The stars no longer sang.
Ayshia's breath fluttered, shallow as a wind-drifted feather. Her chest rose against the weight of centuries — sleep woven by prophecy, sealed in crystal flame. She lay suspended in a floating shard of her ancestral palace, Starlonia, its marble cracked and dusted in moon ash.
The sky was no longer golden.
Where once a constellation river flowed above, now only fractured stars blinked like broken memories. The light had dimmed. The constellations... were fading.
Ayshia stirred.
Her lashes fluttered open, revealing eyes like twin novas — glowing softly in magenta and silver. Her hair, a tumble of dark starlight threaded with comet gold, clung to her cheek as she sat up slowly in the crystal cradle.
"Where—" Her voice cracked, dry as old parchment. "Where is everyone?"
Silence.
Not even the dragons roared anymore.
Her vision sharpened as the dormant energy in her core flared to life. She could feel it — a faint hum, buried deep under rubble and time. The Ruby of Honor, her birthright, her curse, her key.
It was calling to her.
She looked down at her chest. The pendant was gone. The ruby wasn't where it should be — nestled against her heart, burning with duty. Panic stabbed through her like a frost comet.
Then came the echo — a vision, quick and bright as lightning behind her eyes.
A boy, cloaked in smoke, eyes like dying suns. Holding her ruby. Bleeding from the palm.
"Find me," he whispered in her mind. "Before they do."
Ayshia staggered to her feet.
The ruby was no longer in Starlonia. That much was clear. And whoever had it… was tied to her blood.
Far below, in the cursed lands of Bloodfang, a boy awoke at the same time.
Ni-ki sat upright in his stone chamber, crimson light pulsing through the veins in his arms. His fangs itched — not from hunger, but from memory. His hands trembled.
He had seen her again.
The girl with dragon horns and starlight eyes. The one who bled fire in his dreams. He'd seen her before. A thousand times. But this time… it felt real.
He looked down at the ruby in his hand — hers, not his. And yet, somehow… it burned only for him.
Back in the shattered ruins, Ayshia stepped barefoot onto the floating platform of her fallen palace, her magenta eyes fixed on the horizon.
Starlonia had collapsed.
The Realms were dying.
But she was awake now — and her ruby, her realm, her truth… they would all be restored.
Even if it meant breaking the stars themselves.
And far, far below… Ni-ki whispered her name. A name he didn't know he remembered.
"Ayshia."
END OF CHAPTER