The young princess's room was a sanctuary of soft tapestries and silver light pouring through the arched window from Stellarum's twin moons. Luna, too small for the weight of her name, was nestled beneath silk sheets, her silver eyes — identical to her mother's — blinking sleepily.
The Queen sat on the edge of the bed, her presence an aura of quiet calm and unyielding strength. She was an older version of Luna, with the same sculpted beauty, but where her daughter's face already promised a warrior's temperament, the mother's carried the resigned serenity of someone who knew how all songs end.
"Sing to me, mama," little Luna whispered, her voice muffled by pillows. "The song of heroes."
The Queen smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. For her daughter, it was poetry she found beautiful, a tale of bravery. For the mother, the words were a burden, a prophecy she needed to engrave on her daughter's soul like a protection spell. She sang with resignation, but also with fierce skill and passion, wanting each syllable to fix itself in the child's memory like an amulet for the arduous journey to come.
Her voice was like velvet and steel, filling the silent room:
"Beneath skies of Sun and Moons,
Twin worlds in their dance,
In threads of light and shadow,
Destiny weaves its chance...
There shall come the Bridge,
From the world that forgot,
No crown upon his brow,
But himself, his foundation wrought...
For the Blade of Moons,
Carved to fight and stand,
Requires its true Forge,
If Shadow is to be commanded..."
Young Luna, too young to understand the weight of the words "Bridge" and "Forge," felt only the beauty of the melody. She saw heroes and shining swords in her drowsy mind. The song was a blanket of courage, and she fell asleep smiling, not noticing the subtle sadness in her mother's voice, a note of farewell sung too early.
The Queen continued humming softly even after Luna's breathing became deep and regular. She stroked her daughter's silver hair, a gesture that was both blessing and apology.
Good luck, my little blade, she thought, the silent prayer lost in the moonlight. May your Forge be worthy of you.
...
The charcoal's tip glided across the war map, leaving a trail of black dust on the parchment. Each line drawn by Lunaris Starella was a sentence — for her enemies, for her people, perhaps for herself. Outside the command tent, wind lashed the canvas, bringing with it the scent of rain and cold steel. The court watched her in silence, their gazes weighing on her like a crown of thorns.
Her hand, steady for hours, stopped. Her index finger rested on the ink scar marking the siege of Kael'Aran. For an instant, the howling wind transformed into something else — the echo of calm breathing beside her in darkness. The charcoal wavered, leaving an irregular mark on the map, a flaw in a perfect strategy. Luna bit her lower lip, the metallic taste of blood bringing her back to the present.
No one in the tent seemed to notice. But for Luna, that trembling line on the map was betrayal. She straightened her spine, forcing her shoulders back, pushing the memory into the abyss where all her weaknesses lived. A queen does not break. A heroine does not hesitate. Not now.
Suddenly, a heavy, desperate footsteps in mud and the rhythmic sound of rain on canvas broke the silence. The tent flap burst open violently. A scout, face pale and chest heaving, fell to his knees before her.
"My Queen," he gasped, his voice choked with panic. "The Eastern Tower... it's not an army approaching." He raised his eyes, and they were filled with incomprehensible terror.
"It's an anomaly."
...
Gabriel was back in his city, Santos, but he didn't feel at home. The park overflowed with life that didn't recognize him. The smell of wet earth, the buzz of insects, the noise of children — everything was familiar and, at the same time, alien. He felt like a ghost haunting the corridors of his own life.
He looked at the tree he used to climb, at the place where he'd gotten his first rejection. Memories of a boy he barely recognized. How much time had passed? For him, years of war and magic. Here, the world had simply... continued.
His distraction cost him dearly. A ball hit him in the head and a child crashed into his legs. He, who had already dodged spells and blades, fell to the ground, face in the grass.
"Sorry, mister!" shouted a blonde boy.
Gabriel got up, his white shirt stained with dirt. "It's okay," he murmured, forcing a smile. "That was a great kick." The children laughed, and he laughed with them, feeling like an impostor.
He spent the following months in limbo. The school routine, conversations about tests and parties — everything seemed trivial, empty. He was a nineteen-year-old war veteran trapped in a teenager's body, and loneliness was an abyss that grew deeper each day.
...
Chalk scraped against the blackboard, a sharp sound in the constant hum of air conditioning. Solmere watched physics equations form, clean logic in a world that, to him, made no sense. The heat outside was a press. The chaos of classmates — paper balls, muffled laughter — was a foreign language. Nothing here belonged to him.
His hand held the pen, but his fingers curved by habit, searching for the phantom weight of a sword's hilt. The inadequacy was physical pain, a muscle that didn't remember how to relax.
The projector light in front of him flickered — once, twice — and died, plunging the room into gloom. The students' murmur ceased. The silence that followed was sudden and absolute.
That's when he felt it. Didn't hear it. Felt it.
A cold breath on his neck amid the stifling heat. A voice that needed no air to travel, that formed in the spaces between his thoughts.
One word. In the ancient tongue.
His name.
...
On a gray afternoon, he found himself at the port, the smell of salt and sea breeze filling the air. The sound of waves beating against the docks was a constant rhythm, a lament. It was there that memory assaulted him, not as an echo, but as a wound reopening.
Her voice. Her expression the last time they'd seen each other in that other world. His words, full of nobility that now seemed to him merely fear.
"It's because I care... that I'm doing this."
He remembered the pain in her eyes, the silence that followed. They hadn't gotten anywhere. And he had fled, convincing himself it was to protect her. The truth, he now admitted to the gray waves, was that he had been protecting himself.
"Luna..." he whispered to the wind, the name a taste of regret.
He felt a presence approaching and his body tensed by instinct, turning, his heart racing with the foolish and impossible hope that it might be her.
...
It wasn't her. It was a boy, maybe fifteen, breathless, his face red from having run for a long time.
"Are you Gabriel?" the boy asked between gasps, his eyes wide.
Gabriel frowned, disappointment a cold stab. "I am. Who are you?"
"Doesn't matter," said the boy, extending a simple envelope. "A man paid me to deliver this to you. Said it was urgent. That I had to find you today, here."
Gabriel took the envelope. It was light, no return address. Inside, a single folded piece of paper with an old red wax seal that seemed to have been pressed centuries ago. He broke it.
The words weren't printed, but written in elegant, firm handwriting. There were only five.
Your destiny lies in Belém.
Simple. Direct. And somehow, it was the first thing that had made sense in months. It wasn't a storm, but a whisper. A call that echoed not from his past on Earth, but from the resonance Luna had once mentioned.
Belém.
At that port, looking at the endless horizon, Gabriel felt something realign within him. It wasn't a cure, but it was a path. He wasn't going back home. He was, for the first time, departing toward one.
The reunion began there. While one dreamed of a better future and others dreamed of love, this time, feelings would be communicated properly.
...
In Stellarum, Luna felt the shift — a tremor in reality itself as the barriers between worlds thinned. The anomaly approaching the Eastern Tower wasn't just a threat to her realm; it was a consequence of the growing connections, of hearts that refused to remain separated by the mathematics of destiny.
In Belém, Gabriel was building bridges between communities, learning that true leadership meant becoming a conduit for others' wisdom rather than imposing his own. But with each act of genuine connection, with each moment of authentic growth, something deeper stirred — magical currents that had been dormant since his return to Earth.
The lullaby the Queen had sung contained more than prophecy. It contained instruction: the Bridge must find his foundation in himself, but the Blade of Moons required her Forge if Shadow was to be commanded.
And in the growing darkness that threatened both worlds, two hearts — separated by impossible distance but connected by bonds deeper than dimension — began to beat in rhythm once again.
The time of convergence was approaching. And this time, neither would flee from what they had found in each other.
This time, they would forge something new from the steel of hard-won wisdom and the fire of love that transcends worlds.