She blasted out of the sky and landed straight into the Tree Grave. Leaves, branches and silk simply disintegrated around her, her eyes flared with seething light.
…
Silence.
It was overwhelming; her heartbeat was the only sound that remained.
A tree groaned. Bark cracked. Something stirred nearby. Auriel stood still—motionless, peerless, focused.
Then sound exploded.
She spun. Her blade formed. In a breath she brought her arm down.
Metal met something.
Resistance.
Like cutting through glass and memory at once.
The expected screech never came, only a violent vibration.
Light spilled, then folded back into itself. The forest warped—trees twisting into silk, silk into bone, bone into nothing.
She blinked, and something was gone. She couldn't recall what.
Sound was sucked into a penny–sized vacuum.
Air imploded. Her cape snapped forward instead of back.
She braced herself, air still trembling with the blast.
Crack—
A ̸c͟r͠a͞c̸k͞ ̛o͘f̷ ̶b͝o̸n͝e͠?͏ ͜͞N̛͝o͝—s̶̢̨͢͜͜͞͞t̴̵̸͢͜͜͢͡ǫ̸̶͝͡͡͞͡n̨̡͢͢͡͞͞͠e̸͘͘͜͜͜͜͠͞?
Blade—
S͘͞͡o̷͢͞m̢͜͢e̴͡͠t̢͜͞h̶̛͡i̵͘͡n̨͢͞g̢̕͘ ͝͡͞m͘͠͝o͢͡v̶͝͝e̶̛͡d͡͞͝ ͢͝͝i͡͞n͜͢s͢͝͡i͡͝d̕͜͠e͠͞͠ ͜͞t͝͞h͢͡e͝͝ ͢͠l̷͝͝i͜͞g͢͝h͡͞t͠͝.͝͞
Vibration again—
J͘͞͡o̷͢͞i͢͡͝n̢͜͞t͘͞͡e͝͡͠d͞͝ ͠͞w̶͝͝r͡͞o͞͝͞n͞͝g͝͞.͝͞—
Black trees…
B͡͞r̶͞͝i͜͝s̶͝͝t͞͡l͝͞e͜͝s͞͝ ͠͞o͜͞f͝͞ ͝͞t͞͝h͝͞r͝͞e͞͝a͝͞d͞͝ ͜͞a͞͝n͝͞d͝͞ ͞t͞͝e͞͝e͞͝t͞͝h͞͝ ͝͞o͜͞f͝͞ ͝͞g͝͞l͝͞a͝͞s͝͞s͝͞.͞
...͜͝͠b̷̡͜e̢͟͡͞a̕͠͞͡t͏̴͜͠?̡͜͡
Golden Silk—
The ground trembled upward.
Light folded inward again, dragging her sight with it.
Silence.
Her ribs rattled with it, a vibration instead of sound. Every nerve humming a note she couldn't hear.
The silence bled.
Then screamed in reverse.
Her blade shook—its edge screamed like cut glass.
For an instant she saw it—eight points of light forming and unforming, a web trying to remember how to exist, then the image folded, replaced by the hiss of white noise.
What… Did I strike?
The answer slid away before thought could hold it. Only the smell remained—burnt silk and ozone.
When she looked again, the forest was still. Her armour steamed. The canopy trembled as if the forest exhaled.
She felt watched, and yet utterly alone.
Then she noticed it.
Parts of her vision were gone—no, not her vision. Texture itself had vanished.
The tree beside her, a whole chunk of trunk—had disappeared. She slid her blade across it and met resistance. The trunk was physically still there, but her blade's edge was not.
Interesting… A creature that plays with perception—and its own existence.
Behind her, the silk began to hum in vibration, a sound she did not hear but remembered.
This fight is annoying…
She sighed, retracted her blade back into a shard. She lifted herself off the ground, gliding just above the earth.
Light blipped into existence around her. Lumeris's constellations drew themselves along invisible Essence grids—condensing, spinning, tightening their orbits. She pulled herself inward, smaller, denser.
Constellation of Lumeris.
For a heartbeat, the air held.
Then she snapped outward—the constellations detonated in starlight, erasing everything nearby.
Black bark, dead leaves and silk had been ripped apart by her radiant light.
The ground was eviscerated.
Something so beautiful, yet so deadly.
She let out a sigh, her bones rattled. The use of numerous high-tier arts in one day consumed a large amount of her Vitalis.
She glanced at her surroundings and spotted something peculiar.
A shadow bite gouged the earth, like texture failed to exist—eight, maybe ten legs, a swollen lower mass, a grotesque upper mouth, a being of wrongness. Its shape almost made sense but came with an uncanniness about it.
Maybe that is why it hunted through perception—as if existence itself did not want to host it. Of course, only until other beings acknowledged it.
Allowing thought to give itself shape.
Auriel scanned the area. The forest was dead, no life persisted here.
The previous silk was no more, a concept that erased itself with its host.
Now only the quiet existed.
Auriel had enough, and finally shot back into the sky.
Now, where did that trail go…
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
There it is again…
That smell.
Sweetness drifting on the air, faint, warm, and wholly out of place.
Chicken?
Auriel slowed her flight. The scent carried her gaze down to a clearing where the forest broke open. A scar carved into the land. Earth torn, stone bitten black, and at its centre, a small cabin sat half-buried in shadow.
An explorer's amusement escaped her lips.
"What do we have here…"
She descended in silence. Her boots met the ground with a whisper that barely disturbed the dust.
She took in her surroundings.
The ground beneath her was wrong—glossy, mirror-black, like cooled glass after impact. Her steps clicked softly as metal met it.
Suddenly the air changed.
Frost crept over her greaves, breath ghosting white.
A frozen tree rose at the heart of the scar, its branches reaching outwards towards the warmth it could no longer find. Frost crawled up its trunk in delicate spirals, blooming like veins of captured lightning.
Her eyes narrowed.
Tilting her head, she peered inside its heart. She sensed a pulse locked within, faint but rhythmic. Something not of this world.
It's an Opening, she thought.
And it's active.
Her mind sharpened. Heliandor would need to know. It had to be contained before the tear widened.
But then she felt something else—faint, subtle, laced through the frost.
Luminary Essence twisted by human Vitalis.
It was something she could sense, now she was more entwined with her own.
Someone had been here.
And their signature… was familiar.
Her gaze lifted to the cabin beyond the scar.
Question is… who caused it?
…
Wood let out a sigh of a creak as her boots softly landed. She stood at the cabin's entrance.
She pressed a hand to the door and stepped inside.
Inside was still, yet warm. A fire had been tended recently, slight remnants of ash clung to the air.
The space was humble, one chair, one bed, a desk, everything a traveller needed was present.
Near the end lay a young man, sprawled on his back, utterly oblivious to the outside world.
She went to take a step but then hesitated,
Wait… am I breaking into someone's home?
She blinked, then shrugged.
…It's fine, h-he's suspicious.
She stepped lightly as she moved through the room. She peeked at the desk to her left, a journal, worn, stained by water or even blood.
Her curiosity won.
She pried it open.
Pages flipped, notes on terrain. Local fauna. Ruins and cave exploration notes.
Nothing tugged at her, a little intrigued but she had seen more than most did.
Another page flipped by.
Then stopped.
Her finger glided along words that caught her eye.
'Ancient Temple.'
'I found it!'
Light flicked dangerously in her eyes. Her expression hardened. Heat steamed. Aura murderous.
A blade of starlight coalesced in her hands, smaller, a shortsword. It hummed with restrained heat.
Each step she took towards the napping figure, the more her Aura thrummed louder—a rising pulse of judgment and duty.
But just before she reached him, she stopped.
Something shifted, the blade wavered, then folded back into its shard form.
She felt it again—that same resonance from before.
A pulse of Vitalis unlike any mortal's, washing from him in gentle, perfect rhythm. It bent the Luminary Essence around him as though the two were dancing.
Impossible.
Her breath caught.
"...Stars."
Why does this man… Feel like the stars?
She knelt, drawn closer despite herself. The sensation was too familiar, too intimate to ignore.
Like my Astral Weave. Like Father…
The word escaped before she could stop it.
"Father?"
Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide.
No. Impossible.
Only ones given Inheritance of Dawn can give off this feeling.
She studied his face in the dim glow. The features were soft, unguarded—utterly human.
"A mere man wouldn't be able to retrieve the stardust necessary," she whispered, "let alone bind it to his own being…"
If Father felt this, he'd… Her hands trembled slightly.
She knelt, bringing her face closer.
…Who are you?
The journal still lay open, the ink drying on the word Temple.
An Opening not far from his door.
A resonance that felt like home.
Too much coincidence for chance.
Auriel's thoughts drifted backward.
I remember…
Mother told me stories when I was little, stories as old as the oldest Seraphels.
Passed down as fairy tales. Of beings that fell from the heavens like sparks made form.
The legends say they drove away the Tyrants who ruled for a thousand years. Who began the Dynasties, giving land to the many races that fought under them.
The old name rose unbidden.
Fallen stars
…
She rested her head atop her arm, eyes lingering on the peaceful figure. Luminary light played around him. Invisible to most, but alive to her.
Her heart paced, stomach knotted.
Handsome. Mysterious. Presence of the stars. Radiant eyes
Mother… I think I found him, my—wait, eyes?
Two dark blue pupils stared back at her. Glowing faintly, saturated with Vitalis.
They absorbed her light, illuminating the many glittering sparks within.
"…uh," he murmured.
"…um—" she echoed.
Their eyes locked, both staring in confusion.
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——