The night was unnervingly quiet.
The kind of quiet that pressed in around you like a second skin—too still, too perfect. Even the owls had ceased their calls, and the forest outside the Black Bulls' hideout seemed to hold its breath.
Astra lay in bed, hands folded over her stomach, eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling. Moonlight bled through the small round window above her head, painting soft blue patterns on the stone walls. Her breath was slow, shallow, and barely visible in the pale glow.
Sleep refused to come.
Not because of the sparring. Not because of Noelle's eyes—sharp, silver, curious. And not because of the way her chest had fluttered when their hands brushed over shared tea on the courtyard wall.
It was because she'd felt something.
A tether—thin, silvery, uninvited—pulling at her soul again. The kind she hadn't felt in years. Not since the Eclipse.
She sat up, slowly, letting her feet touch the cold stone floor. Her grimoire stirred beside the bed, pulsing faintly with pale violet light, almost like it sensed her anxiety.
She extended a hand.
The grimoire obeyed, floating toward her and opening of its own accord. The pages rustled like leaves in windless air, flipping one after another in silence until it stopped—on a blank page.
Only, it wasn't blank for long.
Silver fire bled into the parchment, elegant and serpentine. The letters wrote themselves, one by one, with graceful malice.
"I saw your battle."
"You haven't forgotten. Your stars still answer."
"Come home, Astra. Before you become like them."
— S.
The room grew colder.
Astra's breath caught. Not in fear, but something close—something deeper. Her fingers trembled as they hovered just above the ink, unwilling to touch, afraid it might burn or vanish. The handwriting was unmistakable: poised, perfect, predatory.
Selene.
Her sister in blood, not in name.
She hadn't heard from her since the day she fled the Eclipse Coven. Since she'd cast a forbidden spell to sever the shared tether they were born with. Since she'd chosen her own path—a path away from darkness, away from Selene's smile of knives.
Astra whispered, "You shouldn't be able to reach me."
But Selene had always been clever.
The stars around Astra's magic weren't just fuel. They were conduits—windows into the weave of space, time, and soul. Selene had once said that if you look through the stars long enough, something will always look back.
Astra stared at the message.
The fire from the letters pulsed—once. Faintly. Like a heartbeat.
She clenched her jaw and exhaled slowly.
I'm not yours anymore.
The words didn't appear in the book. The page remained the same. But she didn't expect it to respond. Selene's messages were always one-sided—like prayers from a god who didn't care if you answered.
But this wasn't just a message.
It was a warning.
Astra reached out, flipping the page back to blank. She focused her mana into the paper, willing the spell to fade, to erase it.
Nothing happened.
Instead, a second message burned into existence underneath the first.
"You still carry her name."
"You still carry my magic."
Astra stood abruptly, her chair scraping slightly across the stone. Her mana surged instinctively in response, her shadow lengthening behind her like a cloak made of smoke.
The air around her thrummed with gravitational distortion. Her grimoire closed itself, hovering at her side like a loyal wolf ready to defend.
For a moment, she considered it.
Destroying the page.
Burning the ink with starlight until not even ash remained.
But she didn't.
She stared down at the silver script and felt an old, familiar chill crawl up her spine.
Because she knew what this meant.
Selene was getting bolder. Stronger.
She wasn't just watching.
She was calling her back.
And worse than that—she believed Astra would eventually come.
She left her room and padded quietly through the dim halls of the hideout. Only a few magical lanterns still glowed faintly, casting soft golden light along the stone corridors. Most of the squad was asleep.
But one door was still cracked open.
A soft bluish light spilled from within.
Astra paused, then knocked gently.
Noelle looked up from where she sat at her desk, reading a weathered book about mana compression. Her long silver hair spilled over her shoulder, catching the light like moonlight on water.
"You're still up," Astra said.
"I could say the same to you," Noelle replied, setting the book down.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Then Noelle tilted her head.
"You okay?"
Astra hesitated.
Something flickered in her chest—a part of her screaming to stay silent, to shield, to push away. But there was another voice, softer, newer, rising inside her.
She took a step inside.
"I got a message," she said quietly. "From someone I thought I'd buried."
Noelle's posture shifted—less like a noble, more like a friend. She motioned toward the edge of the bed.
Astra sat down.
"She used to call me her twin," Astra said. "Not by blood. But by power. We were raised together. Trained together. In the Eclipse Coven."
Noelle's eyes widened slightly, but she didn't interrupt.
"Her name is Selene. She's... not just a mage. She's something else now. Something void-born. She believes magic is meant to unmake the world—to return it to silence."
"And you escaped?"
"I broke the tether," Astra whispered. "I severed the soul-link between us. Or I thought I had."
Noelle was silent for a moment. Then she said, "You're not her. Whatever she wants, it doesn't define you."
Astra looked down at her hands, pale and steady.
"She knows I'm here," she said. "She's watching. She wants me to return. And I don't know how long I can ignore her."
Noelle reached out—hesitantly, then firmly—and placed her hand over Astra's.
Warmth. Grounding.
"Then we face her together," she said.
Astra blinked.
Not because of the words.
But because she realized—for the first time in years—she wasn't alone in the dark.