There was no pain.
No light.
No sensation of falling or rising.
Gale Aerindel simply… stopped.
The wind that had once answered his every thought was gone. Not dispersed, not destroyed—just absent, as if a part of existence had been forcibly removed. In that emptiness, even time lost meaning.
Then, sound emerged.
It was faint at first, distant and unclear, like vibrations traveling through thick water. A dull, rhythmic thumping echoed again and again, steady yet fragile.
A heartbeat.
Gale did not open his eyes.
He could not.
His consciousness floated in a state between waking and oblivion, unable to form thoughts, unable to recall memories. Only one sensation remained—resonance.
Something was trembling around him.
Not wind.
Sound.
A sharp cry pierced the haze.
The rhythm broke, replaced by hurried footsteps, overlapping voices, and panicked breathing. The vibrations grew chaotic, clashing and colliding, until—
"—He's breathing!"
The world rushed in.
Cold air struck his skin, making his body reflexively contract. His lungs expanded on their own, drawing in air for the first time. It felt heavy. Crude. As if breathing itself required effort.
Another cry escaped his throat, hoarse and unfamiliar.
"So loud," a woman muttered softly, relief evident in her voice. "He's strong."
Strong?
The word felt distant.
Gale wanted to laugh.
If this body was strong, then what had he been before?
His eyelids fluttered open.
Blurry shapes filled his vision—wooden beams above, faintly glowing symbols carved into the walls, and a dim light that pulsed gently with each sound in the room. The air carried no mana turbulence, no elemental pressure.
Only vibration.
Only sound.
"Welcome to the world," someone said quietly. "Vale Sonarys."
The name did not resonate.
Not yet.
---
Hours passed. Or perhaps days.
Time moved differently when one could not yet think clearly.
As his senses slowly stabilized, Vale began to notice strange things. Whenever someone spoke, the sound did not merely reach his ears—it rippled through his entire body. His chest vibrated. His bones hummed faintly.
Even silence was not truly silent.
There was always a low, imperceptible resonance, like the echo left behind after a bell was struck.
"This child…" an older man murmured at some point, his voice cautious. "His Aether Rings are… stable."
"Of course they are," another replied. "The Sonarys bloodline has never failed."
Aether Rings.
The term brushed against something buried deep within Vale's consciousness, stirring a faint sense of familiarity. Yet before he could grasp it, the feeling vanished.
He drifted back into sleep.
---
That night, the sky above Malan shifted.
Three moons rose in silent procession, casting overlapping lights across the land. Silver, crimson, and pale blue intertwined, bathing the world in an otherworldly glow.
Inside the Sonarys household, the newborn slept peacefully.
No wind stirred.
No memory awakened.
Yet, far above the clouds—where the sky thinned and the air grew sparse—something imperceptible changed.
The atmosphere trembled.
Just once.
As if the wind had taken a breath it did not know it still possessed.