The chamber's silence wrapped around Elara like velvet—heavy, dark, and full of things unspoken. Constellations flickered across the curved walls, not painted or projected, but carved deep into stone with threads of luminous crystal. Some pulsed softly, others were cold and still, like stars long dead.
Elara sat on a bench low to the ground, her cloak still wrapped tight around her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. Her breath came in shallow draws, each one echoing faintly in the vaulted chamber, thick with incense—lavender, scorched resin, and something metallic, like old blood.
Across the room, Cassian stood sentinel near the arched entrance, arms folded, jaw tight. A statue made of light and dusk.
The Seer had left them without a farewell, drifting out of the chamber like smoke. No comfort. No explanation. Only six words:
"The last light before the dark."
Elara's voice broke the silence. "What does that even mean?" She flung the words into the stillness, too loud in the holy quiet. "What light? What dark? And what do I have to do with any of it?"
Cassian didn't answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed on something distant, something past memory.
"The Seers don't lie," he said finally. "But they never tell the full truth either."
"That's not exactly helpful," she muttered, rising to her feet. The stone floor felt too solid, too real. She paced, boots scraping softly. "I didn't ask to be some galactic lightning rod. I just wanted to finish my thesis on spiral galaxies and maybe get drunk enough to forget the anniversary of—" She stopped short. Her throat tightened. Her fingers trembled, and she curled them into fists.
Cassian's gaze turned to her. "What happened?" he asked, voice quiet. Not cold—cautious.
She hesitated. "My brother," she said at last. "Oliver. Ollie. He died. A car crash. Three years ago tonight."
Silence lapsed again, heavier now. Cassian's expression didn't change, but something in his posture eased—just a fraction.
"We mourn differently here," he said. "But pain… echoes. Through all realms. Through time."
Elara closed her eyes. The incense smell made her nauseous. Or maybe it was just the weight of everything.
"I need to go home," she whispered. "Can your Seers help with that?"
"They can offer paths," Cassian said, stepping closer. His armor caught the light, cold and luminous. "But if you leave now, you may never return. The Rift only opens when the stars allow."
She looked up at him sharply. "And if I stay?"
He held her gaze. "Then Aetheros may live."
"That's not fair."
"No," he agreed. "It isn't."
She turned away. Her voice cracked. "Why me?"
When he didn't answer, she added more softly, "I'm not special. I'm not chosen. I'm just... broken."
Cassian exhaled, a sound like wind through dying leaves. "Sometimes," he said, "broken things let the most light in."
Tears stung her eyes. She turned away before he could see them.
Later, beneath the open dome of the temple, Elara stood alone. Above her, the sky unfurled in all its impossible splendor. The stars here didn't twinkle—they burned. Living things, watching.
She traced a constellation Cassian had pointed out earlier: a crown, shattered at the top. A diadem undone.
The Shattered Crown.
"Your sign," said a voice behind her.
She turned to find a woman approaching—tall, robes flowing like oil across water, hair white as starlight, eyes blank and sightless.
"I am Lysira," the Seer said. "You have questions. Come walk."
Together they descended into the heart of the mountain, through spiraling stone stairways lit by moss that glowed faintly green-blue. Their footsteps echoed, accompanied only by the distant flutter of wings and the occasional sigh of the wind.
"I don't understand any of this," Elara admitted. "Cassian says I crossed the Veil. That I might be the… Fulcrum?" She nearly choked on the word. "What does that even mean?"
Lysira inclined her head. "In this realm, the stars are not just fire. They are will. Memory. They chose five great Houses—Storm, Stone, Sea, Flame, and Sky—to keep balance. That balance was sealed long ago by a mortal with blood of two realms."
"Aetherian and human?"
"Aetherian and something older," Lysira said. "When that mortal died, the Pact cracked. The stars began to fade."
Elara frowned. "But stars don't fade like that. Not suddenly."
"They do here."
They passed carvings now—huge murals etched in crystal and stone. A woman with wings of fire. A shadow devouring the sky. A ring of figures holding back the dark.
Elara stopped. "You think I'm her. Reborn."
Lysira shook her head. "No. We think you are something new. Something unaccounted for. You are the variable the stars summoned when their old plan failed."
A long silence stretched between them. Elara's mind reeled, and yet… some part of her felt steadier than it had in years. Like a tuning fork struck by truth.
At last, they came to a chamber vast as a cathedral. In its center, a pool of silver light shimmered like liquid moon. Above it hovered a mirror—not made of glass, but of opposing forces: one half ice, one half flame.
Lysira gestured. "This is the Sidera. The Mirror of Stars. It shows not your face, but your nature."
Elara hesitated. Then stepped forward.
As she neared, the mirror shifted. Her reflection stared back at her—ragged sweater, haunted eyes, skin smudged with ash. But then it changed.
The image rippled.
She saw herself cloaked in fire and storm, crowned in crescent moons, wings unfurled like solar flares. Her eyes were suns, her hands full of starlight.
She stumbled back, breath caught. "That's not me."
"It's who you might become," Lysira said gently. "Should you accept the calling."
"And if I don't?"
"Then the stars will go out. Here, and perhaps… beyond."
Elara stared at the mirror. She hated prophecies. She hated being told she mattered.
But part of her—the part that had felt empty since Ollie died—now sparked. Just a flicker.
"I'm not strong enough," she whispered.
Lysira stepped closer and laid a hand on her chest. "You don't need strength. You need will. The stars chose you for what you have survived, not what you've conquered."
That night, Elara sat outside the temple, knees drawn up beneath her, watching the twin moons drift.
Cassian sat nearby, sharpening a blade that shimmered with runes. He said nothing for a long time. Neither did she.
"I saw something," she said eventually. "In the mirror. A version of me I didn't recognize."
Cassian didn't look up. "I saw myself once," he said. "A king drowning in his own crown."
She glanced at him. "Why are you helping me?"
He paused. "Because… once, long ago, someone fell through the Rift. I wasn't there in time to catch her."
Elara's breath caught.
He didn't elaborate, and she didn't press. The silence that followed felt different now. Not absence. Presence.
She looked back up at the sky, and for the first time in a long while, let herself believe that maybe—just maybe—she was part of something larger than loss.
Something ancient.
Something still becoming.
And in the pulse of those impossible stars, Elara heard them again:
She is here.
She is the threshold.
She is the last light before the dark.