The glyph burned.
Even though it had long since cooled to the touch, Elara could feel it — a steady pulse etched beneath her collarbone, invisible to others but alive under her skin like a second heartbeat.
She hadn't told anyone yet. Not Cassian. Not Lyra. Not Kaelen.
Because she knew.
This wasn't just a relic. It wasn't just magic.
It was a trigger.
A summoning.
And it had begun.
They came at dusk.
No war horns. No announcement.
Just starlight that sharpened until it howled, splitting the skies above Stormwake.
Cassian met her on the balcony of the Spire, sword belted and jaw set. He didn't need to ask — his eyes had already registered what her expression could not conceal.
"They know," she said.
"They felt it."
A pause.
"They want you."
She nodded. "I know."
His hand closed over hers.
"Let me come with you."
She wanted that. Stars, how she wanted that.
But this was her burden. Hers alone.
She pulled his hand up to her lips, kissed his knuckles, and whispered, "You'd only burn."
The star-carriage arrived without wheels, borne on fragments of constellation. It shimmered with a darkness that was not absence but compression—as if the sky had been folded into it and held its breath.
Two Sovereign Envoys emerged, identical and sexless, robed in the hues of solar flare and lunar ice.
"Elara Thorne," one intoned. "Bearer of the Forgotten Thread. You are summoned."
"I come freely," she said.
The air warped around her as she stepped into the vessel.
Behind her, Cassian stood statue-still, until the carriage dissolved into stardust.
The Court of the Star-Sovereigns was not a palace. It was a prism suspended in the Void.
Each facet reflected a different truth: Elara saw herself as a child, as a god, as ash, as infinity. But the floor beneath her feet remained firm—cool crystal that echoed her every step.
Twelve thrones ringed the court.
Twelve figures.
Not human. Not even close.
They flickered with starfire and shadows, their forms impossible to hold with the eye—just suggestions of crowns, wings, swirling eyes, burning silence.
The central Sovereign spoke. Its voice was not heard but remembered.
"Elara Thorne. Why have you touched what was sealed?"
She stood straighter.
"Because the seal is cracking. Because the world is unraveling, and none of you will stop it."
Murmurs like galaxies colliding.
Another Sovereign leaned forward, its face a swirl of molten moons.
"You carry the glyph of Verenor. The God Who Forgot."
"I carry what was left behind. What was needed."
"You carry forbidden power."
"I carry hope." she said.
The thrones pulsed.
She continued.
"You let the pact fray because you feared imbalance. But the imbalance is already here. I'm not trying to destroy the weave — I'm trying to mend it."
Silence.
Long.
Endless.
Then—
The central Sovereign lifted a hand. A beam of starlight lanced down from above, hitting Elara squarely in the chest.
The glyph ignited.
She screamed — not in pain, but in pressure. Truth surged through her veins like wildfire.
And then she saw.
She saw the first pact being formed — not by kings or priests, but by lovers.
Two celestial beings: Verenor and Seris, star-bound and shadow-woven, created a tether to hold the Realms apart and yet connected. A cosmic truce disguised as balance.
But Seris died.
And Verenor forgot.
The pact remained—but it was incomplete, cracked, misaligned.
And Elara—
She was descended from that line.
From the one who remembered.
The light faded.
She dropped to one knee, breath ragged.
The Sovereigns stirred.
"You are more than mortal now," one said.
"Will you serve the new weave, Elara Thorne?" asked another.
"I won't serve," she said hoarsely. "But I'll protect it."
A pause.
"Then rise, Weaver of the In-Between. The next glyph awaits."
When she returned to Stormwake, the sky followed her — literally. Stars bloomed in her wake, and shadows recoiled.
Cassian met her at the gate.
He looked at her — truly looked — and stepped back, not in fear, but awe.
"Elara… what have you become?"
She touched the still-glowing glyph beneath her skin.
"Something old. Something necessary."
And as the sky above cracked once more, revealing a second tear in the Veil—
She knew the war had just begun.