Veylan had always trusted his instincts.
They were what kept him alive in a city where silence killed and shadows whispered lies. But here, in Celestria, his instincts screamed louder with each passing day.
And no one else could hear them.
The candle flickered on the wooden table in the corner of the inn's dim cellar. Its pale light danced across the pages of an ancient journal — cracked leather cover and ink-stained parchment worn thin by centuries of hands. Veylan's fingers trembled as he leaned closer, eyes scanning words written in a delicate hand, too neat for their age.
The Goddess breathes still. Her heart fuels the veins of the capital. But to make Celestria eternal, Her will must die.
The line echoed in his mind like a death knell.
He flipped the page, but the last one was torn. Jagged edges showed where something once hidden was removed.
His breath caught in his throat.
The author's signature was there, written in faded ink but unmistakable.
Diana.
Veylan's fingers curled into fists, nails biting into palms. The queen was more than the flawless figurehead they had first met. She was the architect of this city's lies.
And she was hunting the Goddess.
---
Below the city, in a forgotten garden cloaked beneath the silver moonlight, Cael walked alone.
The temple gardens were a secret haven hidden from the prying eyes of the palace. Ancient stone paths twisted between leaning columns overgrown with ivy, and pools reflected the stars like shards of shattered night.
His boots echoed softly on the cold cobblestones, but Cael felt weightless, untethered from the man he once was.
Almost… unbound.
He couldn't remember the last time he had truly felt anything — not the roar of anger that once ignited his soul, not the bitter grief that clawed at his ribs after every loss, not even the fire inside his chest that crackled like a storm trapped beneath his skin.
Just silence.
And then the voice came.
Soft. Unyielding. Not from beside him, but from within.
"You feel it, don't you?"
Cael's jaw clenched. He didn't flinch.
"You're becoming more than what they made you."
He swallowed hard, eyes tracing the faint outline of the Goddess's sigil engraved on the marble fountain.
"She feared your kind, the Goddess. That's why she made man weak. She gave them hope… but no power. You are above that."
"Why me?" Cael whispered, voice raw with disbelief.
"Because you are not here by accident," Diana said, her tone almost gentle. "You were chosen — by the stars, by the wound in time. And now... by me."
His fingers brushed the cold stone wall, and a sudden fire burned through his skin — sharp, relentless. For a breath, his vision blurred, and he saw her again — the chained woman from his dreams.
Winged and broken. Mouth open in a silent scream. Eyes full of stars.
No sound came.
Cael blinked, and she was gone.
---
At the same hour, Veylan stood before a cracked mirror in the cellar.
He drew a black coin from beneath his cloak — etched with a fiery phoenix crest.
His last line of defense against mental corruption.
A relic from another life. One forged in pure technology and fortified mind-shields.
He held it to the candle flame.
If the coin turned red, the area was clean.
If it stayed black... then corruption lingered.
The coin remained black.
Veylan's stomach twisted into knots.
Someone had tampered with him. With Cael.
And the poison was spreading.
---
He bolted upstairs to their room, heart hammering.
The door creaked open.
Empty.
Cael's bed was cold and meticulously made. His cloak and boots gone.
But on the desk — a single note.
No signature. No explanation.
Just six words, scrawled in an unfamiliar hand:
"Trust her. She is truth now."
Veylan crushed the note in his fist, rage and despair flooding his chest.
Cael was gone.
Not physically — mentally.
His partner, the man who once burned battlefields with a glance, had been snatched from him piece by piece.
Without hesitation, Veylan grabbed his blades and vanished into the streets, his cloak swirling behind him like a tempest too angry to be contained.
---
Deep beneath the palace throne, in a chamber carved from living stone, Diana stood barefoot before the chained Goddess.
Her gaze was sharp, her voice a whisper laced with cold disdain.
"You were hope," she breathed. "But hope is a song that fades."
The Goddess stared back — lips cracked, eyes dim and dulled like fading stars.
"And you… were once human," the Goddess rasped, voice broken but defiant.
Diana's smile was merciless.
"Now I am more."
---
Above, in the highest tower of Celestria, Cael stood by a stained glass window, gazing out over the city he no longer recognized.
The streets sparkled under the moonlight.
The people below laughed and danced, bathed in the light of a world that was too perfect.
But for the first time, Cael's reflection caught his eye — and it no longer matched the man he remembered.
His eyes were hollow.
His heart a fading ember.
He was becoming something else.
Something not entirely his own.
---
Memories flickered in Cael's mind like broken fragments of a shattered mirror.
He saw himself standing in battle, his sword raised high, the sky alight with fire and fury.
He remembered Veylan's laughter — fierce, unbreakable — even as darkness closed in.
He remembered the promise they made beneath the stars: to fight together, to survive.
But now, here in Celestria, those memories felt distant.
As if they belonged to someone else.
Someone lost.
Cael clenched his fists.
He could feel the threads of his soul unraveling.
And the flame inside him flickered, threatened by shadows creeping closer with every heartbeat.
---
Meanwhile, Veylan hunted.
Through twisting alleyways and forgotten tunnels beneath the city, he searched for answers — for a way to pull Cael back from the edge.
He spoke to informants whispered in the shadows, bribed scribes who guarded forbidden knowledge, and risked his life diving into the city's underbelly where magic twisted reality.
Every lead brought him closer to a terrifying truth: Diana was no mere queen.
She was a force rewriting fate itself.
And Cael was her chosen weapon.
---
One evening, in a hidden tavern behind a false wall, Veylan met an old seer — a blind woman whose eyes were said to see beyond the veil of time.
Her fingers trembled as she held out a cracked crystal orb, filled with swirling mist.
"You seek the flame," she rasped, voice fragile but fierce. "But beware — the flame that burns too bright can burn the soul."
Veylan swallowed his fear.
"Tell me what I must do."
The seer's gaze pierced him.
"To save the starborn, you must confront the shadow within. And to confront the shadow, you must first face your own darkness."
---
Back in the palace, Cael stood alone in his chamber, hands trembling as he stared at a worn blade gifted by Veylan.
It felt cold and alien now, like a relic from a life he was losing.
His reflection in the polished steel was distorted — a ghost staring back at him.
"Who am I becoming?" he whispered.
The voice of Diana echoed softly in the room, wrapping around him like a velvet chain.
"You are becoming what you were always meant to be."
The line burned into his mind like a curse.
---
The next day, Veylan gathered his few allies — fighters who still remembered the old ways, the truths erased by time and lies.
Together, they planned to break into the vault beneath the palace — to free the Goddess and save Cael before it was too late.
Each moment counted.
Each breath was a battle.
The city smiled below, oblivious.
But Veylan knew — the war for their souls had only just begun.
---
And somewhere deep beneath, in chains cold and unyielding, the Goddess whispered to the darkness.
"The starborn flickers. The other watches.
And soon… the flame must choose."