Qaritas watched Ayla's fingers fall away from starlight. The silence still hung inside him—like it hadn't chosen a direction yet.
Then Jrin stepped forward, his voice calm but edged with wry amusement.
"Traditionally, the Rite doesn't begin until the Path of Becoming is complete. But..."
He glanced around at the gathered Ascendants. "Some of us figured racing through a few starfields might help burn off some steam."
Komus coughed into his fist, badly faking it. "Najen."
Najen raised both hands, unrepentant. "Guilty."
His grin was so wide, it could've cracked the patience of a god."I may have suggested that we race before someone has another metaphysical meltdown."
A few Ascendants laughed. Some Qaritas recognized. Others shimmered like half-remembered names from dreams he hadn't earned yet. But none of them looked surprised.
Jrin didn't smile. But his voice held a dry warmth now.
"Each pair will choose a starline. You'll race together—two souls, one thread. Your powers are permitted. Encouraged, even. Just—"
He paused. Looked briefly toward the sky where no judgment watched, only stars.
"—try not to kill each other."
A beat.
"Even though Hrolyn isn't here," Jrin added, more quietly now, "we remain."
Cree's fire snapped faintly.
"He hasn't returned yet?"
Jrin shook his head once. "No. But it doesn't mean something happened."
"And if it did?" Hydeius asked.
"Then we'll worry in a week," Jrin said. His tone didn't rise. "For now, we race."
Qaritas looked around, searching their faces—these legends, these myths walking around in skin woven from stardust and memory. He studied them not for power, but for reaction.
None of them flinched at the mention of Hrolyn. Not a single crease of concern.
It was as if the absence of their so-called Creator meant less than wind through old scripture.
They didn't mourn.
They didn't fear.
They expected it.
And that, more than anything, unsettled him.
Ayla stepped forward.
Without a word, she raised her hand.
Jrin nodded. "Summon them."
She exhaled.
The sky bent.
It didn't break—not like thunder or quake. It yielded—folding inward like silk turned inside out.
A sound split the air— A sound split the air—half thunder, half prophecy.
Like prophecy striking steel.
And then they came.
Fourteen stars.
Not falling—arriving.
They tore through the atmosphere like divine blades unsheathing in formation. Each burned with a different hue—scarlet like vengeance, gold like forgiveness, violet like grief remembered too long.
They moved at the speed of sound. Then faster.
Each one spiraled into position above the amphitheater—hovering, humming, alive.
Qaritas took a half-step back. Not in fear.
In awe.
They weren't stars. They were memory in motion—each a vow waiting to be relived.
Jrin's voice rose again, steady as carved marble.
"Each pair will choose. Once chosen, your star will respond. You may not change paths once the Rite begins. There will be no order. No starting line. The sky decides who leaves first."
A pause.
"Welcome to the fire between stars."
One by one, the Ascendants began to move.
Not rushed. Not scrambling.
Just certain.
Each pair gravitated toward the star that shimmered for them—as if the cosmos had whispered, this one remembers you best.
Some stars hissed as they were chosen—burning blue or silver or green with hunger. Others pulsed with softer hues, responding more like lullabies than war drums.
Komus and Niraí stepped forward together, fingers brushing in that unthinking rhythm only forged across lifetimes. Their chosen star blazed bright cobalt, flaring outward in a spiral that cracked the sky with the sound of laughter and grief braided into one.
Irteia and Elios moved as if gliding—effortless, dreamlike. Their star pulsed slow and lavender, singing the rhythm of sleep and starlight. It blinked like a slow heartbeat, perfectly paced for a dream not ready to wake.
Najen didn't walk. He danced, dragging Rlaucus beside him like gravity had turned to irony.
"Ours is obviously the one that looks like it bites," he chirped.
And sure enough—their star curled like a serpent mid-flare, black and teal, its corona spiked and spinning.
Each pair moved. Each star responded.
Until only one remained.
Purple. Veined in silver. Threaded with shadows.
It flickered like a candle trying not to remember it once lit worlds.
Ayla turned to it without hesitation.
No pause. No glance.
She walked straight toward the star, as if it owed her nothing—and she, even less.
He hesitated.
What if the star was wrong? What if Ayla was?
She didn't need to look back. That was the point.
Some choices didn't come with certainty. Just velocity.
Qaritas moved to follow, but the star flared suddenly—sharply—just once.
And he stopped.
In its light, his eyes reflected violet—like a warning. A reminder he might one day become their enemy.
Not like Ayla's gold-red. Not Najen's gray void. His—different. Untested. But chosen.
For a flicker, his shadow fell behind him wrong—like it didn't belong to his current body but to a version of him that hadn't caught up yet.
He stepped forward.
The heat hit first—not physical, but memory.
Not his. Not yet.
But waiting.
Like the star knew what he would remember once he survived it.
Ayla was already at its edge, her cloak flicking behind her like a comet stitched in defiance.
She turned.
"Coming?" she asked, voice steady.
Qaritas blinked. "You didn't even look."
"Didn't have to. This star was always meant to be mine."
She turned her back again.
The stars wait for no one, Qaritas thought.
And maybe, for the first time, that didn't scare him.
He swallowed hard and took the final step.
As soon as both feet hit the curve of the star's light—it moved.
Not forward.
Up.
The air screamed as the star yanked them skyward—not flight, not ascension, but rupture. Like they'd been pulled into a story mid-sentence.
The ground vanished below.
The other pairs surged upward, their chosen stars spiraling into their paths—fourteen stories burning across the sky, each one a vow written in velocity.
The sky fractured into velocity and will.
Qaritas reached out—instinct, not thought—and grabbed the edge of her cloak.
Not to stop her.
To remind himself that he could hold on.
Ayla didn't brace. She leaned into the wind, hair trailing like prophecy unspooling from a forgotten archive.
Qaritas stumbled.
Caught himself.
The star surged.
And he ran.
Not for readiness.
For her.
For the memory he hadn't made—
but needed to.
Because some stars don't wait for permission. Only participation.
The Rite had begun.
Najen, somewhere in the madness, muttered just loud enough:
"This is it. The fire between stars."