The x Sky x Burns x Over x Sylvanna — AxA Chapter 18
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣
Their “treehouse” wasn’t a tree. It was an old-world merchant stall half-swallowed by vine and moss, plank walls warped into a lean, windows punched out by time. They’d claimed it as kids, fixed it enough to keep the rain off, left it broken enough to keep everyone else out.
Set was the quiet one, born of the original Panteran tribes but raised between worlds — a young heir too sharp for the jungle, too grounded for the cities. Everything about him moved with intent: his stare, his silence, the way he never spoke unless it mattered. The others joked that he didn’t breathe unless it was part of the plan.
Riven was the total opposite, in mostly every way — an elven teenager from the low canopy districts, all rhythm and noise. He could turn a street argument into a concert. The city called him a troublemaker; but Riven just strummed to the noise.
Talla was balance — half human, half tri-tailed Sylvannan squirrel. Her hair a bright violet and and her three tails — usually tied together — shimmered cyan streaked with violet light. The strategist, the spark behind every plan that didn’t end in fire. She’d learned to navigate between ideals and instincts long before any of them could spell diplomacy.
The three weren’t supposed to be friends. Different tribes, different bloodlines. But shared trouble is a language, and they’d been fluent since childhood.
Set leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, listening to the jungles of Sylvanna breathe. The canopy pulsed with the breeze; moths drifted like slow sparks.
Riven balanced on a rail with a cracked grin and a pack slung over one shoulder, tapping a rhythm on the wood with two worn drumsticks — click, click, click — like his hands didn’t know how to be still.
Talla arrived in a blur of quiet feet and adrenaline, hair tied, smile ready, holding up three slips of laminated paper between her fingers.
“Ferry tickets,” she said, proud and out of breath. “Canal line straight to Lotus Docks. If we miss the ship after that, I’m never forgiving either of you.”
Riven hopped down, snatched his, and kissed it like a medal. Set took his and turned it over once, eyes scanning the stamp — one way, no returns. He slipped it inside his wristwrap.
They didn’t need to say much. They’d been moving toward this kind of morning their whole lives.
“Let’s go,” Set said.
They slid out into the waking city like a habit.
SYLVANNA — SUNRISE RUN
They moved through roots turned to roads, across rope bridges humming with wind, past market awnings still dripping from night mist. The world here never felt still — the jungle sang under everything: insects, distant drums, the low electrical hum of living wood. Glowing lichen traced the paths like runway lights.
In the distance on the canal, the ferry skimmed over black water, leaving a faint wake. The three of them raced shoulder to shoulder down the tree lines toward the harbor docks—Talla with the map in her head, Riven with a plan that would change three times before they reached the docks, Set tracking angles, exits, every face they passed like second nature. They weren’t career criminals but they could’ve been.
They dashed out of the jungles onto the backside of the harbor. Lotus Docks rose ahead like a lantern city — layered platforms, hanging bridges, banners rippling in currents of warm air. Above it all, anchored to sky by light and machinery, a freighter the size of a block hovered on silent turbines, casing gleaming under the morning.
“Last ship to X’Omnera,” Talla said, eyes on the ramp.
Riven whistled low. “Our future looks expensive.”
Set didn’t answer. He watched the crowd flow — traders, families, hustlers, guards in moss-green armor scanning manifests — his mind already moving through paths the three of them could cut without getting separated.
“Left,” he said. And they ran.
LOTUS DOCKS — BOARDING
They wove through bodies like water, slipping gaps, skirting arguments. Talla flashed the ferry stubs when anyone in a vest tried to slow them; Riven smiled and kept moving; Set kept the line tight.
The ramp began to draw up.
“Hold it!” Riven shouted, voice bright like he had authority. The gate officer didn’t even look.
They hit the last stretch in a sprint, boots skidding on wet plank. Talla reached first and slapped both palms to the ramp’s edge, fingers splayed, breath burning; Riven slid beside her; Set’s hand clamped onto the guard rail—
Locks engaged. Hydraulics sighed. The ramp lifted an inch out of their reach and kept going.
They stood there, three kids from the high outerlands staring up at a door that had already decided how the day would go.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the universe was laughing with them. Riven let out a half-chuckle, the kind you throw at the sky so you don’t swear at it. Talla shook her head, knees shaking from the run. Set’s jaw flexed once — then settled.
“Tomorrow,” Riven started.
“Another ship,” Talla tried.
Set opened his mouth to say something steady.
The sky answered first.
DETONATION
Light swallowed sound — white, then orange, then a color no one had a name for. The ferry above them became a ball of fire unfolding from the center out. A ring of heat rolled across the docks and lifted everything not bolted down.
The cheering crowd turned to silhouettes. Then to motion. Then to a thousand choices made at once.
Set grabbed Talla and shoved her down behind a cargo cart as wind hit and debris fell. Riven pulled the tarp up with one hand and dragged a stranger under it with the other.
The blast wave passed. The second wave didn’t — it hung there, a pressure in the air that made the lungs feel too small.
Ash drifted like petals.
Metal rained like hail.
Bioluminescent roots along the pier guttered, flickered, and went dim.
Talla’s eyes locked on the empty space where the ship had been. Riven pressed his tongue to a split lip and tasted metal. Set stared up as burning fragments slowed on their way down, falling in slow arcs like the world had lost track of time.
“What just happened?” Talla asked, voice frayed.
“I don’t know,” Set said, because anything else would’ve been a lie.
They stayed where they were until the sky started to move again.
NARDOX — SAME MORNING
Kariah jolted up in her cot, heart racing, vision full of fractured light. Not flame — angles. Like the world had buckled for a second and snapped itself back.
“Kariah,” Imani called from the doorway, already moving, already dressed. “We need to go.”
Kariah swung her feet to the floor, breath catching as gold flickered briefly around her fingers and faded. She followed Imani into the corridor at a fast walk that turned to a run.
“The Chamber of Suns is in session,” Imani said. “Sylvanna’s experienced an attack.”
Kariah didn’t ask why. She matched pace.
THE WILDS — DEPTH-14
The team didn’t notice the sky, but something in the Wilds did.
The expedition line moved through emerald haze and heat that felt like pacing through a sauna. Cracks in the ground pulsed steady beneath their boots. Kyro led without talking; Kit shadowed his step with a small, steady glow over his palm — controlled, for the first time without trembling.
Sensors chirped and then didn’t. Sound warped at the edges. The fog carried a hum like a distant generator in a city you couldn’t see.
Kyro looked back once, just long enough to nod. Kit didn’t smile. He didn’t need to.
They kept moving.
LOTUS DOCKS — THAT NIGHT
Smoke hung in layers over the bay. People moved like they were remembering how. Fires ate through tarps and were strangled out by buckets and wet cloth and bare hands. A few fire marshals used water-based summons to contain the original fire and now the docks air smelled like brine and burned wiring.
By evening, the worst of the flames had dulled to smoke. The sea shone dull red, reflecting a sun that didn’t know what had happened.
Set, Talla, and Riven — still processing how their dreams went up in flame just hours earlier — ended up at the edge of the pier.
They didn’t talk for a while. Riven swung his feet over open water like a kid. Talla held her knees and watched the horizon for something that wasn’t coming. Set sat with his hands flat on the plank and stared at where the ship used to be until staring felt like a kind of work.
A hooded figure drifted through the chatter behind them, voice low to traders who listened without looking up.
“Another convoy leaves tonight. No checks, no patrols. Right price, and you’re ghosts.”
Riven turned. “How much?”
“Seven thousand five hundred Lum,” the figure said. “Per head.”
Talla opened her pouch. Worn notes. Not nearly enough. She didn’t need to say it.
“We’re broke,” Riven said anyway, because sometimes saying it out loud stops your chest from caving in.
Set didn’t look away from the water. “Then we find a way.”
He stood. The reflection of the burned sky fit in the shape of his eyes.
⟢───── Ashes × Aether ─────⟣