The skies above the heavenly realm were on fire.
Orravia ran, breath sharp, blood slicking her arms. Behind her, divine marble cracked under impact — the throne gods were getting closer.
She turned towards a corner, nearly slipping on the shattered tiles of the Celestial Hall. Flames raced across the ceiling. Fractured statues of guardians and gods crumbled as divine energy rippled through the air.
They were destroying everything.
And they were after her.
She gripped the relic tighter. It was small, cracked — and flickering with what little power she had poured in it.
"You're only delaying it," a voice called behind her. Male. Calm. Too calm for the chaos closing in.
She turned.
Four of them stood at the far end of the broken corridor. Cloaked in celestial armour, halos fractured and blazing. Their faces didn't show wrath. Just judgement.
"You were never meant to rule," the leader said. "You were the sea's voice, not its keeper."
Orravia staggered back a step. "I built the tides. I held its heart. You were never there."
Another throne god stepped forward, dragging a golden spear that sparked against the stone.
"The High Realm doesn't reward sentiment. You turned the sea into a sanctuary when it was meant to be a weapon."
"You're afraid of what I made," she said. "Because you can't control it."
"No," the leader said. "We're cleaning up your mistake."
The relic flickered again.
"You won't find it," Orravia said. "You won't reach it. Even if you kill me."
The third god — a woman with eyes like twin eclipses — tilted her head. "We don't need to find it."
Orravia's eyes narrowed.
"We'll erase you," the woman said. "And the sea will forget that you ever existed. Even the High God won't be able to save you."
Orravia smiled — bloody, defiant.
"Then you'd better pray someone forgets what you did."
They rushed her.
She slammed the relic to the ground.
A burst of white-blue light tore through the sky. It swallowed her whole — and when it cleared, she was gone.
The gods stood in the ruin of the high court.
No body. No sound. Just a faint divine aura left in the air.
Somewhere far below, in the world of mortals, a broken relic fell from the heavens… and vanished into the depths, forgotten by time,
and sank into the sea's cradle, unseen and unclaimed.
✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧
Seven hundred years later.
The lands just above the sea and beneath the floating immortal realm were home to the mortals.
Stone houses stacked near cliffs. Rusted windmills creaked in the wind. Markets opened late and closed early. People survived. That was enough.
And deep beneath it, the caves held Agolits — sea-born crystals rich with the ocean's energy. The kind nobles bought. The kind cultivators needed. The kind Zonaar broke his back digging out.
"Keep moving, sparkless!" someone yelled from deeper in the cavern. One of the other workers — maybe Torv, that idiot who liked kicking buckets.
Zonaar didn't answer. He never did.
Most who never awakened Nirith Fire ended up here — hauling, digging, getting paid in rations and blisters. And Zonaar had someone to feed.
He pulled out another shard and stood, brushing dirt from his face.
He didn't care about being chosen. He didn't need to be a god either.
He just needed enough to survive another week.
✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧
In this world, most people awakened their Nirith Fire before the age of fifteen. Whoever awakened their Nirith Flame to stage three and reached the cultivation stage four was allowed to ascend to the floating immortal realm above the sea.
It was a flicker of blue beneath the ribs. A burning in the lungs. A heat that never hurt — only lit something ancient inside.
They said it was the sea's gift. Proof that the soul could catch the divine flame.
Zonaar had waited to awaken his flame — to give a better life to his beloved sister and to protect her. She was all he had.
He drank herbal teas, ate pills made from sea alchemy. Sat through chants. Let the old seer press wet shells to his chest and mutter prayers in half-dead tongues. He fasted. He bled. Once, he even paid a travelling monk a month's wages to "baptise" him in agolit ash.
Nothing.
No warmth. No glow. No spark under the skin. Just a boy born flameless in a world that ran on flame.
By sixteen, he'd stopped hoping. Before he turned seventeen, he stopped caring.
Now? He didn't look at the others when they trained in the courtyards, fire crackling from their palms. He didn't flinch when the awakened flew past on artifacts, relics glittering in their hands.
He was seventeen this year. Sharp ocean-green eyes. Short icy blue hair. Thin arms, all bruises and dust. Still no Nirith Fire in his heart.
He swung his pick again, splinters of faint blue light cracking off the wall. The agolit vein shimmered inside the rock, humming like a sleeping heartbeat.
✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧
The mines always stank of salt and sweat.
Zonaar wiped his arm across his forehead, smearing dirt into the cut above his brow. Another cartload of shattered agolits rattled past, pulled by two limping sandbeasts. The overseer's voice echoed down the cavern, barking for them to keep working.
He leaned on his pickaxe and glanced up. The ceiling was too far to see, swallowed in darkness. Just like the sky. No sun ever touched this place — only the pale glow of agolit veins bleeding faint blue light from the rock walls.
"You alive down there?" came a voice.
Zonaar turned as Yek, one of the older miners, limped up beside him with a dented water gourd. "Haven't heard you curse in a while."
Zonaar managed a tired smirk. "Ran out of energy. Gonna save it for dinner."
"Good. Wouldn't want your sister hearing that sailor mouth."
Zonaar's smirk faded just a little.
Yek patted his shoulder and moved on.
He stood there a while longer, silent, before hauling the next rock into the bin. His fingers were cracked and raw. His boots were too thin. But he didn't stop. Couldn't. Not with that promise.
Not with her waiting for him to return.
✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧
Their home wasn't much — just a cave-shelter carved near the coast, patched with old netting and warm cloth. But it was safe. It was theirs.
The scent of sea-broth hit him before the door even opened.
"I told you not to cook with the last herbs!" Zonaar called as he ducked in, dropping his gear by the wall.
His sister peeked over the edge of the pot, face smudged with soot. "And let you eat plain soup again? No thanks."
Zonaar shook his head, but his chest eased a little.
She ladled a bowl and handed it to him with both hands. He sat beside her, legs stretched out, the weight of the day finally slumping from his shoulders.
"Any trouble at the mines?" she asked.
"Nothing new," he muttered. "Same yelling. Same rocks. Same miserable pay."
"You'll get out of there," she said quietly. "One day."
He didn't answer.
Instead, he stared out through the cloth-covered window, where the sea shimmered in the distance and the sky floated high above — unreachable.
But maybe not forever.
He didn't have power, a flame, or a future.
But he had a promise.
And that was enough — for now.
✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧✧𓂃⋆༶⋆𓂃✧