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Elysia’s heart pounded.
Stars did not move like that.
Not unless something—someone—was changing them.
The night sky of Lunareth was sacred, woven with constellations that dictated the fate of every Celestara. Their destinies had been written long before their first breath, their Luminis Bonds already decided. And yet—
Above her, the celestial threads of the cosmos shifted.
A new constellation flickered into existence, its glow pulsing as if testing its own presence in the sky. It had no name.
Elysia knew every constellation by heart. She had spent nights tracing them with her fingers, whispering their stories, dreaming of the one that would one day guide her to her destined other half. But this—this unfamiliar formation—was not in the sacred texts. It was not part of any prophecy.
It should not be there.
She took a shaky breath and turned to Kaelith.
"Do you see it?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Kaelith’s golden-flecked gaze remained locked onto the sky. "I see it."
There was something in his tone—something unreadable.
The golden thread between them pulsed softly, neither pulling them closer nor allowing them to part.
Elysia’s mind raced. If the stars themselves were changing, then—
"What does this mean?"
She clenched her fists.
No.
She couldn’t let herself be swept into uncertainty. She had to act.
"We need to go to the Elders." The words came out firm, but even as she said them, doubt gnawed at her. Would they even have answers?
Kaelith finally looked at her. "Will they understand this?" His voice was calm, but there was a quiet intensity behind it. "Or will they fear it?"
Elysia hesitated.
Fear.
She had seen it before—in the way the Elders spoke of anything that strayed from the will of the stars. If something was not written, if something was not foretold, it was dangerous. It was unnatural.
It was a threat.
Her breath caught.
Kaelith was not written in the stars.
He was a boy who had been created from the dying wish of a fallen star.
A being that should not exist.
Would the Elders see him as an anomaly? As a mistake?
Or worse—would they see him as something that needed to be erased?
Elysia swallowed hard.
"I don’t know," she admitted. "But we have to try."
Kaelith studied her for a long moment before nodding. "Then let’s go."
But before they could take a step—
A low, resonating hum filled the air.
Not a sound, but a vibration. A pulse.
It rippled through the ground, through the very fabric of space itself. The stars above trembled in response, their light wavering like reflections on water.
Elysia gasped as a wave of dizziness hit her.
Something was shifting.
No—something was awakening.
Kaelith stiffened, his expression darkening. "Something’s coming."
The golden thread between them flared bright for the first time, reacting to something unseen.
Elysia turned sharply, scanning the vast, luminous landscape around them. The trees of stardust whispered in the wind, their silvery leaves rustling like distant voices. The crystal rivers still flowed, glimmering with reflected constellations.
And then—
The sky cracked.
A jagged fracture of light split the heavens apart, revealing something beyond the celestial veil—
A churning void.
Dark and endless.
And within it—shadows.
They poured from the crack like ink spilled across the stars, shapeless yet moving with purpose. Elysia’s breath hitched as the air grew heavy, thick with an unfamiliar force.
Kaelith’s eyes darkened. "Voidborn."
Elysia’s blood ran cold.
She had only heard of them in old stories. Creatures that did not belong to Lunareth. Beings formed from the darkness between stars, existing outside of fate, outside of the celestial order.
They had no destinies. No names.
And now, they were here.
The first of the shadowed forms touched the stardust ground. The moment it did, the golden thread between Elysia and Kaelith pulsed violently, sending a searing warmth through her veins.
It was reacting to them.
Kaelith shifted, stepping in front of her. His form was tense, his hand instinctively reaching toward the space where his heart should be—where a Celestara’s celestial core would be. But he had no core.
He was not like the others.
And yet—
The moment the Voidborn moved toward them, Kaelith’s hands began to glow.
Not with the soft, radiant light of a Celestara—
But with something deeper. Something golden and raw, like a light that had been buried for too long and was finally breaking free.
Elysia barely had time to process it before the Voidborn lunged.
Kaelith moved faster.
A burst of golden energy tore through the air, colliding with the shadowed creatures. The impact sent ripples of light through the ground, forcing the Voidborn to recoil, their forms flickering.
Elysia gasped.
That was not normal Celestara magic.
Kaelith turned to her, eyes burning with something unfamiliar. "Run."
But Elysia shook her head, her own light flaring to life in response. "Not without you."
The Voidborn shrieked, and the sky above them fractured further, the stars flickering in distress.
Fate itself was unraveling.
And they were at the center of it.
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