The morning fog clung to the stone roads like a secret. Orion stood at the edge of the village, the sun crawling over the rooftops behind him. Selene's mark glowed faintly beneath his hood, and the crescent shimmer on his eye caught the first light of day.
He didn't turn back.
His boots pressed into the dirt with purpose, every step peeling him away from the only home he'd ever known. Isol had hugged him once—tight and silent. Amelia had kissed his forehead, whispered something too quiet to remember, her hands trembling around his.
Now, the road stretched empty ahead of him. Until it didn't.
She was already waiting on the trail.
A girl leaned against a wooden signpost just beyond the tree line, arms crossed. Her cloak was slate-blue, trimmed with silver thread. A rapier hung at her hip like a whisper made of steel.
"I figured you'd be taller," she said, not unkindly.
Orion blinked. "Do I… know you?"
"No," she said. "But everyone talks about you. Orion, the boy born with a star already glowing. Half the kids in Lithonia think you're cursed. The other half think you're going to be king of the stars."
He stiffened. "And which half are you in?"
"I think you look tired," she said. "You headed to the Academy?"
Orion nodded slowly.
"Good," she said. "So am I."
They walked side by side in silence for a while. Birds called high in the trees, and the road twisted gently through the forest.
"I'm Iris," she offered eventually. She tugged back the sleeve on her left arm, revealing a glowing mark like a swirl of song—not quite a circle, not quite a line, but vibrating faintly in the air. "Chosen by the Star of Sound. Mara."
Orion eyed the mark. "What does sound give you?"
She grinned, tapping her temple. "Perception. Echoes. Music, sometimes. Mara lets me hear things people don't want heard. And if I really listen… even stone sings back."
A pause. Then Orion looked forward again. "My star isn't like that."
"No?"
"It's quiet. Watching. Sometimes I feel like I didn't choose it. Like it just… picked me. And I don't know if I ever wanted it."
Iris didn't respond right away. She looked up at the swaying trees. The wind stirred the leaves like the plucking of strings.
Then, softly:
"None of us had a choice."
By midday, the sun pressed down hot through the trees. The path narrowed into uneven ground, roots clawing up through the earth like bony fingers.
Iris walked ahead now, the tip of her rapier tapping lightly against her thigh. Her beautiful black hair shimmered in the light, the strands swaying just past her neck and barely brushing the upper length of her back. There was a kind of focus to her movements—measured and graceful, like her body followed a rhythm only she could hear.
She was humming softly again, the tune airy and low, carried gently on the breeze. Orion didn't recognize the song, but there was something steadying in it—like her voice knew how to quiet the world.
Orion watched her for a moment, silent.. The way she carried herself reminded him of still water—calm on the surface, but with something deeper underneath. Not cautious, exactly. Just… composed.
He adjusted the strap of his bag and finally said, "That song. Do you sing it often?"
Iris looked back at him with a small smile. "It's old. My mother used to hum it when storms hit the coast. Said it helped the wind remember how to be gentle."
"That's a strange thing to say."
"She was a strange woman."
Orion chuckled under his breath, then hesitated. "It's nice."
"Thanks," Iris replied, then pointed ahead. "Keep your eyes sharp. The old roads here cross into wildland. Sometimes starless things linger."
He glanced at her forearm, at the mark of Mara gleaming faintly like a ring of echoing lines. "You talk like you've traveled alone before."
"I haven't," she said. "But I've listened. You pick up a lot when people think you're just background noise."
Orion felt the weight of his own mark—the crescent still faintly aglow around his eye. The attention it drew. The whispers it left in every place he walked. He didn't answer at first.
Eventually, he muttered, "Sometimes I wish people didn't see me at all."
Iris slowed her pace. "Because of your star?"
He nodded. "It was never supposed to be mine. I didn't ask for it. Sometimes it feels like... like I stole someone else's fate."
For a moment, Iris was quiet. Her rapier hung loosely at her side. Then she said, softly, "None of us had a choice, Orion. But we still have to carry it."
He met her eyes. There was no pity in them—just understanding.
Then a sharp crack echoed through the woods ahead. Both of them stopped, the air shifting, heavy and tense.
The trees no longer whispered.
The sharp crack split again—closer this time. The trees trembled, and something moved in the brush. Not heavy… but wrong. Off-rhythm.
Then they saw it.
Emerging from between the trunks was a creature of shifting shape and translucent skin, pulsing faintly with colorless light. It looked like it was made of half-formed glass, as if reality itself had tried to sculpt a predator but gave up halfway. Its eyes—if they could be called that—glimmered like cracks in a mirror, each one reflecting twisted fragments of Orion and Iris back at them.
"What is that?" Orion breathed.
"A Star Echo," Iris said grimly. "Formed when a fallen star's presence warps the wilds. It's feeding off old power."
The creature lunged without warning, its form rippling as it moved unnaturally fast. Orion barely dodged the swipe—its limb cutting the bark clean off a tree behind him with a screech.
Iris drew her rapier, silver flashing. "It mimics sound. Don't let it catch your rhythm."
"What does that mean?"
Before she could answer, the Echofang struck again—this time shrieking in a distorted harmony. It moved in a blur, its limbs warping and folding like blades of wind.
Orion raised a crescent wall of moonlight just in time, the shimmering veil of Selene's power absorbing the blow.
Iris stepped in, darting beneath the beast with practiced grace, her rapier slashing a shallow line across its side. A discordant note rang out—like a bell cracked mid-chime. The creature flinched.
"It feels sound," she shouted to Orion. "We confuse it!"
He narrowed his eyes. "Then let's mess with its ears."
She thrust a hand toward the sky, drawing a burst of sound that rang across the land. At the same time, Orion stabbed the ground with the point of his blade—sending a small pulse of moonlight in the soil. The Echofang shrieked, spinning on itself, confused between light and tone.
Orion rushed forward, his eyes glowing silver-blue. He struck with his sword glowing with moonlight—sharp and precise. Iris flanked, dancing in and out like a note just beyond reach.
It twisted. It screamed. But they didn't let up.
Together, they tore through the creature's rhythm—until it shattered, bursting into a wave of colorless light that fizzled into nothing.
Silence returned.
The trees resumed their whispering.
Orion stood breathing hard, one hand glowing faintly. "You were incredible."
Iris spun her rapier once and slid it back to her side. "So were you. That was more than moonlight."
He looked at her—at her confidence, her calm. "That's the first of many dangers, I'm starting to think it's not so bad... not walking this road alone."
She smiled. "Told you. We carry it better when we don't carry it alone."
The fire crackled low between them, its flickering light chasing shadows across the trees. They'd set up camp just off the path, nestled against an outcrop of stone where the wind didn't reach. Orion leaned back against his rolled pack, staring into the flame as it ate through the last of the pine kindling.
Iris sat cross-legged opposite him, sharpening her rapier with quiet, deliberate strokes. The metallic rasp wasn't loud, but it filled the silence like a metronome.
Neither of them had said much since the Star Echo fell.
Orion watched the sparks swirl up into the night air. "What was that thing, really?"
Iris glanced up. "The Star Echo?"
He nodded.
"It's what happens when a star falls and doesn't die or get bonded with. The ground remembers. The air remembers. Everything nearby twists until it can't be called real anymore." She slid her blade back into its sheath. "They don't happen often. Not unless something is wrong."
Orion looked down at his hands. The mark near his eye still faintly glimmered, like a heartbeat. "Do they teach that at the Academy?"
"Some of it," she said. "The rest… you hear in whispers. In the way upper students talk about the Trials. About those who fail."
He looked up. "Fail?"
"Not everyone makes it through. You're not just there to learn. You're there to prove your star didn't waste itself."
Orion frowned. "That sounds—"
"Cruel?" she finished. "Yeah. It is."
She reached out and tossed a dry twig into the fire. It snapped loudly in the flames.
"I knew someone who was chosen two years ago. A boy from the west. His star was Flame—Brann, I think. He wrote home for the first three months. Said it was hard, but he was getting stronger. Then the letters stopped."
"What happened to him?"
"They said he left. That he wasn't ready."
She paused. The fire danced in her eyes, casting long shadows across her face.
"But his parents never got a last letter. His star went dark. And no one speaks his name anymore."
Orion felt the air thicken. The fire crackled on, suddenly too loud.
"So you still want to go?" he asked, voice low.
"I have to," she said. "Don't you?"
He stared into the fire, thinking of Amelia's trembling hands, of Isol's silence. Of Selene, ever-watching. Of the boy he once saw in a vision, with eyes full of hunger and stars that didn't belong to him.
"I think I'm afraid of what I'll find," he said.
Iris leaned back against a tree trunk, folding her arms behind her head. "Then you're already smarter than most."
The silence returned, but it felt different now. Not awkward. Just… full. The way sound lingers after a song ends.
Orion laid down, resting his head on his arm. Above them, stars winked into view—sharp and cold.
He wasn't sure which one was Selene.
But he felt her. Watching, waiting.
And for the first time in a long while, he wasn't entirely alone with the weight of her light.
The fire had long since dwindled to embers. The trees stood still, their leaves hushed in sleep. Orion's eyes fluttered closed, and the world softened into dark.
Then he was standing in a silver mist.
The forest was gone—replaced by a wide, endless sea of stars. The ground beneath his feet shimmered like moonlit water, yet held firm. All around him, constellations twisted slowly in motion, singing a song too ancient to understand.
He knew this place.
He'd been here once before—just after Selene first stirred.
Now, she waited for him again.
A figure stood across from him, cloaked in flowing silver and draped in veils of light. Her face was not fully seen, as always, but her presence was unmistakable: calm, radiant, vast.
"Selene," Orion whispered.
She inclined her head, the light of her form rippling through the starlit space. Her voice echoed directly in his mind, no louder than a breath.
"You are changing, little moon."
Orion stepped forward. "We fought something today. Something broken. But I used your light. And… my sword. I think I understand it better now."
She lifted a hand—and where her light touched the air, a sword appeared.
It hovered before him.
Slender, elegant, forged in a silver-blue starmetal that shimmered like moonlight on still water. The crescent-shaped guard curled like a cradle of night, and lunar runes faintly etched into the blade pulsed as if alive.
Lunaris.
"It was made for balance," Selene said, voice soft as dusk. "Not power. Not destruction. A sword that reflects rather than devours. Like the moon reflects the sun."
Orion stepped closer, reaching out. The moment his fingers touched the hilt, he felt it: a low hum, not of strength—but of clarity. It wasn't a weapon made to conquer. It was made to cut through lies.
He tightened his grip.
"I think I'm ready."
A pause.
Then Selene turned—not away, but toward something distant.
"You are not the only one who carries weight."
In the void behind her, a shape began to form.
Not a star. Not a constellation. A memory.
A girl stood in a rain-soaked courtyard. Younger. Hair matted. A man shouted something cruel beyond the gate. She didn't flinch. Just stared at the ground, fists clenched at her sides.
Orion recognized the curve of her shoulders, the dark shimmer of her hair—cut shorter then.
Iris.
"What is this?" he asked, throat tight.
Selene didn't answer at first.
"She carries a song older than you know. Taught by silence. Sharpened by loss."
The memory flickered. The man vanished. Iris remained, staring up at the storm, her rapier held not in triumph—but defiance.
"She walks beside you now, but she has walked through fire alone."
The image faded, and Orion found himself alone again in the stars.
Selene's light drifted closer.
"When the time comes, remember this: not all songs are sung. Some are endured."
And with that, the stars folded inward—rushing toward his chest like a tidal wave of moonlight—
---
He woke up with a gasp.
The fire had long since died. The sky was just beginning to lighten, the first whispers of dawn stretching across the trees.
Iris still slept, arms crossed, back against the same tree. Her face was calm, but her brow was faintly creased.
Orion looked down at his pack.
There it was—his sword, lying beside it. The crescent-shaped guard catching the faintest glint of morning.
Lunaris.
He reached for it gently, running his fingers along the hilt.
"Balance," he murmured. "Reflection. Not power."
A breath.
And for the first time… it felt like his.
The forest softened as the sun rose. Mist lingered in the trees, curling like breath around the branches, but it no longer felt like something hiding things. It just felt quiet. Calm.
Orion walked beside Iris, his hand resting near the hilt of Lunaris. The blade no longer hummed with the urgency of last night's fight, but it hadn't dulled either. He could feel Selene faintly now—present but distant, like the moon behind daylight.
Iris walked with her rapier on her hip, a skip in her step that didn't quite match the exhaustion beneath her eyes.
"Your sword," she said giggling, looking at Lunaris. "You named it?"
Orion didn't look at her, just gave the smallest shake of his head. "She named herself."
There was a pause, then Iris hummed thoughtfully. "Fitting."
He arched a brow, curious. "Why?"
She smirked. "It suits you. Silent. Pretty. And probably dangerous if I'm not paying attention."
Orion blinked at her, caught off guard. His mouth opened like he might argue—but then closed again. He looked away instead, ears tinged with faint pink.
She chuckled.
They followed the curve of the dirt path, boots brushing through dew-covered grass. A bird called in the distance, and somewhere nearby, water trickled over stones.
For a while, they said nothing.
Eventually, Orion spoke again—quieter this time. "I don't know what I'm walking toward."
"I don't either," Iris replied. "But we're walking. That has to mean something."
He glanced at her, and for once, she wasn't teasing. She was just… there. Steady.
Orion looked ahead again. The road was long. The Academy is still distant. But he wasn't alone.
And that was new.