Light faded slowly, leaving behind the faint echo of wind. When my vision cleared, I realized we were no longer in the forest. The ground beneath us was smooth stone, marked with faint silver patterns that pulsed like veins of light. Above, a vast sky stretched endlessly, filled with drifting fragments of shattered constellations.
We had arrived at the Starfall Gate.
The air here was strange. Heavy, yet weightless. I could hear the faint hum of celestial energy resonating through the ground. Aster stepped forward first, his gaze sharp, scanning every shadow.
"This place… it feels wrong," he muttered. "Like something ancient is watching."
I followed his gaze. Towering ahead of us was an enormous archway carved from crystal and black stone. The center of the arch shimmered with a swirling light, like a mirror of the cosmos itself. But it flickered, unstable, as if it hadn't been touched in centuries.
"It's broken," I said softly.
Aster knelt, brushing his fingers against the runes etched along the base. "Or sealed."
As he spoke, a faint whisper reached my ears. It wasn't in words, but in tones a melody of stars, faint and distant. My mark responded to it, glowing through the fabric of my sleeve. The same light spread across the arch, following the rhythm of that unseen song.
Aster noticed. "Erian, stop if it hurts."
"It doesn't," I whispered, though my chest ached with a strange familiarity. "It feels like… it's calling me."
Before he could reply, the Gate pulsed. The ground trembled, dust lifting in a slow spiral. The constellations above shifted, aligning into a single pattern a wolf of silver stars howling toward a broken moon.
The mark on my hand blazed. A voice filled my mind, clear and cold.
Descendant of Lumis, bearer of the fallen light. The Gate does not open for the lost.
I staggered back. Aster caught me by the arm instantly. "Erian, what happened?"
I looked up at him, my breath unsteady. "It spoke to me."
"Spoke?"
"The Gate. It recognized me… and rejected me."
The runes dimmed again, returning to silence. Aster's expression hardened, frustration and worry flickering in his eyes. "Then we'll find another way."
I wanted to believe him. But deep inside, I could still feel the echo of that voice. It wasn't anger. It was grief. As if something within the Gate remembered me and mourned what I had become.
We set up camp a short distance away, beneath a half-collapsed pillar that once bore celestial engravings. The air shimmered faintly with residual energy, casting soft silver light over us. I sat in silence, watching Aster light a small fire with practiced precision.
He glanced at me after a while. "You've been quiet."
"I'm trying to understand," I said. "That place… it didn't just reject me. It pitied me."
He didn't answer immediately. Then, in a rare softness, he said, "Maybe it sees something you can't."
I turned toward him. "And what do you see?"
Aster's eyes met mine, unwavering. "Someone who carries too much alone."
For a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire. His words lingered in the air, heavy and gentle all at once. I wanted to say something, but the sky above us began to shift again.
A faint beam of light descended from the shattered stars, striking the center of the Gate. The air shimmered, and in that glow, a figure appeared a translucent silhouette, familiar and distant all at once.
It was her.
The woman from my dreams. The one whose voice echoed whenever the mark flared.
"Erian Talos," she said softly, her voice layered with echoes of a thousand stars. "You were never meant to return here."
Aster rose instantly, standing between us, but the spirit didn't move closer. She simply looked at me, sorrow in her eyes.
"You carry the fragment of Lumis. The light that defied the heavens. But if you wish to live, you must forget who you were."
Her words froze the air around us. I felt my heartbeat in my throat. "Forget?"
She nodded slowly. "The Gate remembers what the world has forgotten. And if it recognizes your soul again… it will unmake you."
The vision began to fade, dissolving into starlight. Her last words lingered, carried by the wind.
"Run while you still can."
When the light vanished, silence returned. The Gate stood dormant once more, but something inside it had changed. Its faint hum now pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Aster placed a hand on my shoulder. "We're not running."
I looked at him, unsure whether to feel comforted or afraid.
He smiled faintly, though it didn't reach his eyes. "If the stars are your enemy, then we'll learn how to fight the sky itself."