The stars no longer shone with the clarity they once had. Aelric stood at the edge of a narrow causeway of floating obsidian plates, suspended in a void of shifting constellations. The only illumination came from pale strands of starlight that laced the air, bending and warping like the current of some unseen cosmic sea.
Behind him, Nyara padded forward in silence, her silver fur dulled in the strange twilight. Caldus and Thane trailed not far, each keeping their distance, as though the weight of the place had drawn a silence even their worn camaraderie couldn't breach.
Before them stood the Tower Between Stars.
It wasn't built so much as revealed—its surface smooth as onyx, its shape defying gravity, appearing both impossibly tall and yet curled inward. Segments of the tower floated disjointedly, as though caught mid-collapse, held together by invisible threads of light.
"This place…" Thane muttered, voice tight. "It feels wrong."
Caldus nodded, his voice grave. "It was never made for us. This is starborn ground."
Aelric said nothing. The pull was unmistakable. Since crossing the Mirror Sky, a fragment of something ancient had stirred inside him—memories that weren't his own. Names he had never heard whispered through the cracks in his mind. And always… always the pull toward this place.
Nyara stopped beside him and gazed up at the tower with a strange mixture of wariness and reverence. "The Trial of Stars continues. This is not the end. Only another passage."
Aelric swallowed and stepped forward.
The Gate of Memory
The first threshold was unlike any door. As Aelric approached, the wall before him shimmered and bent, revealing an aperture of starlight that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The moment he crossed it, the world vanished.
He found himself standing in the midst of a barren battlefield. But this was not a memory of his—it was something older.
Armies of light and shadow clashed around him. Great beings of fire and star-iron howled against creatures made of void and despair. The sky burned, twisted by power beyond mortal understanding.
In the midst of it stood a single figure: tall, radiant, marked by the same crest that Aelric bore around his neck.
The First Starborn.
The figure turned—and its eyes met Aelric's.
"You are not ready," it said.
The battlefield dissolved.
Fragmented Rooms
The Tower was a maze of impossible architecture. Each floor existed within its own bubble of time and space. One chamber echoed with the laughter of children who weren't there. Another was filled with shelves upon shelves of blank tomes, and when Caldus opened one, he swore it whispered his name.
Thane entered a room of mirrors—each reflecting not the body but the soul. He staggered out moments later, silent and pale, refusing to speak of what he saw.
Aelric, however, was drawn deeper.
Each level of the Tower tested not his strength, but his spirit. The Trial of Stars was never about conquest. It was about acceptance—of power, of legacy, of loss.
He saw visions of his mother, standing at the edge of their village, watching a younger Aelric run through wildflowers.
He saw himself in the Hollow Star again, surrounded by silent watchers.
He saw Veyla—her hand reaching through the blackness of her prison, her voice echoing a plea he could not answer.
In each vision, a choice was offered.
In each, he refused the easy path.
The Chamber of Echoes
Near the Tower's apex, the group reached a vast chamber filled with floating shards of crystal. Each shard played back fragments of their lives. Laughter, sorrow, betrayal—moments pulled from memory and trapped in song.
Nyara paused at one. It showed her with a younger Aelric, asleep beside a riverbank, starlight flowing around them both. A mother's protectiveness stirred in her eyes.
"I remember this," she whispered. "Before the burden grew."
Caldus stared at a shard that reflected his father—stern, proud, always disappointed. His hand trembled as he reached out but didn't touch it.
Thane found no shard for himself. Instead, a void where his reflection should be. "I never had a moment that belonged to me," he said quietly. "Not really."
Aelric's shard floated highest, unreachable. It flickered with images he didn't yet recognize—a silver crown, a starship adrift, a broken sword lying in sand.
"We're nearing the core," he said.
Nyara nodded. "And you're nearing your truth."
The Flame Between Stars
The heart of the Tower was neither room nor chamber—it was an open sky.
Here, Aelric stood alone. The others had vanished behind veils of light.
A figure emerged from the far side of the horizon: robed in shimmering stardust, face obscured by a shifting veil. When it spoke, it was with Aelric's voice—and every voice he'd ever heard.
"You carry the stars. But do you know why they chose you?"
"I don't," Aelric admitted. "But I carry them still."
"Then face the flame. Not the flame of fire—but the flame of knowledge."
A spiral of stars erupted around him, and from them, a final trial began.
He relived every moment of his journey—every failure, every death he could not prevent. Morvath's sneer. Veyla's screams. The emptiness of the Hollow Star. The temptation to stop, to let go, to drift into the void.
But then came the memories of strength.
Liora's laughter.
Thalin's calm certainty.
Cal's stubborn loyalty.
Nyara's quiet faith.
And his own—his refusal to surrender, even when all light seemed lost.
In that moment, the flame did not consume him.
It crowned him.
Descent and Revelation
When Aelric reappeared, the Tower began to unravel. The starlight bled upward into the sky, and the obsidian floors cracked and dissolved. The others gathered near the base, eyes wide as he approached.
"Aelric?" Thane asked, blinking against the glow now emanating from him.
"I saw the first path," Aelric said. "But not the last."
Nyara bowed her head slightly. "The Trial is passed. But the road is endless."
Behind them, the Tower collapsed into a river of stars, flowing into the void above.
From its remnants, a map etched itself into the sky—constellations forming paths that led beyond known lands, to places unmarked and unnamed.
Into the Unknown
As the group camped beneath the hollow sky, Aelric studied the pattern above. He could feel it—more than instinct, more than magic. A truth buried in starlight.
"There are other Towers," he said. "Beyond the Shattered Reaches. Beyond the Emberlands. One waits in the drowned ruins of Elarion. Another in the skyborne isles of Myrr. And the last… I can't see it. It's hidden."
Caldus stirred the fire. "Then we follow where the stars lead?"
Aelric nodded. "We do. Because this world is not the only one in danger."
As he spoke, the air shifted.
A flicker.
A ripple in the edge of sight.
And far above, beyond even the stars—something watched.
Unseen.
Waiting...
~to be continued