Chapter One: The Lot of the Unchosen
The bells tolled like thunder in a cloudless sky.Avelyne stood barefoot at the edge of the town square, her worn linen dress clinging to her like second skin. The wind didn't move. The sun was a dull ghost behind gray clouds. And yet her heart pounded as if it already knew.Today, the Star-Eater would choose a bride.Centuries ago, the high priests of the sky carved a pact in gold and blood. Every hundred years, the Star-Eater—an exiled celestial king who once swallowed constellations whole—would be given a mortal bride in exchange for peace. One girl. One sacrifice. A crown upon her head, and chains at her feet.None returned.
Yet here they were again. A hundred years had passed. The cursed cycle had returned.
Avelyne glanced to her right. The other girls stood in a trembling line, all seventeen of age, clad in silk dresses their mothers had sewn in hope and dread. Most were daughters of wealthy lords or merchants. Their perfume hung heavy in the air, masking the stench of fear. She didn't belong here.
She wasn't on the registry. She wasn't supposed to be in the square at all.
She was just the orphaned girl of a disgraced house, banished to scrub floors in the church she once prayed in. The town had tried to forget her. But she remembered everything. Especially the fire.
"Avelyne Evermere," a cold voice called.
Her spine straightened like a drawn arrow. The crowd turned. Someone whispered her name in disbelief.
"That name wasn't drawn."
"She's not on the list!"
"Isn't she the girl whose father tried to flee the pact?"
Avelyne's breath hitched.
The bishop held the golden urn in his trembling hands. The scroll inside bore her name. In calligraphy she could never afford to write.
"There must be a mistake," he muttered.
But the sky answered before anyone else could.
A low hum rippled through the clouds. Then the air cracked—like the world itself had split open. A beam of violet starlight shot down, striking the center of the square, forming a perfect ring of flame that didn't burn the stone.
The selection had been made.
The Star-Eater had accepted the name.
Avelyne stood paralyzed. Her feet refused to move. Her voice was gone. The girls beside her screamed and stumbled back.
A shadow fell over the square.
Above them, the sky turned black—not from clouds, but from a colossal, floating structure. A palace. Cast in obsidian and silver, ringed by flickering stars. It hung upside down, suspended by magic alone. The Palace of Twilit Thrones—the Star-Eater's prison and his domain.
And now, it would be her home.
The crowd went silent. Avelyne was the last one standing.
Her fingers curled around her sides. Her heart wasn't screaming, but whispering. Whispers that felt ancient. Foreign. Familiar.
Go. This is not the end. This is the beginning.
She took one step forward.
Then another.
The starlight widened to receive her, forming a spiraling staircase made of crystal and light. Each step vanished behind her, trapping her with every move upward. She didn't look back.
She couldn't.
The palace was alive.
When Avelyne stepped through its vast gates, she felt it—not with her skin, but with her soul. The floors pulsed beneath her feet, not like stone, but like breathing flesh. Stars shimmered across the ceilings, slowly drifting. The air smelled of snow and thunder and old books.
There were no servants. No welcoming party.
Only silence.
And him.
He stood at the top of the steps in a long black coat stitched with silver threads. A crown floated above his head, made not of gold, but of shattered galaxies and dying stars. His eyes were… strange. Too deep, like you could fall into them and never hit the bottom. One burned silver. The other was a midnight void.
And his voice was colder than the grave.
"You are not what I expected."
Avelyne clenched her fists. "I didn't ask to be chosen."
The Star-Eater tilted his head. "None of them did. But they all tried to be. You did not. That makes you interesting."
"Will it save me?"
"No."She flinched.
The Star-Eater descended slowly, as if gravity bowed to him. He circled her once, studying her like a sculpture carved wrong. His gaze lingered on her left wrist—where her skin bore a strange crescent-shaped scar she had never been able to explain.
"You are Evermere's daughter," he said. "The bloodline that once stole fire from the heavens. Your family should have been extinguished."
"They were."
He paused. His eyes met hers.
"Not entirely."
That night, she was given a room with no door.
It wasn't locked—it simply had no exit. The walls shifted when she blinked. The windows showed stars she didn't recognize. A plate of food appeared on a glass table: blackberries, crystal bread, glowing water. Her stomach twisted at the thought of eating, but hunger won.
She sat on the floor and stared at her reflection in the obsidian walls.
A girl with wild raven-black curls. Copper skin smeared with soot. Eyes too wide for her thin face.
Not a bride. Not a noble. Just a forgotten girl caught in a god's game.
Her mind spun with questions.
Why her?
Why now?
Why had her name been in the urn?
She closed her eyes. Tried to sleep.
But something whispered through the walls.
"Return what was stolen… Restore the crown of flame…"
She pressed her hands to her ears. "Stop. Please…"
But the voice wasn't outside her.
It was inside her.
The next morning, the Star-Eater stood in the hallway, waiting. His coat swirled like smoke even though no wind blew.
"You heard it, didn't you?"
Avelyne didn't answer.
"The palace speaks to those with celestial blood. You are one of the few who can hear it."
She met his gaze. "What am I?"
His expression flickered. "You are a question I wasn't prepared for."
Then he turned and began walking.
"Come. Your duties begin."
He led her through the endless halls of the palace. Each corridor opened into chambers more impossible than the last—libraries where books whispered, gardens that bloomed under moonlight alone, and a ballroom where shadows danced without music.
"You must never enter the North Wing," he said. "It is bound in silver and sealed with the names of the dead."
"What happens if I do?"
"You will vanish."
"Is that a threat?"
"It is a fact."
Days passed like dreams. Or maybe dreams passed like days. Time was strange here. The sun never rose. The moon never set. She was given silken gowns stitched from star-thread, her scars healed with a touch of unseen hands, and yet…
She was still a prisoner.
A pampered one. But a prisoner nonetheless.
She saw him only in fragments. At the edge of mirrors. On the balcony above the dining hall. Sometimes he sat in the shadowed library, fingers resting on ancient scrolls, watching her when he thought she didn't notice.
But she always did.
And one night, she asked the question aloud:
"Why do you need a bride?"
She didn't expect him to answer.
But he did.
"To bind the curse. To halt the decay. The gods placed a chain upon my heart. A bride is the key to sealing it for another hundred years."
Her throat tightened. "So I'm a… lock?"
"You are a vessel.""For what?"His eyes burned silver."For me."