In Aurelis, the royal gardens were a place where the mortal and divine had once brushed fingertips long before the throne, before the sigils, before the fall.
Tonight, they remembered.
The night-bloom roses bent toward Maria as she passed. She no longer touched them; she was learning. Her power didn't need her hands it answered her heartbeat.
She stood at the center of the moonlit garden, staring at the reflection of herself in the black pond.
Her reflection shimmered. Shifted. For a heartbeat, it was not Maria's face staring back
but Aurelieth's.
Golden-eyed. Star born.
She staggered back, breath shaking.
I didn't ask for this.
I didn't want this.
"That's the thing about destiny," a voice murmured behind her.
"It doesn't care what you want."
She turned sharply.
Vaelith stepped out of the shadows, but not lazily, not gracefully
urgently.
Eyes burning. Hands clenched.
"You're changing too fast," he said.
"You're not ready."
She backed away.
"And you care why?"
He exhaled hard, as if the words hurt.
"Because if you cross the veil before you remember everything... you won't survive it."
"You keep saying you knew me, loved me but you never tell me what you really want."
He took a trembling step forward.
"I want you to live, Maria."
"Not as a goddess. Not as a weapon.
As you."
She flinched.
"And you think you get to decide who that is?"
His voice broke.
"I want you to remember before they take you from me again."
"Who?"
"The conclave." His voice dropped to a whisper. "The council that cast you down. They will come for you. They will come for all of us."
Suddenly, his hands were at her shoulders. His touch sparked, light flaring beneath her skin.
"You think I'm here to steal you back? To seduce you?
I'm here because I know what's coming, and if you don't claim what you are fully, completely they will erase you."
"Get away from her."
The words cut through the air like a blade.
But this time, Kai didn't stand at the edge of the garden like a jealous knight.
This time, he strode forward.
Golden armor gleamed.
Sword drawn.
"You're done whispering in her ear,"
Vaelith's eyes sharpened, not with fear but with something darker.
"Finally ready to play hero, Kai?
Tell me, did you dream of her too?
Did she haunt your sleep, your thoughts, your blood?"
Kai stopped at Maria's side, hand brushing hers just briefly
steadying her.
"She's not yours to haunt," Kai said, voice low.
"Not anymore."
Maria lifted her chin.
"I'm not anyone's."
The power surged through her, burning gold at her fingertips.
The roses flared with light.
The pond rippled.
The garden trembled.
"I am Maria.
I am Aulieth.
I am both.
And I choose who I stand with."
Vaelith smiled faintly, but his eyes glimmered with pain.
"Then choose carefully, little star.
Because when the council comes...
they will not let you stand with mortals."
Without waiting for an answer, he vanished
not slinking into the shadows,
but burning into them, like a star collapsing inward.
And in the stillness that followed, Maria's hands trembled.
Kai reached for her.
"Maria..."
But she stepped back, hugging herself, eyes wide.
"I remember...
I remember everything."
Above them, the stars began to realign.
The constellations twisted, reshaped.
The heavens were stirring.
And the gods were watching.
At the throne hall steps, a cloaked figure knelt.
"For Aulieth," he said. "Test me. Or kill me. But let me see your light."
He offered her a blade of bone and starlight.
"What is this?" Maria asked.
"Proof. The old stories say Aulieth would never spill innocent blood. Prove it. Refuse me."
Maria took the blade. Held it in trembling hands.
"I'm not Aulieth," she whispered.
"But you could be. That's enough for us."
She turned. Handed the blade to a guard. "Let him go."
The hall erupted in murmurs. A priest near the door whispered, "She showed mercy. It's her. It's truly her."
The whispers became prayers.
And Maria's light flickered brighter.
Before the earth knew kings, before the skies bowed to prayers, there was Aurelith.
Light-borne. Star-shod. The goddess of dawn and mercy.
And Vaelith.
Fire-born. Night-wrapped. The prince of destruction, shadow, and flame.
They were not enemies.
Not at first.
In the Hall of Echoed Suns, the gods had gathered.
Their laughter sparked comets.
Their feasts lit new stars.
But when Vaelith entered
the air burned.
Columns cracked.
Even the boldest turned their eyes away.
He moved like war made flesh, a smile sharp as obsidian.
And wherever he walked, goddesses fell at his feet.
Except one.
Aurelith.
Who sat by the edge of the hall, weaving light into constellations,
ignoring him.
"You never look at me."
His voice was silk over fire.
She didn't glance up.
"I see you just fine."
He stepped closer.
"They all beg for my touch. You, the brightest, the softest you look away."
Her fingers tightened on the threads of starlight.
"Because I have work to do, Vaelith. Because the world needs tending, and you only want to burn it."
He laughed softly, crouching before her.
"You speak of the world like it's yours to hold.
But even the earth will bow to fire."
Her eyes lifted, steady and glowing.
"Not mine to hold.
Mine to protect."
He reached out
a hand traced with shadow, aching to touch her cheek.
She flinched.
The room hushed.
"Aurelith." His voice was raw now.
"You don't have to choose.
You could love me and the world."
Tears blurred her light.
"No, Vaelith.
Because you don't love the world.
You love me.
And you would set the sky on fire just to have me."
His jaw tightened. His eyes glowed.
The floor beneath them cracked, scorched black.
She stepped back, voice trembling.
"I love the earth, Vaelith.
Its people. Its fragile beauty.
I love it too much to let you near it."
Behind them, the other celestials whispered.
Some in pity.
Some in rage.
"You chose the mortals," Vaelith spat.
"Over me."
She wept and her tears became the first rain.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"I will love you...
but only from afar."
Vaelith roared
and the heavens cracked open.
And so, she fell.
Cast down by a council who feared her love.
Shattered by a god who wanted her whole.
Reborn into a world she once guarded
but cursed to never remember why she wept when the stars touched her skin.
The chamber beneath the palace wasn't built by mortals.
No chisels had ever touched its mirrored obsidian walls. No fire had blackened its vaulted ceiling where constellations moved of their own accord, blinking like the eyes of sleeping gods.
Only one being stood within.
Virelya, Keeper of the Flamepaths.
She didn't shimmer like stars. She burned quietly.
Her robes whispered like ancient hymns, spun from the breath of dying suns.
She had waited here for hours though time didn't move in this place.
The moment the goddess would cross the threshold, she would feel it.
And then, she did.
Light brushed the far archway. A shimmer. A ripple. A girl with star-touched veins entered wearing human fear like a second skin.
Maria.
But Virelya did not bow. She did not call her name.
She simply watched.
"I thought you might come," the celestial said gently.
Maria stepped forward slowly, gaze caught on the ceiling on the ever-turning constellations.
"This place... I've seen it before," Maria whispered. "In dreams. In the corners of mirrors. In water."
"You were born here," Virelya replied. "Or rather... Aulieth was."
Maria flinched at the name.
But Virelya did not soften.
"They're whispering again," Maria murmured. "Calling me light. Calling me salvation."
She looked down at her hands.
"I don't want to be a goddess."
Virelya finally moved. Not to comfort. But to stand beside her.
She tilted her head, watching the girl she had once tended in infancy back when stars still wept freely.
"Then be something else," Virelya said. "But know this: he is watching."
Maria stiffened.
"Vaelith," she whispered.
"He is not love," Virelya said. "He is longing. And longing when denied devours."
A long silence stretched between them.
Maria looked up at her. "You knew me... before all this."
"I held your light in my hands," Virelya said, eyes flickering. "I fed you milk spun from moons. I braided your laughter into star-chimes. But I also helped cast you down."
"Why?" Maria's voice cracked.
"Because we were afraid."
There it was.
The truth, laid bare between them.
"Afraid you'd choose love over us. Afraid of what the earth would mean to a star." Virelya turned toward the mirrored wall. "And you did."
"Would you stop me again?" Maria asked.
Virelya's voice was a whisper.
"No. But others will try. The Council. The Conclave. Even the stars themselves."
Maria said nothing.
Only her breath fogged the mirrored floor.
Then Virelya stepped closer, and pressed something into her palm.
A crystal dull, cracked, barely pulsing.
"The last piece of what you were before," she said. "It's yours to awaken, or bury."
Maria closed her fingers around it.
"I'm afraid."
"So was the sky," Virelya murmured, "when it first touched the earth."
And for a moment, the stars stilled watching the girl who was no longer only mortal, but not yet divine.