Rain lashed against the fractured panes of Silas Harrow’s attic window, a relentless drumbeat against the city’s industrial hum. Eight years had passed since the lightning strike, a mere nine years old, when he’d felt the ancient power stir. Not a spark, but a deep, churning void within, echoing the cosmos. He hadn’t sought it; it had claimed him, a silent, terrible inheritance. His mother, a woman of quiet strength and sharper intuition than most, had known. She hadn't marveled when a discarded cogwheel had spun aloft, glittering with starlight in the dim candlelight. Her face, instead, had drawn tight with a sorrow he wouldn't understand until much later. “Silas,” she’d whispered, her voice a brittle plea. “Promise me you will hide this. Especially from the Technocrats. Never in front of others.” Curiosity had warred with obedience. “Why, Mama?” Rain outside the window had mimicked the tears in her eyes. Then, she’d spun a tale of Aethelburg’s forgotten history, of the true architects of its soaring spires: the Stargazers. These were beings born with cosmic command, wielders of gravity and weavers of starlight. They were the city’s ancient patrons, its silent, distant architects. But their time had passed. Now, the pragmatic Technocrat Guild ruled. They saw magic as an anomaly, a chaotic threat to their clockwork order. Stargazers, if discovered, were either eradicated or, worse, dissected, their essence bottled, their powers siphoned and twisted for industrial ends. Those with Stargazer blood, like Silas, were anathema. “Imagine,” she’d said, her fingers tracing a constellation on his palm, “a lone star, fallen from the sky. Beautiful, yes. But also, hunted. They would turn you into a tool, Silas. A cog in their great, terrible machine.” His mother had nurtured his gift in secret, teaching him control, restraint. She spoke of powerful Stargazer Houses that once held sway, and lesser bloodlines, often called ‘Echoes,’ who served them. These Echoes possessed fragments of the grand power, useful but ultimately expendable. His father, she’d implied, had been one such Echo. “They use them as guard dogs, Silas,” she’d warned, her voice trembling. “Loyal, fierce. Loved, perhaps, until a larger predator appears. Then, they are sent to fight, while the master watches from behind a secure wall. That is what they will do to you.” Her face, etched with a desolation that haunted his sleep, had silenced all his questions. “Do you want to live with me, for a long, long time?” “Yes, Mama.” “Then you must hide it. Or they will come. And you’ll never see me again.” “I promise. I won’t use it in front of anyone.” And he had kept that promise. Even after her lungs, weakened by the city’s smog and her constant fear, finally gave out. Silas had remained in their secluded, high-up dwelling in the Whispering Spires district, eking out a living, avoiding the gaze of the Technocrats, refusing to become a 'dog' for anyone. --- “Fools.” Silas muttered, securing the heavy door to his small apartment. The pre-dawn gloom had barely lifted when the local toughs, a quartet of Technocrat-leaning ruffians from the lower levels, had come calling. They’d blamed him for the disappearance of Old Man Corvus, found days ago, half-devoured, at the edge of the forgotten sewers. A clear case of an aberration, a creature of mutated industrial waste, but they’d insisted Silas, the quiet, strange one, had lured him there. His knuckles still throbbed faintly. He hadn't used his Stargazer abilities, just a carefully applied, mundane force that had sent them sprawling down the narrow metal staircase. They'd retreated, bruised and grumbling, their threats echoing in the stale air. This was their ritual. Every few months, a fresh accusation, a new attempt to extort. He’d learned to give them just enough pain to remember, but not enough to draw official attention. An annoying, predictable cycle, like the endless rain. A sharp rap then jolted him, a forceful, singular knock that wasn't the tentative scrape of the ruffians. A deep sigh escaped his lips. His memory wasn’t that short. “Who now?” His voice was a low growl. “Did you miss the lesson?” He pulled open the door, prepared to finish what he’d started. But the figure standing there was not one of the familiar faces. A man, perhaps in his late fifties, cloaked against the perpetual drizzle, offered a tentative smile. “Ah, pardon me, young friend. A traveler, I am. I was hoping for a brief respite from the weather, but it seems I’ve chosen an inopportune moment.” A traveler. In this forgotten corner of Aethelburg, where only the desperate or the lost ventured. Silas’s mind, accustomed to a solitary existence, stalled. It had been years since he’d spoken to anyone outside of transactional necessity or hostile confrontation. He stepped back from the threshold, a narrow opening in the grime-caked wall. “Not at all. Come in. Merely some unpleasantness, recently.” The formal address, a remnant of his mother’s teachings, felt foreign on his tongue. When had he last used such words? Before the cynicism of Aethelburg had stripped away all niceties, before he’d realized most folk were either tools or targets. “Thank you kindly.” The man nodded, his gaze sweeping the sparse room as he entered. Veridian, he’d called himself in the next breath. Silas felt a prickle of unease. His mother’s warnings were etched deep. A stranger was a risk. Yet, the man’s eyes held no malice, only a weary curiosity. Perhaps it was the long stretch of silence, the yearning for a conversation untainted by suspicion, that made him override his ingrained caution. And besides, if this 'traveler' held ill intent, Silas knew he possessed the means to handle it. Easily. “Have you eaten?” Silas asked, his voice rougher than he intended. “Not yet, no.” “Neither have I. Join me.” He gestured to the battered table, then set out his meager provisions: a slice of dried-grain bread, a wedge of pungent, aged synth-cheese, and a mug of lukewarm, filtered rainwater. It was hardly a feast, but his mother had taught him: a host’s generosity often disarmed a guest’s ill will. “This is a poor place. Not much to offer.” “Nonsense. This is providence itself! My thanks.” Veridian ate with an almost ravenous hunger, yet with a meticulous grace Silas rarely witnessed from the street vendors below. No talking with a mouth full, a slight turn of the head when sipping. It was an etiquette long forgotten in the lower districts. “You possess basic table manners,” Veridian observed after a long draught. “Your parents must have taught you well.” “My mother taught me.” The words came out flat, revealing. Silas hadn’t mentioned his father in years. Veridian paused, his fork hovering. “And… is your mother in the city? It seems you live alone.” He must have noticed the single cot, the solitary existence reflected in every dust-mote-filled shaft of light. Silas nodded, his gaze fixed on the condensation collecting on his mug. “She passed. Years ago. Of the city-cough.” Veridian's brow furrowed. He bowed his head, then made a peculiar gesture – a sweep of his hand towards the ceiling, as if scattering stardust. Silas had never seen its like. “My condolences. Having raised such a fine young man, she must surely find rest amongst the celestial currents, with the ancient Stargazers.” “I hope so.” There had been a time when merely thinking of her absence had made him choke on his food, the grief a raw wound. Now, he could speak of it, a quiet ache rather than a gaping tear. Had he hardened? Or had time, that relentless grinder, simply smoothed the sharp edges of his sorrow? A sudden gloom threatened to settle. Silas pushed it back, forcibly changing the topic. “What brings you to such a remote corner, sir?” “I passed through a bustling market, further down,” Veridian replied, wiping his mouth with a worn cloth. “Heard tales of an aberration, a beast of corrupted metal and shadow, terrorizing the forgotten tunnels nearby. The Technocrats dismiss it as 'urban decay,' but a few locals muttered of something more… primal. I decided to investigate. I’m quite proficient in such matters.” “Alone?” A man, past his prime, without so much as a wrench or a plasma cutter? Silas’s surprise must have been evident, for Veridian offered a wry smile. “I am a Sentinel. Or rather, I was. I served House Atheria for sixty years. These ‘aberrations’ are not unknown to my kind.” The word ‘Sentinel’ sent a jolt through Silas. A being from his mother’s hushed tales. A lesser Stargazer, a warrior in service to a greater house. His body tensed, old warnings screaming through his veins. But Veridian’s gaze was open, devoid of threat. Silas relaxed, his stiff shoulders easing. “Is something amiss?” “Nothing,” Silas said quickly. “It’s just… this is my first time meeting a Sentinel. But you… you don’t look sixty years old.” “Stargazers, even Sentinels, age slower than mundane folk. I am seventy-five cycles old this year. Powerful Stargazer Lords, those from the grand Houses, were rumored to live for centuries.” Silas stared, utterly fascinated. A being of his own kind, sitting across from him. Veridian looked robust, hale, perhaps a decade older than Silas, certainly not seventy-five. No obvious marks, no glowing eyes, no visible warp in reality around him. This was vital information. He could blend. Could walk amongst the Technocrats, could live in the heart of Aethelburg, as long as his power remained hidden. A tight band around his chest seemed to loosen, the first breath of true freedom in years. “To be a Sentinel,” Silas breathed, “that’s incredible.” “Incredible?” Veridian chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “Not at all. I find folk like you far more incredible. To survive in these shadowed districts, without recourse to your inherent gifts, that is the true strength.” Veridian was mistaken. The aberration was a recent blight. Before that, Silas’s mother, alone and unpowered, had been the truly remarkable one. Raising him, shielding him, in this brutal city. “Now that I think on it, I haven’t properly introduced myself. I am Veridian of Atheria—though, I suppose, I am merely Veridian the Wanderer now. And you, young man?” “Silas. Silas Harrow. Of the Whispering Spires.” “A fine name.” Veridian took another sip of water. “You mentioned you ‘served’ a House. Does that mean your contract is… concluded?” “Officially, yes. My vassal contract with House Atheria ended a month ago. They offered me sanctuary, a quiet retirement until my final breath. But… I desired to see what remained of the world. After all, I’d been tied to that House since I was fifteen.” Silas listened, a strange mix of apprehension and hope unfurling within him. Perhaps, the world was larger than he’d thought. Perhaps, he wasn't as alone as he’d believed. The rain outside continued its ceaseless drumming, but inside, a quiet warmth began to spread, chasing away some of the cold. The distant cosmic echoes, usually a burden, now seemed to whisper of possibilities. A quiet invitation. A path he hadn't dared to dream of.

Echoes in the Rain