High in the shadowed galleries, where the obsidian walls met the ice carved ceiling depicting the mutilated heavens, a sliver of movement. Not a guard. A sliver of silver threaded blue fabric, the colour of a winter sky at dusk, withdrawn quickly behind a pillar. Lord Haruto Isamu. His face, usually composed, was pale, etched with a mixture of horror and dawning resolve as he witnessed the brutality below. He hadn't expected this. Beside him, almost invisible in the deeper gloom, a glint of dull, star pitted metal, a rusted vambrace. Sir Ryota "Polaris" Veyne. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle stood out like stone. His hand rested on the pommel of his plain sword, knuckles white. He saw Kuro's defiance, Shiro's rage, Ryo's cruelty. He saw the chains, the blood, the dissolving brand. He saw the constellation of scars on Kuro's arm, still weeping stardust. And then, as Shiro lunged against his chains, tearing his sleeves, Ryota's sharp eyes caught a glimpse of Shiro's left forearm, exposed by the violent movement and the shredded fabric.
As Shiro strained against his chains, screaming obscenities, raw agony tearing through his wrists, the violent motion ripped the already tattered left sleeve of his tunic wide open. It wasn't just a tear; it was a gaping rent, exposing his forearm from elbow to wrist.
There, stark against the blood smeared, bruised skin, impossible to miss, was a constellation of scars.
Not random cuts. Not frostbite. Identical to the sigil Kuro had carved into his own arm moments before. Tiny, intricate, interlocking lines, glowing faintly but unmistakably with the same ember bright starlight. The pattern was undeniable: Shattered chains. Dissolving into minute motes of pure stardust that drifted upwards like inverse snowflakes before winking out. It pulsed in time with Shiro's ragged breaths, and the furious thrum of the crystal embedded in his palm. It was a mirror to Kuro's mark of defiance; a twin wound, a twin rejection, blazing in the obsidian gloom.
Gin, cradling the frozen crow, had been drinking in the cruelty with rapt fascination, his pendant pulsing erratically. He saw Shiro's rage, the crystal's pulse. He saw Kuro's excised brand, the ember scar blazing. And then, Shiro's arm. Exposed. Illuminated.
The sight struck Gin like a physical blow.
He jerked, a sharp, involuntary intake of breath hissing through his teeth. His skeletal fingers convulsed, crushing one of the crow's brittle wings into glittering ice dust. His pupils dilated to voids, fixed unblinkingly on the two identical, starlit sigils, one on the renounced prince, one on the gutter rat. His lips, thin and bloodless, parted silently.
The prophecy, dredged from the frozen archives, the words delivered by the now destroyed crow, echoed deafeningly in his mind:
"When twin stars bleed..."
Here they were. The Twin Stars. Not metaphorical. Not celestial. Flesh and blood. Bleeding onto the obsidian floor of the King's own throne room. One bleeding from self liberation, the other from chains and rage. Bleeding. Gin didn't need the rest of the verse. The sight was confirmation, terrifying and exhilarating. The frost didn't just remember; it had guided. It had delivered its heralds, marked by their shared defiance, scarred by their shared pain, directly into the heart of the King's power. Akuma's cruelty, Ryo's malice, they weren't just punishing rebels; they were fulfilling an ancient, frozen destiny right before Gin's eyes. He remained utterly still, a statue of ice except for the frantic pulse in his throat and the chilling certainty solidifying in his fanatical heart: The Sovereign stirs. Its vessels are here.
The throne room hung suspended. Ryo's sneer of triumph faltered slightly as he registered the sudden intensity in Gin's frozen posture, the way the priest stared not at him, but at the two broken figures on the floor. Akuma's predatory focus shifted minutely, sensing a shift in the unseen currents. Kuro, gasping through agony on the blood slick floor, saw the blazing sigil on Shiro's exposed arm through his one good eye. A flicker of stunned recognition cut through his pain. Shiro, panting, wrists screaming, felt the crystal pulse resonate with the light from his own scar and saw its twin blazing on Kuro's arm. Twin stars… The phrase whispered from some deep, forgotten corner of Aki's teachings.
The air crackled, no longer just with pain and hatred, but with the terrifying, palpable weight of prophecy unfolding. The King's pronouncement of their end rang hollow against the silent scream of destiny written in twin, bleeding constellations of shattered chains. The reckoning promised to be written not just in ice, but in the blinding, unforged light of stars long awaited.
The obsidian throne room, a suffocating tomb of extinguished light and royal malice, hung suspended in a moment of grotesque revelation. Shiro's exposed forearm blazed with the identical constellation of shattered chains as Kuro's, ember bright starlight pulsing in the gloom. Gin's crushed crow wing dripped ice dust from his frozen fingers, his eyes wide with prophetic terror. Ryo's sneer faltered, sensing the shift in the frozen air, the uncanny symmetry that screamed destiny rather than defiance. Akuma's predatory focus flickered between the twin sigils, reassessing the threat. Kuro, gasping through shattered ribs on the blood slick floor, locked his one blazing eye on Shiro's scar, a silent, stunned recognition passing between them. Twin stars… bleeding…
Then the world exploded.
Not with fire, but with feathers, fury, and fractured light.
The towering, reinforced obsidian doors, symbols of Ryo's impregnable power, didn't just burst open. They shattered inwards with the force of a glacial calving. Not from battering rams, but from a living hurricane of crows. Hundreds. Thousands. A seething, shrieking maelstrom of ink black bodies, their wings beating a thunderous cacophony that drowned out all other sound. But it was their eyes that froze the blood, prismatic voids, blazing with impossible colours: emerald, sapphire, amethyst, crimson, swirling like captured nebulae. They didn't just fly; they attacked. A coordinated swarm of vengeance. They dive bombed the stunned Temple guards, razor sharp talons slashing at exposed faces, hands, eyes. The air filled with screams, human this time; and the wet thunk of talons finding flesh, the rip of silk and leather, the metallic clang of dropped weapons. Guards stumbled, blinded, flailing uselessly at the feathered onslaught that moved with terrifying, unnatural synchronicity. The reek of bird shit, ozone, and fresh blood layered over the throne room's existing stench of decay and fear.
Through the swirling vortex of black wings and prismatic fury, a figure emerged. Not charging but striding with lethal purpose through the chaos. Cloaked in tattered rags patched with shimmering, stardust infused cloth that seemed to drink the ambient light, their face hidden deep within a voluminous hood. In each hand, they hurled fist sized clay orbs that shattered at the feet of the remaining coherent guards.
WHUMPH! WHUMPH! WHUMPH!
Acrid, choking fog, thick and white as a blizzard, erupted. It reeked of burnt peppers, sulphur, and spoiled milk, clawing at throats, stinging eyes, reducing visibility to arm's length. The throne room descended into utter pandemonium, guards choking and disoriented, crows shrieking and slashing in the fog, Ryo bellowing incoherent orders lost in the din, Akuma snarling as he batted crows away from his face.
"MOVE! NOW!"
The roar cut through the chaos like a war horn. Not from the cloaked figure, but from beside them. Sir Ryota "Polaris" Veyne. He was an avalanche given human form. His once gleaming star forged armour was gone, replaced by scarred leather and a rusted breastplate bearing the faded, scratched outline of the Polaris sigil. But his eyes… his eyes were supernovae. His irises weren't just blue; they were the heart of the Polaris constellation itself, starburst pupils radiating intricate patterns of white gold light that fractured and reformed like living galaxies, casting shifting, miniature constellations onto the acrid smoke around him. He held not a knightly lance, but a heavy, notched executioner's axe, its blade dark with old blood and fresh crow feathers.
He didn't head for the throne. He charged straight towards the dais, towards Shiro and Kuro. The axe became a whirlwind of brutal efficiency. A guard lunged from the smoke; Ryota didn't parry, he smashed. The axe head connected with the man's helmeted head with a sickening CRUNCH SPLATTER, dropping him like a sack of meat. Another swung a halberd; Ryota ducked under the blow, coming up inside the guard's reach, driving the axe's spike into his throat with a wet gurgle. He moved with the terrifying economy of a man who'd fought in the frozen hells of the Northern Wars, every step crushing bone, every swing ending a life. The crows seemed to part for him, a feathered honour guard for the disgraced knight.
Beside Ryota, a flash of silver and deadly grace. Lord Haruto Isamu. His fine silver threaded blue tunic was smudged with soot, his aristocratic composure replaced by fierce, focused intensity. His own eyes, usually sharp and calculating, now blazed with pupils burning with righteous fury, not fanaticism. He wielded a narrow, wickedly sharp duelling blade, its edge glinting like captured starlight. While Ryota carved a path with brute force, Haruto was precision incarnate. A guard stumbled out of the smoke, coughing; Haruto's blade flickered, a silver streak, and the man's sword hand, still clutching its weapon, tumbled to the floor before he could scream. Another turned, raising a shield; Haruto darted low, his blade finding the gap at the knee, severing tendons with a slick sound, dropping the man shrieking. He moved like quicksilver, a dancer of death amidst Ryota's thunder.
Haruto reached Shiro first. He didn't speak. His eyes met Shiro's comet blaze for a fraction of a second, an unspoken understanding passing between the noble and the slum rat. His blade, humming with barely contained energy, flashed twice. Not at the manacles' locks, but at the chains themselves, near the anchors bolted to the floor. Star metal met star metal with a shriek of protesting reality and a shower of white sparks. The chains fell away. The relief of pressure on Shiro's shredded wrists was instantly replaced by fresh, agonizing fire as blood rushed back. He staggered, catching himself on his knees.
"Who the fu…" Shiro began, voice raw, clutching his bleeding wrists, the starlight scar on his forearm pulsing in time with his pounding heart.
"NO TIME, STARLING!" Haruto barked; the endearment laced with desperate urgency. He hauled Shiro upright with surprising strength. His pupils darted towards the obscured throne, where Ryo's enraged bellows competed with Akuma's snarling commands. "The King's Shadow Hounds are coming! The real ones! Not frost phantoms, teeth and talons bred in the Black Vaults! MOVE!"
He shoved Shiro towards Ryota, who had reached Kuro. The big knight didn't bother with finesse. He dropped the axe, hooked his massive arms under Kuro's shoulders, and hauled the groaning prince upright with a grunt. Kuro's face was a mask of agony, blood streaming from his jaw and ribs, but his single eye burned with feral awareness. He clutched his own starlit scar, the ember bright chains pulsing defiantly.
"Can you stand, princeling?" Ryota growled, his Polaris eyes scanning the swirling smoke and chaos.
Kuro spat a mouthful of blood, his voice a wrecked rasp. "Just… point me… at something… to kill…"
A section of smoke near the shattered doorway coalesced. Akuma emerged, frost swirling violently around him like a protective blizzard, his star pupiled eyes burning with cold fury. Several crows lay dead or dying at his feet, frozen solid mid attack. He raised a hand crackling with hoarfrost, aiming towards Ryota and the wounded Kuro.
Shiro saw it. Rage, white hot and purifying, surged through his pain. He stumbled forward, not away, but towards the threat. He had no weapon, only his bleeding hands and the crystal pulsing like a trapped star in his palm.
Kuro saw it too. With a guttural snarl ripped from the depths of his broken body, he shoved against Ryota's supporting arm, finding a surge of adrenaline fuelled fury. His free hand dipped into his boot, a hidden sheath Ryota hadn't found. He came up clutching not a noble dagger, but a jagged shard of black ice, identical to the one he'd used on his brand, still slick with his own blood. He didn't throw it. He lunged, a wounded panther striking, driving the freezing shard deep into Akuma's thigh, just above the knee joint, with every ounce of his remaining strength.
SCHLLLK!
The sound was wet, brutal. The ice shard sank deep. Akuma roared, not in pain, but in pure, incandescent rage. Frost exploded outwards from the wound, crackling over Kuro's hand, but Kuro held on, twisting the shard, his face inches from Akuma's contorted features.
"Tell your rotting master," Kuro spat, blood and defiance mingling on his lips, his voice a guttural rasp amplified by hatred, "this isn't over. We're just… fucking… getting started."
He wrenched the shard free, tearing flesh and spraying dark, almost black blood that froze instantly into crimson icicles on the floor. Akuma staggered back, a snarl of pure venom twisting his face, frost surging to seal the wound even as he raised a hand crackling with killing cold.
"NOW!" Ryota bellowed, grabbing Kuro and bodily hauling him back. Haruto seized Shiro's arm. The cloaked figure by the door whistled, a sharp, piercing sound that cut through the crow shrieks. The swarm reacted instantly, surging towards Akuma and the recovering guards, a living wall of feathers, talons, and prismatic fury, buying precious seconds.
They plunged through the shattered doorway, leaving the cacophony of the throne room , Ryo's enraged bellows, Akuma's venomous snarls, the dying shrieks of crows and guards, the hiss crackle of frost magic, abruptly muffled, as if slamming a lid on a boiling pot. The transition wasn't to silence, but to a different, more intimate kind of dread. The air in the narrow passage beyond was thick, stagnant, and bitingly cold. It reeked of decay, the damp, fungal stench of mold feasting on ancient stone, the sharp ammonia tang of rat droppings frozen into pellets, and beneath it all, the pervasive, sterile chill of Nyxara's encroaching ice.
Haruto, a silver and blue ghost in the gloom, led without hesitation. He moved with the surefootedness of someone who'd memorized these forgotten veins of the palace. The passage wasn't just narrow; it was oppressive. Ice encrusted the rough hewn walls in thick, uneven sheets, glowing with a faint, internal blue luminescence stolen from the deeper glaciers. It clawed at their shoulders, snagged their clothes, dripped freezing water down collars. The floor was treacherous, slick with a layer of black ice over uneven flagstones worn smooth by centuries of scurrying feet. Their boots crunched on frozen droppings and grit, the sound echoing too loudly in the confined space.
Ryota followed, a mountain of grim purpose. He half carried, half dragged Kuro. The prince was a dead weight, his earlier surge of adrenaline fuelled fury utterly spent. Each breath Kuro drew was a wet, ragged rattle, a sound that seemed to originate deep within the ruin of his left side. His face, pressed against Ryota's rusted breastplate, was bloodless beneath the grime and gore, his eyes squeezed shut against the agony that radiated from his shattered ribs with every jolting step. His right arm hung limp, the starlight scars on his forearm pulsing a dull, pained crimson, mirroring the faint, insistent throb on Shiro's own exposed left arm.
Shiro stumbled alongside, clutching his bleeding wrists where the manacles had torn flesh. The raw wounds burned with a fierce, cleansing fire counterpointed by the bone deep ache radiating from his own pulsing scar. He kept glancing back, expecting Akuma's frost or Ryo's shadow hounds to erupt from the darkness behind them. His amber eyes, still blazing with residual comet fire, scanned the writhing ice patterns on the walls, half expecting them to coalesce into grasping hands.
Bringing up the rear was the cloaked figure, silent and efficient. From within the voluminous, stardust patched rags, gloved hands emerged, scattering small, wicked looking caltrops onto the icy floor behind them. Each caltrop was a twisted star of blackened iron, its points honed razor sharp and glistening with a viscous, frost blue gel that smoked faintly where it touched the stone. Frostbite venom, Shiro realized with a grim sense of approval. They clattered like frozen hailstones, promising crippling pain to any pursuing boot.
Juro Fujiwara materialized from a side passage so narrow it was little more than a crack in the ice veined rock. His fine clothes were smudged with soot and something dark and viscous that might have been guard's blood. His face was tight with strain, but his eyes burned with fierce determination. He carried a short, heavy crowbar, its end stained and chipped.
"Clear ahead for fifty paces," Juro reported, his voice a low rasp that barely carried over Kuro's laboured breathing. He fell in beside Shiro, his gaze flicking critically over the younger man's bleeding wrists and the pulsing scar. "Then it branches. Left goes deeper into the service warrens, potentially towards the old laundry vents Haruto mentioned. Right… right feels wrong. Ice is thicker. Smells… older." He shuddered, not entirely from the cold. "Like the Cathedral."
Ryota grunted, adjusting his grip on Kuro as the prince groaned softly. "Left it is. Distance is our friend right now, not depth. Need to get beyond the palace wards before they lock the whole damn mountain down."
They pressed on, the passage descending slightly. The air grew colder, damper. The luminescent ice provided just enough light to see the treacherous footing and the unsettling way the frozen walls seemed to breathe, contracting minutely with deep, subsonic thumps that vibrated up through the soles of their boots, Nyxara's glacial heartbeat. Condensation froze instantly on their eyelashes and the rims of their nostrils. Shiro's teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, the cold seeping past the adrenaline, gnawing at his core. He saw Kuro's lips were tinged blue.
Suddenly, Kuro sagged heavily, a choked gasp escaping him. Ryota barely kept him upright. "Stop," the big knight growled, his voice strained. "Need to bind him. Rib's grinding. He punctures a lung, he's done."
Haruto nodded instantly, scanning the passage. They were in a slightly wider section, perhaps an old alcove for storing mops or buckets, long since buried under ice. "Here. Two minutes. Juro, watch the rear. Mira…" He glanced upwards, though the ceiling was lost in shadow and dripping ice formations.
As if summoned, Mira detached herself from the deeper gloom high up on the wall, where she'd been clinging like a shadowy spider, her star flecked eyes scanning the darkness behind them. She dropped down silently, landing in a crouch beside Haruto. Her hood was pushed back slightly, revealing her sharp, pale face, etched with concentration. Her unnerving eyes weren't focused on the physical passage; they gazed into middle distance, seeing through her feathered spies.
"Pursuit consolidates," she whispered, her voice the dry rasp of parchment over stone. "Akuma seals his wound. The frost slows him, but barely. He commands the remaining Blackcloaks. They gather tools… ice breakers, thaumic prods. They know these passages exist, but not the specific route. Yet." Her head tilted slightly, listening to silent reports. "The Shadow Hounds… they are released. Two packs. Nose to the floor. Fast. Very fast. They bypass the caltrops… sense the cold venom, avoid it." A flicker of something akin to cold respect crossed her features. "Efficient predators."
While Mira spoke, Haruto worked with swift, precise movements. He pulled a roll of surprisingly clean, sturdy linen bandages from a pouch beneath his tunic. Ryota carefully lowered Kuro to sit propped against the icy wall. The prince's eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain but aware. Haruto didn't speak; his touch was clinical, efficient. He probed the ruin of Kuro's left side with careful fingers, his aristocratic face grim. Shiro winced in sympathy as Kuro hissed, his knuckles white where he gripped Ryota's forearm.
"Broken. At least three ribs. One is mobile. Dangerous," Haruto stated flatly. He began wrapping the bandages tightly around Kuro's torso, applying firm, stabilizing pressure. "Breathe shallowly. Try not to cough." He tied the bandage off with a secure knot. "This is a stopgap. You need a bonesetter. Soon."
Kuro managed a weak nod, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold. "Just… get me… out of this… frozen tomb."
As Haruto secured the bandage, his eyes met Kuro's pain hazed gaze, then flicked to Shiro, who was watching intently while flexing his own aching, scarred hand. There was a shift in Haruto's expression, the fierce focus momentarily replaced by something deeper, more complex, a mixture of grim assessment and… unexpected familiarity.
"You fight with fire," Haruto said, his voice low, almost lost in the dripping silence of the passage. He wasn't just talking about the throne room brawl. His gaze lingered on the pulsing starlight scars visible on both their arms. "Raw. Untamed. Like cornered sun hawks." He tightened the last knot on Kuro's bandage. "It burns bright. But it also blinds."
Shiro frowned, the comet fire in his own eyes flickering with confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Haruto stood, brushing ice crystals from his knees. His gaze swept over both of them, encompassing their wounds, their defiance, their shared, terrifying power. "It means," he said, his voice regaining its usual clipped precision but carrying a new weight, "we've been watching. Closer than you know."
Mira, still crouched nearby, her star flecked eyes fixed on the unseen pursuit, spoke without turning. Her voice was flat, factual, yet the implications were chilling. "The rooftop in the Warrens. The Spire sabotage. The Observatory detonation. The flight through the under crofts. The… connection in the ritual chamber." She paused, as if reviewing footage. "The desperation. The power. The cost." Her head tilted slightly. "The Galactic Crow wasn't the only observer."
A cold deeper than Nyxara's ice seeped into Shiro's bones. Watching? How? The rooftop had felt isolated, desperate. The Spire sabotage had been a frantic act of defiance in near total darkness. The Observatory… that had been chaos incarnate. The under crofts… a descent into madness. And the ritual chamber… that had been a tearing of reality itself. The idea that they had been seen, documented, throughout that entire descent into hell, by allies who had waited until now to intervene…
Kuro's pain glazed eyes sharpened with dawning horror and fury. He pushed himself straighter against the wall, wincing but ignoring the agony. "You… watched?" The words were a ragged whisper, thick with blood and betrayal. "You saw… all of that… and did nothing? Until now?" He gestured weakly, encompassing his shattered ribs, Shiro's bleeding wrists, the sheer, brutalized state of them both. "Was this… part of your fucking assessment?"
Haruto met Kuro's furious gaze without flinching, though a shadow passed over his own features. "We saw sparks in a rainstorm," he stated, his voice hard. "Promising embers, yes. Kaya's fire in you both, undeniable. But sparks need careful tending to become flame, not dousing by premature exposure." He glanced at Mira. "We saw the potential for catastrophe as clearly as the potential for defiance. The Observatory… that was uncontrolled detonation. The ritual chamber… that was ripping a hole in the world. We intervened when the risk of not intervening outweighed the risk of revealing ourselves. When you became more than just dissidents, you became walking weapons Ryo had to possess or destroy. And when the path to extract you opened."
Mira added, her tone devoid of apology, focused purely on tactical reality: "Intervention earlier carried high probability of mission failure and capture of all assets. Observation maximized intelligence gathering and identified the critical extraction window. The throne room spectacle provided necessary diversion and target fixation."
"Assets?" Shiro spat the word, the comet flare in his eyes blazing anew, this time directed at his rescuers. The pulsing scar on his arm flared hotter. "We were fucking dying in there! Pieces on your board!"
Juro, who had been listening intently while watching the rear passage, his crowbar held ready, spoke up, his voice strained but earnest. "It wasn't callousness, Shiro. It was… calculus. Brutal, yes. But Haruto and Mira… they saw what Ryota, and I saw. The fire. The defiance. But they also saw the instability. The raw power neither of you control. Throwing ourselves into Akuma's path earlier wouldn't have saved you. It would have just gotten us all killed or captured alongside you. We needed the chaos, the King's overreach in the throne room, the sheer audacity of your attack on Akuma… it created the opening. A tiny window. We took it."
Ryota shifted, his Polaris eyes, still faintly luminous, scanned Haruto and Mira. There was no warmth in his gaze, only a grim understanding forged in the crucible of war. "Reconnaissance. You were gathering intel. On them. On Ryo. On the palace defences. Using their struggle as… cover." It wasn't a question. He hefted Kuro again, ignoring the prince's weak struggle. "Debate later. Run now. Mira? How much time?"
Mira's star flecked eyes narrowed, focusing intensely on unseen vistas. "The Hounds… closer. One pack diverted by crows, tangling in the throne room wreckage. The other…" She went utterly still for a heartbeat. "…has our scent. They move through the ice… with it. Faster than we can run burdened. They will intercept. At the branch."
A low, guttural growl, vibrating through the ice itself, echoed faintly down the passage from the direction they'd come. It was answered by another, closer. The sound was primal, hungry, and utterly devoid of warmth.
Haruto's face hardened. He met Shiro's furious, betrayed gaze and Kuro's pain filled glare. "The observation ends," he stated, his voice cutting through the rising dread. "Now, you survive. Or we all die here in the dark. Move!" He pointed down the left branch of the approaching fork, where the ice glowed slightly less brightly, perhaps hinting at warmer, older stone beneath. "Juro, take point! Mira, guide the crows, slow the pack on our tail! Ryota, Shiro, keep Kuro moving! Go!"
The cloaked figure threw down a final cluster of frostbite caltrops just as the first sleek, shadow black shape, low to the ground and moving with terrifying silence, coalesced from the gloom behind them, its eyes burning with cold green fire. The desperate flight plunged deeper into the palace's frozen veins, the weight of Haruto and Mira's revelation ,that their every desperate moment had been coldly observed, hanging heavy alongside the chilling snarls of the Shadow Hounds closing in. They were running from Ryo, from Akuma, and now, from the unsettling knowledge that their rescuers had watched them burn, waiting for the perfect moment to harvest the sparks.