The Skyward Wake

Power up Prompt #3: 6.28.25 - Level 3

Bradley Ramsey

Fionn’s wail split the air. Àdhamh looked up from his workbench to see the boy sprawled in the square, clutching his knee. Blood welled between his grubby fingers.

Idiot child. Àdhamh’s hands moved before he’d fully decided to help, snatching up the herb pouch that hung behind the door. The mother’s panicked gaze locked onto him as he knelt in the dust.

"Hold still," he muttered, digging for yarrow. But, as his fingers brushed the wound, the scrape sealed itself.

Àdhamh recoiled. The blood slid backward into unbroken skin, leaving only a smudge of dirt. Fionn giggled, kicking his legs. "That tickled!"

A woman gasped. The crowd that had gathered now pressed closer, their murmurs swelling like hive-noise. Àdhamh stared at his own hands. The boy’s knee was smooth. Whole.

Impossible.

Above them, the Sentinel’s Cradle hung in the sky, its jagged underside blotting out the sun. Someone cried out "The old magic’s returning!", and the words slithered down Àdhamh’s spine.

He stood abruptly. "It’s just..." His voice came out too sharp. "...rapid clotting. Go home."

The crowd rippled, then dispersed.

A stranger stood at the edge of the square. Her cloak shifted like living night, embroidered with constellations Àdhamh didn’t recognise. When she turned her head, the amber glow of the skylands flickered in her eyes. She was looking directly at him.

Fionn buried his face in his mother’s skirts. The square fell silent, save for the creak of the windmill. Àdhamh’s pulse hammered in his throat as he stepped forward, putting himself between the stranger and the child.

"Who are you?"

The words hung in the air, brittle as ice. The stranger’s smile didn’t waver. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to ask.

The stranger stood like a blade planted in the earth. Àdhamh watched from the shadow of his porch as the Reclaimers circled her. Bracken, their leader, swaggered forward, his knife already loose in its sheath. The man’s grin showed too many teeth.

Àdhamh’s hands curled into fists. God damn it. He knew that look, the same one the Reclaimers gave skyland maps and locked chests. But he should stay out of it.

Bracken leaned in, ale-thick breath polluting the air between them. "Heard you walked right off the Cradle. That true?"

Behind them, the monks of the Last Flame pressed their iron amulets to their lips. Their chant slithered under the wind. ‘Ashes to ashes. Debt to debtor.’

The stranger didn’t answer. She crouched, her cloak pooling around her, and touched a finger to the withered geranium in Mistress Hale’s broken pot.

Àdhamh’s breath caught. The plant shivered. Green unspoolled along its stem, leaves unfurling like fists. A bud swelled, burst, bled crimson petals onto the cobbles.

No. Bracken lunged for her wrist. Àdhamh moved without thinking, catching the man’s arm. "Enough."

A hand clamped onto his sleeve. Mayor Olena, her face the colour of old parchment. "Àdhamh. Thank the roots." Her nails bit through his shirt. "She won’t speak to anyone. Perhaps she’ll speak to you."

The words landed like a stone in his gut. Why me? He was a healer, not a priest. Not a...

The stranger rose. Soil dusted her palms. The geranium’s petals stuck to her skin like flecks of blood. She looked at him. "The Warden dreams fitfully," she said.

The air left his lungs. Somewhere above them, the Sentinel’s Cradle groaned, its ancient bones settling. The monks fell to their knees. Bracken spat. Àdhamh’s pulse hammered in his throat. He could still smell the geranium’s perfume, thick, citrus, slightly minty, with a hint of earthiness.

"Come inside," he said, and hated how his voice shook, “where we can talk."

The rattling woke him first, his mortar rolling across the table, the pestle clattering to the floor. Then his cup tipped, cold tea bleeding dark across the wooden surface. Somewhere in the night, a dog howled.

Àdhamh’s hands found the cot’s frame, gripping tight as his stomach lurched. Another quake? So soon? The thought curdled in his chest. He was a healer, but what good were herbs against the earth itself breaking apart?

He staggered to the window, tearing the curtain aside. The northern horizon glowed. A jagged silhouette ripped itself free from the ground, stone and soil screaming as they tore from their foundations. The old shrine... Hadn’t that stood there yesterday? The landmass rose, slow and inexorable, its edges crumbling like rotten bark.

Àdhamh didn’t remember grabbing his coat, didn’t feel the bite of frozen dirt under his bare feet as he ran outside.

At the town’s edge, backlit by the ascending ruin, stood the stranger. Her cloak billowed, though the air was still. As the ground shuddered, she tilted her face up and smiled.

Ice flooded Àdhamh’s veins. His breath caught in the sudden, unnatural cold. She knows. The realisation struck like a fist. She’s part of this.

He opened his mouth to shout, but then the strongest tremor yet knocked him to his knees. Stones bit into his palms. When he looked up, the stranger’s hand was outstretched, mirroring the landmass’s ascent. The underside of the floating earth pulsed with the same amber light as her eyes.

Blood roared in his ears. He scrambled backward until his shoulders hit the well’s cold stones. But he couldn’t look away.

The stranger kept smiling.

The ladder jerked like a living thing beneath Àdhamh’s boots. He clung to the ropes, knuckles whitening as another gust rocked the fragile rungs. Below, Faochadh an Teallaich had shrunk to a scattering of dollhouse roofs. Above, the skyland’s underbelly loomed, dirt clods and twisted roots dangling like torn flesh.

Madness. His shoulders burned with each pull upward. This is how I die. Because some star-eyed witch crooked her finger.

The stranger climbed effortlessly ahead, her cloak rippling as if underwater. When his foot slipped, she paused without turning.

"Don’t watch your feet," she said. "Watch the sky."

Àdhamh gritted his teeth, but looked up. The world tilted. Clouds streamed sideways, as though the sky itself were fleeing. His stomach lurched, but the ladder steadied. He climbed faster, suddenly desperate for solid ground.

Then they crested the edge. Àdhamh’s knees gave out. Before them stretched ruins that defied reason. Stone pillars hovered mid-collapse, their broken tops suspended like spears halted mid-throw. Murals coiled across every surface, winged figures with the stranger’s sharp features, binding chains around a mountainous shadow.

He grabbed her wrist. "Explain. Now."

The stranger didn’t pull away. Amber light bled from her eyes as she touched a floating stone. It glowed where her fingers brushed.

"Magic didn’t vanish." Her voice hummed in his bones. "It was put to sleep." The stone pulsed. "The Warden was its keeper."

Àdhamh’s scar, a chest-burn from last week’s stillroom accident, itched fiercely. Suddenly, he understood his own ‘miraculous’ healing.

He reached for the stone. The entire skyland shuddered. Somewhere deep below, something groaned.

Bracken's voice slithered through the ruins. "Thought we'd find you here."

Àdhamh whirled. Five Reclaimers blocked the archway, blades glinting in the strange amber light.

Bracken tapped his knife against a floating stone. "Take us to the Cradle's heart, Witch." The man's grin showed broken teeth. "Or your pet healer loses his tongue."

Àdhamh's pulse hammered against his ribs. Idiot. He should've known they'd follow. The realisation burned worse than the sweat dripping down his back.

He stepped forward, putting himself between the stranger and Bracken's blade. "She doesn't answer to scavengers."

Bracken laughed, a wet, hacking sound. "Brave words for a man with no weapon."

He lunged. Calloused fingers closed around Àdhamh's collar. Cold steel kissed his throat... Then sizzled. The knife melted like wax over a candle, molten metal dripping onto Bracken's boots.

The Reclaimer howled, shaking his blistered hand. "What devilry...?"

Àdhamh didn't have time to breathe before the stranger's shadow moved. It unspoolled from her feet like smoke, forming clawed tendrils that scraped against the ruins' walls. The stones groaned in response. One of the Reclaimers screamed, "Demon!" as the darkness licked at his ankles.

"Run."

The stranger's voice was calm, but Àdhamh was already moving. He grabbed her wrist, her skin shockingly warm amid the chaos, and dragged her toward a crumbling archway. Behind them, Bracken's curses chased like hungry dogs. "We'll peel your bones clean!"

The threat hung in the air, sharp as the smell of scorched metal. Àdhamh didn't look back.

The ruins gave way without warning, spitting them into a perfect circle of stone. Àdhamh staggered as the air thickened, his ears popping painfully.

The chamber looked less built than grown, its walls curved like the inside of a giant's ribcage, etched with faded reliefs of winged figures binding something massive with chains. At the centre stood a pedestal of black stone, its surface pulsing faintly. Dust hung motionless in the air, each mote glowing with trapped light.

This is wrong. The thought slithered down his spine. This was never meant to be found.

He grabbed the stranger's wrist. "Wait..."

She shook him off with terrifying ease. Her palm met the pedestal. For a breath, nothing happened, then light erupted. Amber sigils burned to life across her flesh, racing up her arms like liquid fire. Àdhamh's own scar, the one that never quite healed, seared white-hot in response. He stumbled back, choking on the sudden scent of burnt honey.

The stranger turned. Her eyes had gone fully luminous, the whites swallowed by gold. When she spoke, the chamber seemed to lean closer to listen.

"I am a vessel." The words vibrated in Àdhamh's teeth. "The Warden's dreams poured into flesh." Above them, the ceiling groaned. "The Ascension? His eyelids fluttering." A crack split the far wall, weeping glowing dust. "If he wakes fully..."

A shout cut through the chamber. "There!"

Àdhamh whirled to see Bracken and his Reclaimers in the archway. The man's face twisted in triumph, right before the explosion hit.

Stone screamed. The ceiling buckled. Àdhamh lunged without thinking, throwing himself at the stranger as the world came apart around them. His shoulder clipped her side, and her cloak tore away.

Beneath, her torso was a living manuscript. Glowing sigils carved clear through her flesh, pulsing in time with the pedestal's light. The markings ran through her skin like tattoos, as if her body were mere parchment for some unfathomable text.

The last thing Àdhamh saw before the rubble crashed down was Bracken's face, all fury drained away, leaving only terror.

The world was coming apart. Stone groaned as the chamber convulsed, archways collapsing like drunkards. The stranger clung to the pedestal, her sigils flaring crimson against skin turned ashen. When she turned to him, her eyes were wildfire.

"Help me," she begged, voice raw with something beyond fear, "or everything burns."

Àdhamh's scarred palm throbbed in time with the shuddering walls. He tasted blood. Had he bitten his cheek? The weight of the choice pressed down, worse than the buckling ceiling.

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a choice I can't make.

Her hand seized his wrist. Fire lanced up his arm. Images seared into his mind.

A waking Warden. Skylands blooming with verdant life, wounds sealing before blood could well... but the floating isles weeping fire like falling stars.

A sleeping Warden. Solid ground. Safe skies. The geranium's miraculous bloom just a half-remembered dream.

His veins glowed amber where she touched him. "There must be another way!"

The stranger's light dimmed. "Only balance." A deafening crack split the air as another landmass tore free outside. "The Warden must dream, neither wake nor vanish."

Àdhamh's breath came ragged. He thought of Fionn's healed knee, of his own stubborn scar. Of how the world had already begun to change without permission.

He gripped her shoulders. And sang.

The first note cracked, terrible and broken. But the stranger caught it, wove her voice around his. Their joined hands burned against the pedestal as the melody became something older than language.

The ruins held their breath. Stones froze mid-fall. Dust hung suspended. The very air hummed as their voices braided into a third path, neither waking nor sleeping, but the fragile edge between.

Àdhamh's blood sang with it. This was how magic should be, alive but not hungry.

When the last note faded, the stranger collapsed against him. Her sigils had faded to silver scars. Outside, the new skyland hung motionless.

Light exploded from the pedestal. Àdhamh recoiled as gold flooded the chamber, liquid and thick. Debris hung frozen around them, shards of stone, spirals of dust, all caught mid-fall like insects in amber. His eyes burned; tears carved hot tracks through the grime on his face.

The tremors ceased so abruptly it left him gasping. Outside, the skylands pulsed once, twice, then stilled, their jagged edges limned in soft amber. A deep hum vibrated through the floor, settling in his bones like a lullaby.

His scar had stopped aching. The realisation barely registered before the stranger collapsed.

She fell against him, startlingly light. Her sigils faded as he caught her, the molten gold dimming to silver scars. When her eyes fluttered open, they were ordinary, dark and human and exhausted.

"You're..." His voice cracked. He couldn't finish.

She smiled. A weak, trembling thing. "It's not awake..." Her fingers brushed his wrist, cool now where they'd once burned. "But it's dreaming now." She let out a shuddering breath. "That's enough."

Àdhamh's pulse steadied at last. Cradling her head, he let his thumb trace her temple, the way he might soothe a fevered patient.

Beyond the ruins, the wind carried a sound like distant wings.

The square stood empty when Àdhamh returned at dusk.

No Reclaimers brawled outside the tavern. No merchants called their wares. Only the monks of the Last Flame remained, kneeling in perfect silence, their iron amulets catching the dying light. The wind carried the scent of turned earth and something sharper. Ozone, maybe. Or memory.

His arms felt too light without her weight.

Then he saw it. Beneath the creaking windmill, folded neatly on the bench where old Mistress Hale usually sat shelling peas, lay the stranger's cloak. The constellations stitched across its surface had changed, new silver stars winked at him from the fabric, forming patterns he'd never seen in any sky.

Àdhamh's hands shook as he reached for it. The wool was warm. He brought it to his face and inhaled, ozone, yes, but also damp soil and something green pushing through frost. For a wild moment, he considered shouting her name. But the square held its breath, and the words died in his throat.

That night, he sat on his porch with the cloak across his knees. The village slept. The skylands hung motionless. Then came a sound like vast wings unfurling.

Àdhamh looked up. The stars trembled as something passed overhead, unseen. His fingers found the newest constellation on the cloak's edge, tracing its lines. The shape felt familiar.

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