The Last Flight of Kael Veyra
The city stretched beneath him like a labyrinth of steel and shadow — a thousand windows glinting like cold stars in the dusk. Kael Veyra stood at the edge of the tallest spire, the wind tugging at his pale, battle-worn robes. His wings — once the obsidian banners of the Skyguard — now frayed into drifting feathers, each one dissolving into dust before it touched the ground.
He had not flown in years.
Not since the Fall.
A memory rose unbidden: a girl’s laughter echoing through the marble halls of the Aether Citadel, her small hand gripping his as she traced the glowing lines of the celestial sigil on his palm. “You’ll never let me fall, will you, Kael?” she had asked. He had sworn it then — before the Syndicate burned the Citadel and scattered the Skyguard to ash.
The streets below pulsed with the restless heartbeat of the city — neon veins, sirens wailing like distant war horns. Somewhere in that maze, the last ember of his oath still burned: the same girl, now older, marked by the sigil that could open the Skygate and end the Syndicate’s reign. If they found her first, the prophecy would break, and the heavens would seal forever.
The Syndicate’s black banners already hung from the lower towers, their crimson eye emblem watching the streets. Time was running thin.
Kael’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the blade strapped to his back — a relic forged from the bones of a star. The weight was familiar, but heavier now, as if it too mourned the years he had wasted in exile.
The wind shifted.
The city called.
He stepped forward, toes curling over the ledge. The first drop of rain struck his cheek, cold as memory. His wings trembled — not from fear, but from the ache of remembering what it meant to soar. Feathers tore free, scattering into the storm like black snow.
And then, with a breath that tasted of iron and lightning, Kael leapt.
The air roared around him, tearing at his robes, his hair, his scars. For a heartbeat, gravity claimed him — and then the old magic surged, fierce and defiant. His wings caught the wind, ragged but unbroken, and the city blurred beneath him.
Somewhere below, the girl was running.
Somewhere ahead, the war would begin again.
And Kael Veyra — last of the Skyguard — would not fall this time.
Not whi
le his oath still burned.