while they tilled the earth and blessed their tools before harvest. The air smelled of pine and wheat and something simpler—peace.
It wasn't long before I became part of their rhythm.
I helped Tomas, the smith, lift stones for his forge. I mended fences, gathered kindling, fed goats that bit more than they nibbled. The children followed me sometimes, whispering that I'd fallen from the stars. One girl, Lena, asked if I'd met the angels. I said I didn't know. She said I had the eyes of someone who did.
It was hard to answer when I didn't know who I was. Or why my dreams were filled with quiet thunder and wings I couldn't see.
I kept to myself most nights, lying beneath the open sky, staring at the stars with an ache I couldn't explain. I didn't sleep much. When I did, I always woke before the sun with my heart beating too fast, the taste of lightning on my tongue.
I had power. I knew that much.
It was in the way the earth trembled when I touched it. In the way the grass bent toward me as if remembering something. I could feel it—dormant, coiled within me like a storm not yet named.
But I didn't dare use it. Not yet.
Not when the villagers looked at me like a strange miracle. Not when peace was so fragile.
And yet... the mark.
I remembered when I first saw it—burned faintly into my skin over my heart. A spiral, delicate and radiant, like a sun unfurling wings. It didn't hurt, and everyone else including Mira saw it. Thrumming beneath my ribs like a second pulse. Alive.
I began to wonder if it meant something. If it was me. Or what I was meant to become.
I didn't speak of it. Not to Mira. Not to Lena. Not even to the still sky.
Because something told me—deep and undeniable—that peace never lasts.
And mine was already running out.