The peace lasted exactly forty-seven days.
On the forty-eighth morning, a rider came from the far west. One horse, half-dead with exhaustion, no banner. The man collapsed at the palace gates clutching a black iron box no bigger than a heart.
Star and Elandor were in the small council chamber when the box was brought in. The rider had died before he could speak, but his last act had been to carve a single word into the box lid with his dagger: RUN.
Inside lay a crown.
Not gold. Not silver. Black iron, ancient, pitted, thorns twisted inward so any wearer would bleed. A single red gem sat at the front like a drop of frozen blood.
Advisor Thorne (mask still perfect, voice calm as winter) broke the silence.
"It is the Shadow Crown of the Old Kings. Worn only once in recorded history… by King Maevor the Mad, three centuries ago. The chronicles say he forged it from the iron of a fallen star and bound it with blood magic older than the kingdom itself. He ruled for seven years of terror before his own twin sister cut his throat and buried the crown in an unmarked grave."
Elandor's hand found Star's under the table, grip tight.
"And now it is here," he said flatly. "Why?"
Thorne laid a second object on the table: a letter sealed with black wax. The seal was a serpent eating its own tail.
The letter was short.
To the Star-Bound King and his Consort of Earth,
The realm you saved is a lie.
The true throne awakens.
Wear the crown or watch everything burn.
Seven moons remain.
It was signed with a single initial: M.
Star felt the temperature in the room drop.
"M," he repeated. "Not Varyn. Not the rebels."
Thorne's masked face turned toward him.
"Someone older," he said quietly. "Someone who believes the prophecy you broke was only the first verse."
That night, in the cottage room, Star and Elandor sat on the floor with the iron crown between them like a sleeping viper.
"I'm not wearing that thing," Star said.
"I know." Elandor's voice was hoarse. He hadn't slept since the box arrived. "But whoever sent it knows exactly who we are. Knows about the blood we spilled to cheat the prophecy. They're coming for us."
Star picked up the crown. It was heavier than it looked, cold as a grave.
"There's something inside," he said suddenly.
He turned it over. Etched on the inner band, almost invisible, were tiny words in a language he didn't know. But the mark flared the instant he read them, white-hot pain lancing through his shoulder.
He dropped the crown with a gasp.
Elandor caught him before he hit the floor.
"Star!"
"I'm fine," Star panted, but he wasn't. The pain ebbed slowly, leaving behind a single clear image burned into his mind: a woman with silver hair and eyes the color of fresh blood, standing in a circle of standing stones under a sky split by green fire.
And a name.
"Maevor's twin," Star whispered. "She didn't die. She's been waiting."
Elandor's arms tightened around him.
"Then we find her first."
Star looked at the crown, then at the man he loved more than life.
"Together," he said.
"Always," Elandor answered.
Outside, the first moon of seven began its slow rise.
A new war was coming.
One written in older blood than either of them had ever spilled.
And this time, the enemy wore a face no history book remembered.