The Burial
Xavier didn't know how long he sat there, holding her cooling body. Hours, certainly. Maybe a day.
His vision was blurry with how long he been crying mourning her death,crying over fate that always taken her away no matter how hard Xavier try to save her...
Time had no meaning when your reason for measuring it was gone.
Eventually, he stood. Carried her to a hill overlooking the stream where wildflowers grew. Dug her grave with his bare hands and his light evol and the desperate need to give her somewhere beautiful to rest.
He laid her carefully in the earth, arranging her robes, folding her hands over her chest,flowers woven into her hair. The star mark on her palm glowed faintly one last time, then went dark.
Before covering her, Xavier remove his armory cloak. Placed it in her body just like he'd done before in nana first death on Luna. Their tradition now, spanning lifetimes—his promise to remember, his cloaks marking each of her death.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you,"
he whispered to her still face.
"I'm sorry choosing you wasn't enough. I'm sorry the curse followed us even here."
His hands trembled as he brushed her hair from her face one last time.
"But I'm not sorry I loved you. I'll never be sorry about that."
He covered her with earth and flowers, marked the grave with a stone carved with her name.
Princess Angelina Wang
Beloved Daughter
Cherished Starlight
Xavier sat vigil for three days, just like on Luna. Not eating. Not sleeping. Just sitting beside her grave, his hand pressed against the earth above her heart, feeling nothing but absence.
On the fourth day, he stood. Cleaned himself. Replaced the new tassel with the old one—keeping hers safe, pristine, a treasure to carry forward.The Valley Kingdom had fallen, he learned from passing refugees.
The Northern Kingdom had conquered it completely.
The royal family was dead.
Including Princess Nana, who'd died of her heart condition while fleeing with her knight.
Xavier didn't correct them. Let them think what they wanted.
The truth—that she'd died because he'd chosen her over Philos One hundred years ago, that a cosmic curse had followed them across worlds—would sound insane.
He walked away from her grave, toward the horizon, toward the future.
Toward however many more decades or centuries he'd have to wait before she was reborn again.
The cycle would continue.She would die at twenty-two, one day before turning twenty-three.
In his arms.
While he begged the universe for mercy that would never come.
The curse of the Crown Star had claimed its second victim.
With hundreds more to come.
.
.
.
.
.
Over the centuries, the cycle repeated. Different lives, different circumstances, but always the same cruel ending. This is the story of those endless deaths, those desperate loves, those futile attempts to break a curse written in the stars themselves.
⭐⭐⭐
To be continued __