Aurelis shimmered beneath two suns a kingdom of glass spires, sapphire rivers, and emerald forests stretching to the sea. At its center, the Celestine Palace crowned the hills like a beacon of light, its walls crafted from living crystal that pulsed softly at dusk. Within, the Valmont royal family ruled behind a veil of tradition and secrecy.
To the world outside, the elites were radiant: nobles adorned in embroidered silks, scholars drifting through ivy-covered halls, courtiers whispering politics over crystal goblets. The commoners, though, knew another side merchants pressing through crowded markets, farmers laughing beneath sun-dappled orchards, street performers juggling fire under moonlight.
Together, they formed Aurelis' heartbeat: two halves of a world bound by more than gold or title. And in the tallest tower, Queen Eleanor stood alone untouched, adorned, and unknowingly watched by a force far older than kings.
She sat in the Sun court chamber before the sun had risen, hands folded, breath still.
Her handmaids worked in silence. They twisted silver-thread into her pale hair, their motions careful not from fear, but reverence.
She was not cruel. She was simply... far away. One pinned a brooch at her collarbone. "Too tight," she murmured softly.
"Apologies, Your Radiance." "No… it's the air," Eleanor said. "It feels heavier today."
In council, her throne shimmered under conjured sunlight. Ministers bowed. Scribes scratched. Ambassadors flattered. "Trade from the south is plentiful. "There are protests in the miner provinces." "Some say the cliffs by Thornspire are cursed again."
"And… there are whispers of lights falling from the sky. Like stars, but not."
Eleanor gave no response. Inside, her pulse quickened.
Later, in the Temple Garden, she knelt before the last remaining effigy of the Celestial Mother. Her robes pooled like moonlight. Birds refused to sing near this part of the grounds. The altar stone was cracked, but still warm. "Celestial Mother, I pray… let me cradle what I have not yet known," she whispered. No voice answered, only the sighing of the trees.
She lit seven candles. Folded seven paper flowers. One drifted too high caught in a wind that came from nowhere. She didn't chase it. She only watched.
That night, veiled in midnight silk, barefoot and unseen, Eleanor left
her chambers. She passed guards who bowed and turned away. She crossed the Silver Hall, where portraits of forgotten queens stared blankly from gold-trimmed frames. She passed the Sealed Nursery, its door inscribed with glyphs only two
people in the world could still read. She walked beneath a ceiling painted with the old gods Aurelith among them her face long faded by time. And at last, she stood at the cliffs beyond the garden, where the air
tasted of salt and memory. The stars above the sea shimmered wrong. Too bright. Too still Eleanor wrapped her arms around herself. Not from cold. From something deeper. "I saw a star fall last night," she whispered. "It landed where no one goes."
"And when I woke… I heard a name I do not know. El… El" She shook her head.
And somewhere, far beyond the cliffs, in the forest where Melville had
fallen…the Tear pulsed.
The ocean was unnaturally still, as though the world itself held its breath. No gulls cried. No tide broke against the rocks. Only a quiet, measured rhythm, like the sea was waiting to witness something sacred.
Queen Eleanor moved barefoot along the moonlit shore, cloaked in midnight blue, her robes trailing constellations across the damp sand. Her crown remained in the palace; her grief did not. This was the Shrouded Shore, a place nobles avoided, where cliffs whispered in the dark and waves sang songs not taught in palace schools. Here, no banners waved. Here, the stars themselves leaned closer to listen.
Eleanor knelt. She did not weep openly. Years of restraint had taught her silence. But the ache in her chest ancient, sharp, and voiceless fractured just enough to let her tears fall.
"I prayed," she whispered. "I obeyed the rites. I kept the fasts. I offered the silence they demanded." "Still… I feel something missing I cannot name."
No answer came. Only the hush of surf kissing stone. Only the wind curling around her like memory.
Then the sea shifted. Slowly, reverently, a figure rose from the black shallows an emergence that carried weight and inevitability. Tall, radiant, and serene, she glided through the waters as though the ocean itself bent around her. Her form was luminous, etched with the light of stars older than the sky. Silver veils of water wrapped around her, shimmering like liquid light. Her skin glimmered with the radiance of the Veil itself, and her hair drifted in waves that obeyed no time but their own. Her eyes, violet and infinite, reflected the depth of eternity.
Eleanor froze, heart quivering, as the figure stepped forward. The waters parted at her feet without effort. In her hands, she held a small crystal, wrapped in sea-silk, faintly glowing as if alive.
"This is the Tear of the Forgotten Star," the woman said, her voice a ripple of water and light. "It is the sorrow of a goddess who loved mortals more than herself. She wept not for worship, but because she knew… one day, the world would forget her."
"This Tear holds the last echo of her fire," she continued.
Eleanor's lips trembled. "Is it… a gift?"
The figure's gaze was ancient, fathomless, yet not unkind. "Every gift from the Veil carries both blessing and trial. You are not offered this because you are virtuous. You are offered this because you still believe because your heart remembers what the world has lost."
Slowly, the crystal hovered before Eleanor, not offered, but chosen. "You may hold her. You may protect her. But she is not yours. She never was."
"Then why me?" Eleanor whispered, tears streaming freely. "Why now?"
The goddess tilted her head as though listening to the faint heartbeat of the world. "Because the world will fall again. And the fire must rise from somewhere."
Eleanor reached forward. Her fingers closed around the Tear. It pulsed once. Then again. Then again. A rhythm so pure and resolute that even the cliffs shivered. The wind stirred. Trees bowed as if acknowledging the moment.
At the edge of her footprints, a single flower bloomed, defying season and reason. By morning, Queen Eleanor would be changed. Not in the eyes of the court. Not in public view. But in the quiet halls of fate, her name was now bound to the return of a goddess. And the Tear, though never spoken of again, would remain hidden beneath the palace in a sealed room that hummed whenever the baby cried.