Chapter 2

Corrin had stood on the high balcony of the Skycatcher’s tower, the wind curling through his hair, his breath fogging in the chill. Below, the town was alive with celebration, voices raised in excitement, flickering lanterns illuminating the streets. People gathered in the central square, watching as Orvan Velth performed the delicate, methodical dance of reeling in his greatest catch.

Orvan was a name spoken with reverence, the master of the line, the man who had landed more celestial beasts than any caster before him.

To watch him work was to watch the will of the heavens be harnessed by mortal hands.

Orvan stood at the master console, his thick hands working the dials, his body rigid with concentration. He was a man larger than life, with a voice that could silence a crowd and a presence that filled any room. The people revered him. Corrin had idolized him.

For hours, Corrin had watched, his young heart pounding with admiration. Every shift of the tension wheel, every subtle adjustment to the stabilizers—Orvan knew this machine as though it was an extension of himself. His assistants murmured quietly beside him, watching the readings, calling out the drift adjustments as they prepared to bring the whale behemoth to land.

A massive, undulating shape drifted through the celestial tides, its vast body shimmering like a nebula brought to life.

Its enormous fins, slow and languid, caught the light of the stars, trailing streaks of luminescent mist like the tail of a comet. It carried the weight of centuries in its flesh, bones calcified into great ridges of ivory, its hide mottled with the pale scars of meteor strikes. Its size was unimaginable.

The people below gawked in awe, their minds filled with visions of plenty—of food and wealth.

It had taken two days to reel it from the stars, slowly drawing it down, keeping its massive body balanced against the pull of the tower’s machinery. The tension cables sang under its weight, the great reels groaning in protest, but Orvan had kept his sleepless, steady hands upon the controls, guiding the descent with the precision of a master.

Orvan had done this before. He had landed beasts bigger than this.

He was confident, a sportsman and a showman.

And perhaps, Corrin thought later, that was the problem.

There had been arrogance in his posture, a certainty that this beast, like all others before it, would submit to the will of the reel. That no creature, no matter how vast, could resist the mastery of this man.

Corrin had believed that too.

Until the final moment.

It happened fast—so fast that at first, it didn’t seem real.

The beast was within sight now, drifting lower and lower, its massive form casting a shadow over the entire town. It was aligned perfectly with the catch zone, a giant field muddied by the landfall of previous sky beasts, and its colossal bulk was just minutes from resting upon the reinforced landing fields.

The people were still cheering, still celebrating, still believing they were about to witness history.

And then at the final moment before landfall—it thrashed.

A single powerful and unexpected convulsion. A final, instinctive attempt at freedom.

Corrin had heard it before he had seen it—a deep, bone-rattling groan, as if the creature itself had realized, at the very last moment, that it was doomed. It twisted—just a few degrees—but that was enough.

Enough to throw off the landing.

Enough to break Orvan’s control.

Enough to send a thousand tons of celestial flesh plummeting off-course.

The machine sparked and spat fire, the tension system overloading as the beast fell too fast, too hard, too soon.

The town of Valder’s Hollow never had a chance.

One moment, it had been alive with warmth and celebration—the streets lit with oil lamps, casting golden halos on the cobblestones, the air filled with the scent of roasting meat and fresh bread. Merchants had been drinking in the square, their laughter rising above the soft hum of market chatter. Families had retired for the night, windows still glowing with candlelight. Mothers tucked their children into bed, unaware that they were closing their eyes for the final time. Crowds of onlookers gathering below the tower to celebrate the landfall.

It missed the catch zone and it fell directly upon the town below.

Corrin would never forget the sound, a deafening, world-ending crash.

The whale behemoth struck like a falling moon. The sheer force of its landing cracked the earth with a sound like the heavens splitting apart, a deep, world-ending groan that rippled across the valley. The central district was the first to go—entire streets flattened in an instant, homes crumpling like parchment beneath the thousand-ton weight of celestial flesh. The market square ceased to exist, crushed into dust before a single soul could flee.

The shockwave followed. The sheer force of the impact rippled outward, splitting stone, shattering windows, sending buildings lurching sideways as their foundations collapsed beneath them. The great bell tower, which had stood for generations, trembled before it toppled like a felled tree, crashing through rooftops and crushing what little remained of the once-thriving town centre.

For those on the outskirts, the last thing they saw was the wave of dust—a monstrous, rolling wall of debris and shattered wood, billowing outward like a great cosmic tide, swallowing the streets, consuming everything in its path. Roof tiles, splintered beams, carts, and bodies tumbled through the air as the force of the impact hurled them like autumn leaves in a storm.

Then came the thrashing.

The behemoth was still alive.

Wounded, confused, it spasmed in the rubble, its massive bulk shifting and rolling, crushing entire areas anew with every heaving breath. One great fin, long as a cathedral spire, swung blindly, its edge cleaving through what remained of the town’s great hall. The beast’s immense tail slammed down, sending another cloud of debris roaring into the sky, burying streets in ruin.

Screams pierced the night, brief and fleeting, before they were swallowed by the cacophony of destruction. The survivors—if there were any—were trapped beneath tons of rubble, their cries muffled, lost beneath the groaning and shuddering of the dying creature.

For hours, the beast would lie there, its massive chest heaving, its body rising and falling like a dying world. Slowly, its struggles waned. Its luminous eyes dimmed. The great celestial thing let out one final breath, a sound so deep and mournful that the earth itself seemed to sigh with it.

And then—nothing.

No voices. No movement. No life.

Not a natural silence, the kind of silence that comes only when there is nothing left to make a sound.

Corrin had stood there, shaking, his breath locked in his throat, as Orvan Velth—the greatest Skycatcher who had ever lived—fell to his knees before the ruined city.

That was the moment Corrin vowed to never, ever let it happen again.

He trained harder than any apprentice before him. He studied every failure, every miscalculation. He memorized the weight thresholds, the drift patterns, the landing equations. He learned how to read the minute shifts in a catch, how to adjust the dials so precisely that no beast, no matter how massive, would ever escape his control.

He did not care for glory. He did not care for wealth.

He cared for control. For certainty and accuracy.

For never making

Orvan’s mistake.

And now, as he stood beside Galrin, feeling the weight of an unknown colossus pulling against the line, he could see the same arrogance in his master’s eyes.

And he feared—with every part of his soul—that history was about to repeat itself.