The Shattered Sky: Only I Do What the Gods Can't

The star fragment burned like a wound in the center of Joren's palm.

Kael watched carefully as the village troublemaker flexed his hand, the celestial piece pulsing with an unnatural red light that seemed to push against his skin from the inside.

Joren had found the fragment three weeks after the sky shattered, and everyone could see how it was changing him.

Where once Joren had been a lazy farmhand with more attitude than ambition, now he moved with a predatory intensity that made even the older men in the village nervous.

His muscles had grown harder, his eyes sharper. And that fragment—that cursed piece of something not meant for mortal hands—seemed to whisper promises of power with every throb of crimson light.

"Stay back," Kael warned, positioning himself between Joren and the group of younger children who had been gathering water from the well.

Joren's laugh was different now. No longer the casual mockery of a village nuisance, but something cold and calculating. "Or what, farmer's son?"

The village of Riverstone had changed. Before the night the stars fell, it had been a quiet place of predictable rhythms. Farmers worked their fields. Merchants traded goods. Children played in the streets. Now, everything was uncertain.

Some villagers had been transformed by the star fragments, granted abilities that defied explanation. Others had been broken, their minds fractured by powers they couldn't comprehend.

Kael knew he was neither strong nor particularly remarkable. At seventeen, he was lean from farm work, with hands calloused from years of helping his father. His black hair was always slightly messy, his clothes practical and worn.

In the old world, he would have been unremarkable. In this new world, that might just keep him alive.

"You don't want to do this, Joren," Kael said, his voice steady.

The fragment in Joren's hand pulsed again. A tendril of red energy leaked out, scorching the ground where it touched. The younger children behind Kael whimpered.

Market day in Riverstone used to be a celebration. Now it was a battlefield of unspoken tensions. Some villagers had fragments that granted minor abilities—a farmer who could make crops grow with a touch, a weaver whose threads shimmered with impossible colors.

Others, like Joren, had received fragments that seemed to hunger for something more.

Joren took a step forward. "Move, little Kael. This doesn't concern you."

But it did concern him. Kael had watched what these fragments did to people. Had seen how they twisted good men, how they whispered promises of power that always, always came with a price.

Three weeks ago, old Marcus—the kindest man in the village—had found a fragment that let him see glimpses of the future. Within days, the visions had driven him mad. He now sat in the corner of his tavern, mumbling about shadows and destruction, his eyes perpetually fixed on some horizon only he could see.

Kael's hand unconsciously drifted to his chest. Something was there. Something he hadn't told anyone about. A fragment so subtle, so quiet, that he wasn't even sure it was real.

"Last chance," Joren growled.

The red fragment flared. Kael could feel its heat from where he stood. It wasn't just a piece of celestial power—it was a living thing, hungry and angry.

What happened next occurred so fast that later, no one could agree on the exact sequence of events.

Joren lunged. The fragment in his hand transformed, extending into a blade of pure crimson energy. The children screamed. Kael stepped forward, not away.

And then—something happened.

A sound. Not loud, but profound. A resonance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

The fragment in Joren's hand flickered. His attack, so certain moments before, suddenly felt uncertain.

Joren stumbled.

The children behind Kael were untouched.

"What—" Joren began, but he never finished the sentence.

The marketplace went silent. Even the wind seemed to pause.

Kael felt something against his chest. The fragment he'd kept secret. It wasn't just a fragment. It was alive. And for the first time, it had done... something.

"Everyone all right?" he asked, turning to the children.

They stared at him, wide-eyed. Not in fear. In something else. Wonder, perhaps.

Joren recovered quickly. The red fragment reshaped itself, burning with renewed intensity. "This isn't over," he snarled.

But something had changed. And they all knew it.

Later that evening, in the small house at the edge of Riverstone, Kael's hands were shaking as he prepared dinner for his father. The incident in the marketplace played over and over in his mind.

What had that been? The fragment—his fragment—had done something. But what?

His father, Marcus (not to be confused with the tavern owner), was a practical man. A farmer who believed in hard work and simple truths. He'd survived the night the stars fell by keeping his head down, by not drawing attention.

"Where is your sister?" Marcus asked, his tone laced with exasperation.

Kael paused for a moment, furrowing his brow as though the answer required serious contemplation. Then, with a faint shrug, he replied, "She's probably out practicing that thing... what was it called again? G-gym... gymnastics, right?"

The word tumbled awkwardly from his lips, foreign and almost absurd in the context of their lives.

Marcus let out a sharp sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose, the frustration clear in his expression. Gymnastics. The word carried with it a weight of misunderstanding and futility that he couldn't quite shake.

It had all started one seemingly ordinary morning. Kael's sister had woken up with an intensity in her eyes and a fervor in her voice that unsettled everyone. She spoke of a dream—no, a prophecy, she insisted—delivered by the gods themselves. In this divine vision, she claimed, the gods had revealed to her an ancient form of combat, an art known as gymnastics.

From that day forward, she had thrown herself into practicing this so-called combat art with unwavering dedication. Twisting, flipping, and leaping with a determination that bordered on obsession, she declared it her calling. She believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was her path to becoming part of an elite group of female warriors.

"Damn it," Marcus muttered, shaking his head. "How do we convince her that it was just a dream?"

Kael didn't answer immediately, instead staring down at the table where the modest beginnings of their dinner had been set. The evening light filtering through the small window cast long shadows, amplifying the silence that stretched between them.

Finally, Kael gave a helpless shrug, his expression a mixture of resignation and quiet amusement. "I don't think we can. She's too... committed."

With that, they began their meal, the clink of utensils against plates and the crackle of the fire filling the void left by words they dared not speak aloud.

"You're quiet," Marcus said, sitting at the wooden table. "More quiet than usual."

Kael considered his words carefully. His father didn't know about the fragment. No one did. "Just thinking," he said.

But thinking, in this new world, was a dangerous thing.

Outside, the first stars were emerging. Not the stars from before—these were different. They looked broken. Fractured. Watching.

Waiting.

And somewhere, far from Riverstone, a plan was taking shape. A plan that would change everything.

A plan that started with a boy. With a fragment. With a possibility.