Chapter 1: The Shard That Sings

The air was thick with the scent of rust and forgotten things as Haruto trudged through the Bonefields, a sprawling graveyard of shattered machines and crumbling spires. 

The sky above was a fractured mosaic, its jagged patches of starless black swallowing any trace of light. At seventeen, Haruto had learned to navigate this desolate expanse by instinct, his boots crunching over shards of metal and bone alike. 

His tattered cloak fluttered in the dry wind, and his breath fogged in the chill of the endless dusk. The Bonefields were no place for the living, but scavenging was all he knew his only way to survive in a world that seemed to have forgotten how to care.

He adjusted the worn satchel slung over his shoulder, its contents clinking softly: bits of wire, a cracked lens, a gear that might still turn if cleaned. Small finds, barely enough to trade for a meal in the lower districts of Kageno, the nearest city that still clung to life. His stomach growled, but Haruto ignored it. Hunger was an old friend, one he’d learned to silence with focus. 

His dark eyes scanned the horizon, searching for the glint of something valuable a relic from the Before, when the sky was whole and the gods still walked.“Keep moving, Haruto,” he muttered to himself, his voice barely audible over the wind’s low moan. “Find something good, or you’re eating dust again.

”He knelt beside a twisted heap of metal, its surface etched with faded runes that pulsed faintly, like a dying heartbeat. His fingers, calloused and nimble, pried at the edges, but the runes flickered out, and the metal groaned, collapsing into useless slag. Haruto cursed under his breath, wiping sweat from his brow. Another dead end. The Bonefields were cruel like that promising treasures only to snatch them away.

As he stood, a faint hum caught his ear, sharp and melodic, like a plucked string vibrating in his skull. Haruto froze, his heart quickening. The sound wasn’t natural. It didn’t belong to the wind or the creaking relics. It was… alive. He turned slowly, scanning the jagged landscape. The hum grew louder, threading through his thoughts, pulling him toward a cluster of broken spires in the distance. 

His instincts screamed to walk away nothing good came from sounds that shouldn’t exist in the Bonefields but curiosity burned stronger. He’d never heard anything like it, and in a life of scraps, something new was worth the risk.The spires loomed closer, their jagged tips clawing at the fractured sky. The hum intensified, a song without words, weaving through Haruto’s mind like a memory he couldn’t place. 

He climbed over a pile of rusted beams, his boots slipping on slick stone, until he reached a shallow crater at the base of the tallest spire. In its center, half-buried in ash, was a crystal no larger than his fist. It glowed faintly, its surface swirling with colors that didn’t belong blues deeper than any sea, golds that shimmered like stolen sunlight. 

The hum pulsed from it, resonating in his chest.Haruto crouched, his breath catching. He’d seen relics before gears, blades, even fragments of star-metal but nothing like this. 

The crystal seemed to watch him, its light flickering in time with his heartbeat. He reached out, hesitating, his fingers hovering over its surface. Every scavenger’s rule screamed in his head: Don’t touch what you don’t understand. But the hum was insistent, almost pleading, and Haruto’s life had taught him to seize what little he could.

His fingers brushed the crystal, and the world shattered.A jolt of energy surged through him, sharp and cold, like plunging into a frozen river. The hum exploded into a voice a woman’s voice, soft and ancient, speaking words he couldn’t understand yet felt in his bones. “You are found,” it whispered, and the crystal flared, its light swallowing the Bonefields. 

Haruto’s vision blurred, his knees buckling as memories that weren’t his flooded his mind: a sky ablaze with stars, a city of glass towers, and a shadow so vast it devoured light itself. Then, as quickly as it began, the vision snapped shut, leaving him gasping on the ground.The crystal was gone. 

No, not gone inside him. Haruto clutched his chest, his heart pounding against something that wasn’t there before. The hum was quieter now, a faint pulse beneath his skin, but it carried a weight, a presence. He scrambled to his feet, panic clawing at him. What had he done? He tore at his shirt, expecting to see a wound, but his skin was unmarked.

 Yet he felt it the crystal, or whatever it was, lodged in his soul like a splinter.“Oi! You alright, kid?” a voice called, sharp and teasing.Haruto spun, his hand instinctively reaching for the knife at his belt. A figure leaned against a nearby spire, cloaked in shadows despite the dim light. She was young, maybe a year or two older than him, with sharp features and hair the color of storm clouds, tied back in a messy braid.

 Her eyes glinted with amusement, but there was a hardness to them, like someone who’d seen too much and laughed to keep from breaking. A thief’s grin played on her lips, and a pair of daggers hung loosely at her hips.“Who are you?” Haruto demanded, his voice unsteady. The hum in his chest pulsed, as if reacting to her presence.“Name’s Sora,” she said, pushing off the spire and sauntering closer. “And you, scavenger boy, just tripped over something you shouldn’t have. 

That light show wasn’t exactly subtle.”Haruto’s grip tightened on his knife. “You saw that?”“Hard to miss.” Sora tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle. “What’d you find? Something shiny? Or something… dangerous?”He hesitated. Telling a stranger about the crystal felt like a mistake, but the hum urged him forward, as if it wanted to be known. “I don’t know what it is,” he admitted, his voice low. “Some kind of relic. It… spoke to me.”Sora’s grin faltered, her eyes narrowing.

 “Spoke? That’s not good, kid. Relics don’t talk unless they’re trouble. Or alive.”Before Haruto could respond, a low rumble shook the ground, and the air grew heavy, like a storm about to break. Sora’s gaze snapped upward, her hand on a dagger. “Oh, great,” she muttered. “They’re here.”“Who?” Haruto followed her gaze, but the sky was empty until it wasn’t. Dark shapes emerged from the fractured mosaic, cloaked figures descending on wings of shadow. 

Their robes were black as the void, embroidered with silver threads that pulsed like veins. The Obsidian Conclave. Haruto’s blood ran cold. He’d heard stories fanatics who hunted relics, who believed the gods’ absence was a divine mandate to purge the world of their remnants.“Run, scavenger!” Sora hissed, grabbing his arm and yanking him toward the spires. “Unless you want to be their next sacrifice!”Haruto stumbled after her, his mind racing. The hum in his chest surged, and with it came a flash of clarity a glimpse of the Conclave’s leader, a faceless figure in a silver mask, chanting words that made the air bleed. He shook his head, trying to focus. 

The vision wasn’t his, but it felt real, as real as the ground beneath his feet.They ducked behind a collapsed spire, the Conclave’s shadows circling above like vultures. Sora pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes scanning the sky. “They’re tracking something,” she whispered. “Bet it’s your shiny new toy.”“It’s not a toy,” Haruto snapped, his voice sharper than he intended. 

The hum was growing louder, drowning out his fear. “It’s… part of me now.”Sora’s eyebrows shot up. “Part of you? Oh, you’re in deep, aren’t you?” She sighed, pulling a small vial from her belt. It glowed faintly, filled with a liquid that shimmered like starlight. “Lucky for you, I know someone who might help. But we’ve got to get out of here first.”“Who?” Haruto asked, but the hum pulsed again, and another vision hit: a woman with silver hair, her hands stained with ink and ash, muttering riddles over a table of bubbling vials. An alchemist.

 The image vanished, leaving him dizzy.“Stop spacing out!” Sora grabbed his wrist, pulling him into a sprint as the Conclave’s shadows descended closer. The air crackled with their chants, a low drone that made Haruto’s skin crawl. They wove through the spires, dodging beams of black light that seared the ground where they’d stood moments before. Haruto’s chest burned, the crystal’s hum urging him to move faster, to fight, to understand.

They reached the edge of the Bonefields, where the ruins gave way to a narrow canyon leading toward Kageno. Sora skidded to a halt, her daggers flashing as she turned to face their pursuers. “You’re gonna owe me big for this, scavenger,” she said, her grin returning despite the danger. She uncorked the vial and tossed it into the air. It exploded into a cloud of shimmering mist, and for a moment, the Conclave’s shadows faltered, their chants breaking.“Move!” Sora shouted, and Haruto didn’t need to be told twice. 

They dove into the canyon, the hum in his chest guiding him like a compass. He didn’t know where they were going, but the crystal did. It whispered of a city that moved, of ruins that dreamed, of a truth that could unravel the world or him.As they ran, Haruto’s mind churned. 

The crystal had chosen him, but why? What was the Starless Veil, and why did its name feel like a wound? The answers were out there, in the shifting cities and the alchemist’s riddles, but each step forward felt like a step toward losing himself. The hum pulsed, a promise and a warning: You are found. But what will you become?