Smoke still curled from the wreckage.
Tennel's Hollow, once a sleepy cradle of quiet lives and moonflower trees, now wept in ruin. Homes lay split like old fruit. Ash floated where starlight once bathed cobblestone. Cries still echoed from the fields—shattered voices, mourning names that wouldn't answer anymore.
Ivyra moved through the remnants with a limp.
Her left side ached—likely cracked ribs—and her blade hung loose in her grip, its once-murderous glow now a dim pulse of heat. Blood trickled from her brow, drying against soot-stained skin. Serren trailed behind her, face pale, eyes wide, blade dragging the dirt like she'd forgotten it was even there.
They didn't speak.
There was nothing worth saying. Not yet.
"I counted ten," Serren murmured eventually, voice hoarse. "Ten villagers gone. Four missing. Fields are scorched. Animals… fled or trampled."
Ivyra exhaled sharply, more pain than breath.
"And Naia?"
"She hasn't stirred."
That answer twisted something behind Ivyra's ribs far worse than the wound. Her gaze flicked toward the tree line, where Lyxra had vanished carrying the girl into the woods. There had been no sign since. Only silence.
"She needs time," Ivyra said flatly. "And distance. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't just looking—it knew her."
"She called it a vision. But that wasn't a dream." Serren's grip tightened on her hilt. "She's changing, Ivyra. We both saw it. That mark on her chest. The way she glowed. And the voice—'Daughter of the First Star'? What does that even mean?"
"I don't know," Ivyra answered. But it was a lie.
She did know.
At least… a piece of it. Enough to fear it.
Long ago, before exile and ruin, before the blade had tasted blood in her hand, Ivyra had read of the First Star. A being so ancient it had no name—only light, scattered into pieces when the gods turned on one another. Fragments of it were said to drift still through the veil between worlds, lost… or hidden. The Church called them heresy. The Royals called them myth.
But the Order she'd once belonged to—the one she had burned from the inside—called them seeds.
Vessels, waiting to bloom.
And now… one of them was walking, breathing, weeping in the shape of a girl.
Naia.
The one they had found in a forest clearing. The one with no memory before her sixth winter. The one who healed faster than she should. Who dreamed too vividly. Who cried during starfalls and felt too much when others hurt.
Ivyra clenched her jaw. No. Not now. She couldn't let herself unravel. Not yet.
She turned her eyes to the horizon.
"We move again at dawn."
Serren's head jerked up. "We can't just leave these people. They have nothing."
"They're safer if we're not here."
"They're broken. We could at least—"
"Serren." Ivyra's voice sliced through the air. "The longer we stay, the more we endanger them. This wasn't an attack. It was a retrieval. They came for Naia. Not for the village. Not for me. For her."
Serren fell silent, fists trembling. She didn't like it. But she understood.
Ivyra turned away and limped toward the forest.
---
They found Lyxra two hours before sunrise.
He stood in a clearing, wings folded like dusk around him. Naia lay in the grass beneath him, pale and still, face turned to the sky. Her pulse was steady. Her breath soft. But her skin shimmered faintly now—too faint for any mortal eye to notice, but Ivyra saw it.
A halo beneath her veins. A light still waking.
Lyxra didn't move as they approached. He just whispered, "She screamed in her sleep. Called names I've never heard. Some… made the trees shiver."
Ivyra knelt beside the girl. Her hand hovered over Naia's forehead but didn't touch.
"She's waking to something that doesn't belong in this world," she murmured. "And once it fully opens, it won't let her go."
"She was just a girl," Serren whispered. "She was just Naia…"
"She still is." Ivyra looked up, eyes like flint. "And that's why we protect her. Not because of what she might become. But because of who she still is."
A breeze stirred the leaves.
Then—Naia's fingers twitched.
Her eyes opened.
But they weren't the same.
Silver, once warm and soft, now burned like twin moons—flecked with starlight. She sat up slowly, looking around the clearing like someone waking from centuries of sleep. Her lips parted, and her voice came out in a whisper not quite her own:
"I remember… the gates."
Ivyra froze. "What gates?"
Naia blinked, confusion flickering. She touched her chest where the spiral mark now dimly glowed. "There were… doors. In the sky. And I walked through. I think… something followed me back."
Serren stepped back.
Lyxra lowered his wings.
Ivyra's expression didn't change. "What else did you see?"
Naia's eyes narrowed. Not in anger—just… pain.
"There was a woman. She wore stars in her hair. She looked like me. But older. She told me to wake up. That the 'shackles' were breaking. And that they would come for me now. That you… would know what to do."
She looked directly at Ivyra.
"You do, don't you?"
Ivyra didn't answer. Not yet.
Because the truth was too heavy.
She did know.
Naia's soul wasn't just touched by the Celestial realm.
It was born from it.
And now, the realms would fight to reclaim her.
---
Naia's words hung in the air like drifting ash.
"I remember… the gates."
The clearing around them felt heavier now, as if the trees themselves leaned in to listen. Dawn had not yet broken, but the sky had shifted — painted with a deep violet that bled into gold. A hush lingered between them all.
Lyxra curled around Naia protectively, his star-dusted tail sweeping the grass in slow, steady arcs. Ivyra remained kneeling, eyes sharp, but distant.
Serren was the first to speak.
"If she remembers the gates, can she lead us to them?"
Naia blinked slowly. "Not gates… a gate. Singular. It was massive. Suspended over a lake that didn't reflect the sky. It shimmered like—like smoke in sunlight. And behind it, I saw… ruins. Floating in a circle. Like a crown, broken and burning."
Ivyra's breath caught in her throat. She'd seen drawings like that once. Long ago. In a forbidden scroll sealed beneath the vaults of the Royal Church.
She stood.
"That's not a ruin," Ivyra said quietly. "That's the Temple of the Shattered Veil. It was erased from every map centuries ago."
Serren's brows furrowed. "You know where it is?"
"Not exactly. But I know where to start."
She turned to her pack, rummaging through a hidden compartment, and pulled out a faded piece of parchment. She spread it on the ground. An old map — hand-inked, fraying at the edges, the corners marked with runes no longer used in common tongue.
She pointed toward a jagged valley west of their current position.
"There's a passage beneath Mount Veyr. It's spoken of only in riddles — something about a river of memory, and doors made of song. But if Naia saw the gate near a lake that reflects nothing, it must be there. The mirrorless waters are part of the old myths."
Naia, still seated and wrapped in Lyxra's warmth, closed her eyes.
"I think… I can feel it. Like it's tugging on me. Calling."
"You're connected to it," Ivyra said softly. "It was likely made for beings like you — or to contain them."
Serren scoffed. "Well that's comforting."
Naia looked between them, guilt flickering behind her silver-flecked eyes. "You don't have to follow me there. You've already risked—"
"We do," Ivyra cut in firmly. "Because you're not some relic. You're not a weapon. You're Naia. And I'll see this through."
Lyxra growled softly in agreement. "Besides, I want to see what's hiding behind a sky gate. Sounds shiny."
Serren crossed her arms. "Fine. But next time a celestial being decides to scream lightning down a chimney, you can do the explaining."
Naia gave a faint, grateful smile. It didn't reach her eyes.
Ivyra rolled the map and turned west.
"We'll rest a few hours. Then head toward the Whispering Path. That leads us into the lower ridges of Veyr. If your vision is true, that temple won't stay hidden for long. Especially not now that you've awakened."
Serren added, "And if someone followed that creature through the gate?"
Ivyra didn't look back as she spoke.
"Then we'd better be ready before it arrives."
---
The campfire had long since dwindled into embers.
The others slept in a loose crescent, their bodies curled in cloaks and silence, tension still clinging to their edges. The forest had grown quiet again—not empty, just… listening.
Naia sat alone beneath a leaning pine, arms wrapped around her knees. Moonlight spilled between the branches, silver and soft. She stared up at it, the way one stares into something ancient and expectant.
"You're too quiet," came a voice beside her.
Lyxra, now in his smaller form—no larger than a housecat—curled at her side. His fur glimmered faintly, like stars caught in midnight silk.
Naia smiled weakly. "You're usually asleep by now."
"So are you."
She let the silence settle, and then whispered, "Do you think I'm still… me?"
Lyxra blinked, the specks of light in his fur flickering like fireflies. "You're asking the wrong question."
She tilted her head.
"You keep wondering if the celestial part of you is changing you. But maybe it's just revealing what was always inside."
Naia looked back at the sky. "It doesn't feel like me. When I touched that gem, I saw things I can't explain. I knew words I never learned. My voice didn't sound like my own. It was like something old cracked open inside me."
Lyxra stretched, his tail flicking once. "Maybe that's what growing into power feels like."
"And if I lose myself in it?"
"You won't," he said without hesitation. "You have Ivyra. And me. I'll bite your toes if you start glowing ominously and levitating."
That earned a soft laugh from her.
Lyxra's tone softened again. "You have a good heart, Naia. That doesn't vanish just because your soul shares a melody with the stars."
Naia lowered her head until her forehead rested against her knees. "I'm scared, Lyx."
"I know," he murmured. "But fear doesn't mean weakness. It means you still care what happens."
Naia reached out and gently ran her fingers through the fur between his ears. "Thank you."
"For the pep talk?"
"For staying."
Lyxra leaned into her touch. "Always."
The wind shifted, and above them, a lone star streaked across the sky.
Naia watched it disappear behind the treetops and whispered a silent wish she didn't fully understand.
Then, quietly, she closed her eyes.
And the forest, once again, listened.