Time was a thick syrup, dripping slowly toward the promised horizon of his second year. Five months remained.
The days had settled into a comfortable rhythm of observation and physical calibration. Stars spent his mornings testing the tensile strength of his toys and his afternoons listening to the cadence of his parents' speech, extracting syntax and vocabulary like a miner panning for gold.
It was late afternoon when the tranquility shattered.
He was in the drawing room, seated on a velvet rug between Ariel and Darran. It was a rare moment of domestic idleness. Darran was turning the pages of a leather-bound ledger, while Ariel was building a tower of blocks for Stars to inevitably dismantle. The air was warm, smelling of dried lavender and the wood polish used on the grand furniture.
Then came the knock.
It was not the polite tap of a maid, nor the rhythmic rap of a guard. It was a singular, heavy thud that vibrated through the heavy oak doors, as if someone had checked a swing just before impact.
Greyson entered before the echo had died. The Head Butler's face was impassive, but Stars noted a subtle tightness around his eyes, a microscopic shift in his usual calm.
"Patriarch," Greyson announced, stepping aside. "The Second Master has arrived."
A man strode into the room, and to Stars' enhanced perception, the temperature in the chamber seemed to spike by ten degrees.
He was younger than Darran, perhaps by three or four years. He possessed the same sharp jawline and the same dark hair of the Myers line, but where Darran kept his hair cropped and orderly, this man's was windblown, falling over his forehead. He wore riding leathers dusted with the pale clay of the road, and a heavy cloak that swirled around his ankles with kinetic energy.
"First Elder Brother," the man boomed, his voice a rough tenor that filled the room. He didn't bow; he grinned, a feral, bright expression that showed too many teeth.
"Chris," Darran said. He didn't look up from his book immediately, but the tension in his shoulders evaporated. "You made good time."
"I rode three horses into the ground," Chris laughed, stripping off his gloves.
Stars stared at the newcomer. The data retrieval systems in his mind spun, pulling up a corrupted, hazy file from nineteen months ago. The Banquet. This face was there. A blur of laughter and wine, leaning over the cradle.
Chris Myers. his Uncle.
But it was not the relation that fascinated Stars; it was the feeling of him.
If Greyson was a controlled candle flame, and the maid was a flickering spark, Chris Myers was a forest fire. The energy radiating from him was undisciplined, loud, and scorching. Stars could almost see the heat shimmering off his skin, a blazing fury that felt capable of melting the stone walls. It was power, raw and unrefined, and it was terrifyingly vast.
Stars shifted his gaze to Greyson. The Butler, who had seemed so formidable before, now looked like a mere shadow compared to this blazing sun.
Then, Stars looked at his father.
He expected to see something similar. Darran was the Patriarch. He was the "First Elder Brother." Logic dictated he should be a larger fire.
But when Stars looked at Darran, he saw... nothing.
It was a sensory void. Darran sat in his chair, turning a page with agonizing slowness. There was no heat. There was no vibration. There was no fluctuation in the air. He was a black hole in the room's energy map.
Stars felt a chill race down his small spine. The blazing fury of Uncle Chris he could understand; it was physics amplified. But his father? His father was the ocean at night—still, silent, and impossibly, terrifyingly deep. It was a strength so absolute it didn't need to leak out. It was the stillness of a mountain that knows the wind cannot move it.
"And who is this?" Chris's voice pulled Stars from his analysis.
The younger man dropped to one knee, bringing his face level with Stars. Up close, the heat was palpable. His eyes were bright, dancing with a chaotic energy.
"He has grown," Chris said, tilting his head. "And he is staring at me like he's trying to calculate my weight."
"He is observant," Ariel said, her voice a soothing balm against the jagged energy Chris brought into the room. "Be gentle, Chris. He is not one of your soldiers."
Chris laughed again, a bark of sound. "Gentle? Look at those eyes, sister-in-law. There is no fear there.
Just... assessment."
He reached out and tapped Stars on the nose. The finger was rough, calloused from the hilt of a sword.
"You're a unique one, aren't you?" Chris whispered. "I can feel it. You'll be a pillar, little nephew. Sturdier than the rest of us. Maybe even strong enough to hold up the sky one day."
He stood up abruptly, the playful demeanor vanishing like smoke in a gale. He turned to Darran, his posture stiffening.
"Brother. The pleasantries must wait."
Darran finally closed his book. The sound was soft, but it silenced the room. "The summons?"
"Issued this morning," Chris said, his voice dropping to a growl. "From the Council of Elders. We have a breach."
Stars' ears perked up.
"Where?" Darran asked.
"The East of the Cyart Kingdom," Chris replied. "A rift opened near the borderlands. Demon beasts. A swarm of them."
Demon beasts. The words conjured images of the tapestries in the solar—monsters with too many eyes and teeth like daggers.
"It's messy," Chris continued, a sneer curling his lip. "Those little chicks keep popping out of the void without learning their lesson. Usually, the border guards handle the trash. But this time... a strong one came through. A High-Tier. The local garrison was chewed up in an hour." "And the Elders want me," Darran stated. It wasn't a question.
"They want the Myers Sword," Chris nodded. "They want the Patriarch to remind the Void why it stays on its own side."
Chris opened his mouth to say more, to describe the carnage or the nature of the beast, but his eyes flicked to Stars. He stopped. The blazing aura dampened slightly.
"It is not... dinner table conversation," Chris muttered.
Darran stood. For a fleeting second, the 'still water' of his presence rippled, and Stars felt a pressure so immense it made his vision blur. Then, it was gone.
"Come to the study," Darran said. "We will discuss the logistics."
The two men left the room—the blazing sun and the silent abyss—leaving a wake of displaced air behind them.
The heavy door clicked shut.
Stars remained on the rug, his mind racing. Cyart Kingdom. Rift. Demon Beasts. Elders. The map was growing. The world was not just a garden and a gate; it was a battlefield.
Ariel sighed, a sound of resigned acceptance. She reached down and picked up a wooden block, placing it atop the tower Stars had neglected.
"You heard all of that, didn't you?" she asked softly.
Stars looked at her. Her aura was different—neither fire nor void. It was light. It was the steady, unmoving brightness of the morning star.
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"You are too clever for your own good, my Star," she whispered. "But do not worry about the monsters in the dark. That is why your father exists. So you can play in the light for a little while longer."