The mountain winds whispered like ancient voices.
Aelric stood alone upon the sky-bridge, carved high into the peaks of Liraeth's Crown, where clouds drifted below his feet like a sea of ghosts. The stone beneath him was cracked and weathered—each fracture a memory, each groove carved by time and sorrow. Somewhere beyond the mists, the stars churned restlessly behind a veil of stormlight, hidden yet waiting.
Behind him, the others waited at the Temple of Silent Ash.
He breathed in cold air sharp enough to sting his lungs. The trials behind him—the Mirror Sky, the Lantern Below, the Starfire Labyrinth—had changed him. He felt it in the marrow of his bones. Not stronger in the way of muscle or blade, but clearer. More open. And, paradoxically, more uncertain.
The Oath of Twilight was unlike any other rite in the Trial of Stars. It wasn't meant to be passed or failed. It was meant to test the truths one carried deep within—truths not easily seen in daylight.
And he had many.
As he turned, the clouds parted, revealing the ancient archway where his companions waited. Nyriel stood with arms crossed, her eyes watchful and unreadable. Caelum, ever curious, traced runes carved along the threshold, his breath fogging in the cold. And Lira, silent and steady, knelt with sword resting across her lap, whispering a quiet prayer to a goddess long since vanished.
Aelric approached them, cloak trailing behind him like shadow.
"You're certain you're ready?" Nyriel asked, her voice low.
"No," he said, "but that's not what matters."
She gave him the smallest of nods, as if that answer—unflinching in its honesty—was proof enough.
Caelum spoke without looking up. "The Twilight Gate hasn't been opened in a thousand years. Not since the last Starborn walked these paths."
"It recognizes his blood," Lira said quietly. "That's enough."
The stone trembled beneath their feet. Aelric stepped toward the gate, where the twin statues of star-wrought guardians stood watch—faceless and cloaked in veils of obsidian.
He placed his hand upon the cold surface.
The gate answered.
Not with light.
But with silence.
The Chamber Beyond
Inside was not what he expected.
There was no chamber of crystal, no hidden council of celestial judges. There was only a long corridor of dusklight, winding endlessly through a twilight realm where the sun never rose and the moon never waned.
Here, time stood still.
The corridor pulsed with quiet thought. Not words, not speech—but memory. Echoes. As if the very walls remembered those who had come before and bore witness to every vow, every regret, every betrayal.
Aelric walked, boots soft against the dustless path.
He passed mirrors without reflections. Doors that led nowhere. Murals that moved only when unobserved. And then, finally, the end—a circular platform surrounded by ten columns of light, each one etched with star-script he could barely read.
A figure waited for him.
Not cloaked in darkness.
But clad in twilight.
The being was tall, neither male nor female, its face veiled in strands of shadowlight. When it spoke, it did so in Aelric's own voice.
"Do you seek to lead, or to flee?"
He blinked, unsure. "I don't understand."
The figure turned its head slowly. "Then that is your answer."
Trials Within the Trial
From the columns emerged forms—faceless versions of himself.
One bearing a sword and fury: the rage he had carried since Brannor's fall.
Another with empty eyes: the apathy that had tempted him in the Hollow Star.
A third, trembling with fear: the doubt he'd never voiced aloud.
They came at him—not with blades, but with questions.
"Why do you fight, Aelric?"
"Whose cause do you serve?"
"Is it truly your will that guides you, or their hope that binds you?"
The battle was not physical.
It was choice.
One by one, he faced them. Not by slaying them, but by listening—acknowledging. He admitted his rage, and forgave it. He saw his doubt, and accepted it. He named his fear, and carried it forward.
And when all three forms bowed their heads and vanished, the figure in twilight spoke again.
"You are not the first to walk this path," it said. "But you may be the last who walks it alone."
Aelric looked up. "Then I won't walk alone. Not anymore."
Outside the Gate
Nyriel felt it first.
A ripple in the stars.
She turned skyward, where constellations flickered unnaturally, as though watching. "He's doing it," she whispered.
Caelum stepped beside her. "Completing the Oath?"
"No," Lira answered, rising. "Becoming it."
They waited in silence, each feeling the tremor in their own way.
Then, with a gust of wind that tasted of starlight and ash, the Twilight Gate opened once more.
Aelric stepped through.
His eyes had changed.
They were the same blue, but deeper now—like oceans reflecting night. His presence was quieter, but not smaller. It felt like standing near the edge of something infinite.
"The Oath is sworn," he said simply.
No one questioned it.
The Binding of Stars
That night, as they made camp on the ledge above the Temple, Aelric sat apart, staring up at the heavens.
Nyriel approached quietly, wrapping a scarf tighter against the cold.
"You've changed," she said.
"I know."
"Will you tell us what happened?"
He paused, then shook his head. "Not yet."
She accepted that.
But not without question. "What now?"
Aelric reached into his satchel and withdrew a new fragment—a shard of obsidian infused with light. The last trial had given it to him, though he did not know how or when.
"There's a place called Myrrhale," he said. "West of the Glass Vales. It wasn't on any of Thalen's maps."
Nyriel frowned. "Why go there?"
He hesitated, then answered with the quiet weight of intuition. "Because something's calling."
A Distant Place, A Closer Threat
Far away, across black oceans and scorched tundra, something stirred.
In a chamber of black iron and withered stars, a figure kneeled before a shadowed throne.
"She passed the Gate," the voice said. "And the boy lives."
The shadow shifted. "Then we move ahead of schedule."
The kneeling figure looked up. "Even without the Tethered Flame?"
The shadow chuckled. "The boy carries the flame unknowingly. Soon, he will be drawn to what he fears. And when he arrives—so will I."
The figure bowed lower. "As you will it, my lord."
Outside, the dead sky opened—and a single red star bled across the horizon.
Myrrhale and the Shattered Choir
At dawn, Aelric's group broke camp. The wind carried hints of a song none of them could hear fully—an ancient hum, rising from the west.
As they crossed into the vale beyond the ridge, a strange glow lit the clouds ahead.
It was not fire.
Nor moonlight.
But something older. Something broken. A city cradled in the roots of an impossible tree. And above it, a choir of voices shattered the morning with silence.
Aelric turned to his companions, eyes steady.
"The journey begins again."
And the stars, once more, began to fall.
~to be continued