Age 6, Ashborn Estate, Veyra Empire.
Snow blanketed the marble courtyard of House Ashborn, defying autumn's final breath.
Kalel stood barefoot on frost-bitten tiles, rigid, fists clenched. Above, the pale sky was washed in steel-gray clouds. Behind him, the great oaken doors of the ancestral hall creaked open, revealing nobles, retainers, and soldiers in black and silver.
His bloodline had assembled, not to celebrate him, but to confirm him.
"He doesn't look nervous," someone whispered.
"Maybe he's too young," another replied.
They were wrong.
Today was his Awakening Day, the rite where a child's Star affinity would manifest. For centuries, it defined the future of every noble born on Aurora. One Star, one path, one destiny.
Each sibling had awakened before seven. His eldest sister called the Star of Lightning, his brother the Star of Earth, and the youngest, only ten now, bonded with Water. All had sparked, glowed, roared.
He would be the last.
If he failed—if the family's oracle saw only white again—he'd be cast aside quietly, methodically, as Ashborns dealt with imperfection.
His father, Lord Caelum Ashborn, stepped forward. A tall, stone-faced man in ceremonial robes shimmering with a faint golden thread, a sign of Dominion Mastery. His expression never shifted when he met Kalel's eyes.
"Kneel."
Kalel obeyed.
The ritual circle, inscribed in the frost, had ten concentric rings, each etched with runes representing the Known Stars: elemental fire, lightning, ice, earth, nature, metal, shadow, light, wind, and water.
At the center, a blank circle, an uninscribed void, the place of No Star.
He studied it a thousand times.
As the oracle emerged, a frail woman with a copper staff and cataract-laced eyes, Kalel stared forward, breathing evenly, heart beating slowly.
The oracle approached, placing the staff tip against his chest.
"Let the heavens bear witness," she intoned, her voice soft and ritual-thick. "Let the path of Stellaris reveal itself to the child who kneels."
The wind stilled, the frost trembled, and then… nothing.
No flame, no spark, no resonance. Only silence and white.
The crowd murmured, his sisters looked away, his brother smirked, his father closed his eyes.
The oracle stepped back, whispering, "No color, no sound, just… white again."
Again.
The word echoed.
Kalel stood. The ceremony was over.
He turned, not because he was told to, but because he had seen enough. No anger, no desperate plea. Only a strange heaviness in his chest, like a secret trying to breathe beneath stone.
He didn't cry. He wouldn't give them that.
As he passed the watching nobles, he caught a flash of movement to his left—a boy, older than him by perhaps four years, hiding behind a pillar with a crooked smile.
"Starless freak," the boy mouthed.
Kalel stared at him, not in anger, but in curiosity.
Why do they all believe what they see is all that exists?
He didn't have the words, but the feeling was already forming.
This world was built on assumptions, and his emptiness was a flaw in their perfect equations.
The weight of their silence followed him like a second skin as he passed beneath the archway of the ancestral courtyard. No one spoke to him.
No one touched his shoulder, no servant offered a warm cloth, and even the silent household guards seemed to turn slightly, saying: you are not one of us anymore.
The ceremony ended, but the verdict echoed: "No star," "Born of Ashborn blood and still—nothing," "A hollow."
In Lord Caelum Ashborn's private chamber, he stood before the hearth, arms folded. The fire crackled, but its warmth never touched his eyes.
He said nothing for a long time. His wife, Kalel's mother, Lady Elowen, watched him from a shadowed corner, twisting the hem of her sleeve nervously.
"It could be a rare case," she offered softly. "A delayed bond. The Origin—"
"There is no Origin Star," Caelum cut in, his voice sharp. "It's a myth. A relic of pre-Stellaris folklore. Like most weak minds, you're grasping at legend to excuse failure."
He turned slowly. "We expected a flame, a storm, even shadow would've been acceptable. But white? A blank core?"
Lady Elowen said nothing. They both knew what this meant. The Ashborn name could not carry a child without a star, especially not in the eyes of the other Veyran houses. Politics were fracturing, the empire was watching, and now this disgrace was their youngest son.
"He is not to attend council dinners," Caelum said. "He will not train with the household tutors. Keep him within the South Wing, out of sight and rumor."
Elowen bowed her head, and Caelum turned back to the fire. "We'll bury the shame with silence."
Behind a thick velvet curtain, four pairs of eyes watched Kalel cross the courtyard below.
Cassandra, the eldest, narrowed her gaze. She awoke to the Star of Lightning at eight and already held minor command over their father's eastern legion. To her, weakness was worse.
"He shouldn't wear our name," Rowan, the second-born and next heir, smirked cruelly.
"Maybe we should make him a house pet. I hear talentless beasts can be trained to beg," Lyra, the third-born, said nothing, her eyes flickering with discomfort.
Sylen, only two years older than Kalel, stared longest. He was the only one who hadn't spoken.
"Why didn't the stars choose him?"
No one answered. They didn't know.
Word spread faster than wildfire. By dawn, every noble court in the Veyra Empire received a sealed missive bearing the Ashborn crest and the damning phrase: Kalel D. Ashborn—no star resonance detected.
Reactions varied. Some whispered behind their wine glasses, others laughed openly. A few strategists sharpened their pens, knowing that a noble family with a blemish could be moved.
The Seers of Caelum Academy read the report in silence, sharing a single glance.
"White core, you say? Again?" one murmured.
But the record was archived, the name stamped: Unawakened. Invalid. The world moved on, except for one.
Ashborn South Wing – Kalel's Quarters
The South Wing was colder than the rest of the estate, atmospherically. No paintings adorned the walls, and no guards patrolled. It was a space meant for utility, not memory.
Kalel's room was small. Stone walls, a narrow bed, a single writing desk, and a window overlooking the western mountain pass.
He sat on the bed, bare feet tucked beneath him, still wearing his ceremonial tunic.
Hours passed.
He hasn't spoken since the ritual.
He hadn't cried either.
The others would have wept. Would have cursed. Would have screamed into pillows or hurled vases. But Kalel simply sat. Silent. Processing.
He traced the spot on his chest where the oracle's staff had touched him. It didn't hurt. But it felt… hollow.
Or was it pressure?
It was hard to tell.
They say the stars rejected me, he thought.
But what if they simply don't understand what I am?
He had never believed in myths—not like the other children who collected stories of old heroes and divine spirits—but there was something about that blank circle at the center of the ritual ring.
Something no one ever explained.
Why include a circle for no Star?
Unless it wasn't for nothing.
Perhaps it was for something else.
The First Flicker
That night, while the estate slept and snow descended, Kalel lay awake, staring at the ceiling beams.
The air shifted. Frost rearranged on the window, forming a spiral of twenty stars orbiting a blank center.
A soft, hollow pulse echoed through his chest, like a breath never released.
The room dimmed into colorless silence. Kalel blinked, startled, not afraid, just aware.
It vanished. Frost reformed. Night resumed.
Something stirred within him.
No sparks, no fire. Just a quiet pulse beneath the silence.
Not chosen, he thought. Just waiting.
The next morning arrived pale and slow.
Light filtered through Kalel's narrow window, diffused through frost. The spiral of stars was gone, but its image burned into his thoughts.
He hadn't slept. Not from fear or restlessness, but something refused to close its eyes. Like a door left open, something still listening, waiting to be noticed.
Kalel rose from bed, indifferent to the cold stone floor. He dressed in the plain, ash-gray tunic, not the soft silks his siblings wore.
He climbed onto the stool by the writing desk and retrieved a bound sketchbook, a gift from an older servant. It was the only possession in the room that felt truly his. The pages were mostly blank, save for geometric diagrams, crude attempts at the House sigil, and a charcoal map of the estate grounds.
He turned to the next page and drew twenty dots, an uneven spiral orbiting inward toward an untouched central space. He didn't shade it in, unable to. The void demanded to remain white.
He stared at it, finding no meaning, no grand insight. Just instinct, a pattern from something deeper, like muscle or bone.
He closed the journal, slid it back into the drawer, and stood.
In the courtyard, he heard his brother training, the clash of weapons, the bark of instructors. No one had summoned him, but he smiled, a small, imperceptible curl of the lip. Not amusement or joy, but understanding.
He wasn't chosen by the stars. He was something else. When the stars finally noticed him, when the world looked inward, he wouldn't need their blessing. Only time.
Far Above, beyond mortal sight, the Stars watched. Ten burned with elemental rhythm, ten pulsed with conceptual power. But one, a pale white core spinning in silence, waited. Undetected, undisturbed, but not asleep. A pulse echoed outward—not toward the world, but toward him.