The palace balcony stretched into the night like a forgotten promise; moonlight fractured on its marble skin. Maria stood alone, a silhouette carved from shadow and silence. Her breath was thin. Her limbs ached from hunger and unrest.
She hadn't eaten.
Hadn't slept.
The stars once her companions had gone mute. But her back still burned.
Beneath her skin, the sigil pulsed. A brand of memory. Of magic. Of something she had not asked for. It throbbed like a wound that refused to close. She clutched the railing with trembling hands, knuckles white, fighting to breathe.
Then, A shift.
Not footsteps.
Not wind.
Something older. A presence that folded space like silk.
She turned.
And he was there.
Vaelith.
He stepped from the dark like it belonged to him. His cloak, midnight laced with dying starlight, trailed behind him like smoke from a fallen comet. His eyes shimmered not with warmth but with dusk, destruction, and something far more dangerous.
"You shouldn't be here," Maria said. Her voice was ragged, cracked open by truths she couldn't bear.
Vaelith moved forward. Slow. Certain. His gaze never left hers.
"I go where you burn," he murmured, voice like ash and velvet.
"And you've been burning a long time, little star."
Her body tensed. A flicker of rage danced beneath her ribs.
"You..." she hissed. "You did this to me. You set this fire inside me. You gave me this name, this ache, this curse. What did you do to me?"
Vaelith's jaw tightened, pain slipping across his features like a shadow.
"I set you free."
"You cursed me!" she snapped.
"I reminded you."
Her voice cracked, wounded and raw. "Then why do I remember lives I never lived? Faces I've never seen? Why does my heart break for moments that never happened? Whose love was that? Whose sorrow?"
Vaelith stepped closer. She recoiled, pressing her spine against the stone wall, cold biting into her skin.
"Yours," he said simply. "All of it. It was always yours. You just... forgot."
"I don't want to be her," she whispered.
"But you are," he said, his voice a prayer and a curse. "You always have been."
"Stay away from me," she warned, her tone shaking like glass on the edge of shattering.
He stopped. His next words came like falling embers.
"I won't hurt you. I never meant to. I didn't do this to you... this is you. And gods help me; I can't stay away from you anymore."
She shook her head violently, eyes wide with disbelief, tears hot and unspilled. "No no, I won't be your story. I won't be your ruin."
Vaelith reached out.
And kissed her.
It wasn't soft.
It wasn't slow.
It was desperation made flesh. Possessive. Ancient. Like he'd waited across centuries and refused to wait another second. And the moment his lips met hers
Time broke.
Memories ignited like stars:
Her fingers laced with his beneath a silver sky.
Her laughter echoing across galaxies.
His voice, low and fierce: "You're the only thing I ever wanted to steal."
The moment she fell, bleeding starlight, choosing Earth over eternity.
His scream when she left.
Maria tore herself away, gasping.
She screamed.
And then
Darkness took her.
She collapsed, cradled in shadows, stars behind her eyes.
Vaelith caught her before she hit the stone.
He knelt, cradling her like something breakable, something precious.
His fingers brushed the hair from her damp forehead.
"They stole you from me," he whispered, voice like crushed ash.
"The stars, the council, this world. But I remember every version of you.
And I still love all of them."
He scooped her up, carried her through the shadowed corridors to her private chamber.
Laid her gently on the bed, folding her trembling hands over her chest.
Then, kneeling beside her, he began to tell her a story.
"You once loved the sea.
You said it reminded you of space endless, aching, alive.
You said I was too loud. But I was never trying to be the sky.
I was just trying to be your gravity."
Then
Footsteps.
Sharp.
Measured.
A queen's tread.
Vaelith vanished just before the door opened.
Kai hadn't been sleeping.
Every night: the same dream.
A cliff made of stars. A figure at its edge. Armor like molten gold. The universe rippling behind him.
It was his face.
But not.
Older. Brighter. Woven from something divine and ruinous.
"You are more than a shadow," the voice whispered.
"Kaelen's divine blood."
He woke each time gasping, drenched in sweat.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
He told Mina he needed air.
Instead, he walked the palace's pulse deeper than the ballrooms, older than the throne until he reached the royal archives.
Scrolls whispered overhead. Dust clung to marble floors. Every corridor hummed like it remembered voices from before time.
He wasn't sure what he was looking for.
Only that it was pulling him.
At the far end, behind a tapestry stitched with constellations, he found it.
A forgotten room. Silent. Starlit.
And in its center: a statue.
A warrior carved of obsidian and gold, clad in armor laced with sigils so old they seemed to breathe.
His eyes
Kai's eyes.
His heart stuttered.
He stepped closer.
Beneath the statue lay a sword encased in glass. The blade shimmered, dulled by dust and memory.
An inscription carved in faded runes:
General Kaelen
of the Starfall Rebellion
Betrayer.
Savior.
Blood of the Sky.
Kai pressed his palm to the glass.
The sword glowed.
Just once. Briefly.
But only when he thought of her.
"Miiiiiinaaa! Where are you?" Kai called, voice echoing off cold stone.
A crash rang out.
"I'm fine!" came Mina's voice from somewhere behind a shelf. "Just tripped over a statue of someone's ego."
She appeared, hair slightly singed, sleeves half-rolled, and Noko perched dramatically on her shoulder like a smug, celestial squirrel-gremlin.
Kai stared. "You brought Noko into the archives?"
Mina blinked, all fake innocence.
"He followed me. I think he's evolving. Earlier he turned invisible and hissed at a flower."
Kai frowned. "A... flower?"
Mina shuddered. "A black rose. Looked dead. Smelled cursed. Felt wrong."
Noko gave a proud little chitter, his tail puffing like starlight smoke.
Then poof.
Gone.
His eyes glowed.
And he vanished.
Mina and Kai stared at the space he'd been.
"That's... new," Mina said flatly.
Kai turned slowly back to the sword.
It pulsed again faint but definite.
Like it recognized something.
"I don't think we're bystanders anymore," Kai murmured.
"We're part of this."
Mina tilted her head, thoughtful. "Kai... do you think these prophecies only mean the glowy chosen star people?"
He arched a brow. "What else would they mean?"
She grinned. "Maybe they also mean the clever mortals constantly saving their radiant butts."
Kai actually smiled.
"I think you might be the prophecy's biggest surprise."
Poof.
Noko reappeared.
Proudly holding an ancient scroll in his mouth.
Mina's smile fell. "Noko. No. That's probably cursed or oh gods, you're EATING it"
Kai snatched the scroll gently from the creature's teeth. It shimmered faintly, like it had been waiting.
He shook his head.
Some heroes wield swords, he thought.
Some wield chaos.
The palace hall was packed.
Not just with Aurelis nobles but with envoys and emissaries from every major realm:
The Flame-Riders of Solkara
The Icebound Lords of Valcaris
The Emerald Seers of the Deepwood
The Storm-Queens of Mirael
Banners fluttered. Voices clashed.
Everyone wanted the same thing:
Answers.
"We heard a goddess walks again. Is she to be crowned?"
"Will her power tip the balance of the treaties?"
"Will Aurelis claim dominion over all realms?"
"If she rises... who must kneel?"
Queen Eleanor stood pale, unreadable.
Seraphina stiff, perfect held her posture like a blade unsheathed.
And Maria?
Maria sat off to the side of the dais, her skin glowing faintly like star-heat beneath the surface. She stared at her hands like they weren't hers. Like they might explode again.
"You should speak," Seraphina hissed through clenched teeth.
Maria shook her head. "No. I can't. You're the trained one"
"They didn't come for me."
"I don't even know what I am," Maria whispered.
Seraphina's jaw tightened. "Then figure it out. Fast."
Suddenly a new voice rang out.
Smooth. Soft. Sharp. Smiling.
"Perhaps I can offer an answer."
Heads turned.
At the far end of the great hall, a figure stepped through the golden doors:
Lord Maeron.
Draped in silver-black. Eyes like dusk.
He walked like silence. Like he belonged to every shadow in the room.
Gasps. Chaos. Guards surged forward. Queen Eleanor rose sharply.
He bowed, slow and dangerous.
"After all," he said, eyes gleaming, "I've known her longer than any of you."
The room froze.
Maria's heart slammed in her chest.
Not from fear.
From recognition.
She didn't need to remember all of it.
She just needed to hear him say her name in that voice.
As he stepped closer, Maria rose unsteady, breath ragged.
"Lord Maeron," the queen began.
"No," Maria whispered.
Her voice was barely audible. But he heard her.
"That's not his name."
He smiled. Not like a politician. Not like a noble.
Like a god who had waited too long.
"Say it," she whispered.
He looked at her softly. Sadly.
"Vaelith," he said.
And the memory split her open.
Stars. Flame. A kiss in a collapsing sky.
The first time she died. The last time he held her.
He turned to the court and offered words wrapped in velvet:
Alliances. Warnings. Prophecies.
But his eyes never left Maria.
And long before the queen could object
Long before Seraphina could hiss a warning
Long before Kai would grip his blade in instinct
Maria knew:
This wasn't about power.
This wasn't about thrones.
This was the war of memory.
The battle of love that once broke the heavens in two.
She had loved him once.
And he had never let her go.
Now the stars were watching.
And the future their future shifted quietly into place.
Because no matter what mask he wore.
No matter what name he chose.
Vaelith had returned.
And this time...
He wasn't leaving without her.
The silence cracked like glass.
Then chaos.
Dozens of voices erupted at once:
"Did he say Vaelith?"
"The ancient god?"
"Impossible!"
"That's not real he's a myth!"
"I knew something smelled fishy! No mortal looks like that without a pact!"
"Wait he's her old flame? HER FLAME?!"
"I need air. Someone fan me, I'm dying"
A Storm-Queen from Mirael fainted into her consort's arms.
The Emerald Seer dropped her scrying bowl, shards spinning across the floor.
One of the Flame-Riders unsheathed a blade but the steel sang in fear and melted in his hands.
Queen Eleanor's face drained of blood.
Seraphina rozen.
And Mariastood blinking at him as if seeing a ghost and a god all at once.
A Valcarin lord stepped forward, voice dripping disbelief.
"You expect us to believe this... creature is Vaelith? The fallen god of flame and ruin? A myth used to scare fledgling mages?"
Vaelith smiled. Slowly.
It wasn't warm.
It wasn't reassuring.
It was the kind of smile carved into forbidden temples.
He laughed once low, ancient, amused.
"Frightening how much you forget... and yet still fear."
The hall fell silent.
He tilted his head.
"I'm not here to reclaim old thrones. I gave those up long ago.
I'm only here... for her."
His eyes found Maria again.
Gasps rippled again.
One older priestess from Solkara whispered:
"But Vaelith died. In the Great Sundering. He fell into the Astral Veil..."
Maria's voice cracked.
"He found a way back."
The Icebound Lord shouted:
"Then we're doomed! If gods are crawling out of the Veil what happens next? Does the sky fall? Do the dead walk?"
The queen slammed her hand on the throne arm.
"Enough!"
But it was too late.
The fear had teeth.
The air buzzed with magic and dread.
And as Vaelith turned and ascended the dais graceful, untouchable he murmured low, only for Maria:
"They fear me.
But they'll fear you more... once you remember."