As the sun dips low, bleeding amber across the horizon, Elysia's gaze sweeps over the Court of Accordance.
The obsidian-and-moonstone tiles shimmer beneath her feet, constellations no longer mirrored in the sky. Her vision blurs, drawn backward by an unseen pull.
She stands at the battlefield's center, a cruel echo stitched into her soul.
The Starwell's surface remains still, mirrored — even as the world around it unravels.
Then comes the soundless tremor — a distant impact, muffled by the Echoing Arch's dampening field. Dust trembles from silver-laced colonnades. And then, war begins again.
From the eastern flank, Edric's knights charge, their bodies wrapped in fluid silks gleaming silver and violet, fabric flowing like liquid metal, shimmering under the starlit canopy. Their weapons slice through the air with precision, movements unyielding, as if each breath aligns with the rhythm of war.
From the western flank, Elysia's vanguard answers, cloaked in deep-blue sashes and wielding blades etched with runes of water and frost. The Aetheros order meets them not with steel-on-steel fury but with the fluidity of water — rippling, evasive, strategic.
Elysia stands at their head, the storm's eye.
She ducks under a dual slash, body flowing like water around the strikes, hips twisting in a seamless arc that bends space. In one graceful motion, she pivots, elbow slicing through the air like a wave crashing against stone. A knee drives deep into a knight's chest, knocking him off balance as her blade arcs horizontally, cutting through air and flesh with the precision of an unfolding ripple. Three knights fall before her in a heartbeat.
She pivots with precision, weight shifting as her kick arcs like a scythe of water that sends another knight sprawling. Vaulting off a crumbling pillar, she lets its momentum carry her, each movement an extension of the world around her — fluid, unhurried, unstoppable. Her boots trail luminous spores that shimmer as though they, too, follow the flow of her body.
Above them, glowing skyvines tear from their perches as mercenary mages loose leyfire bolts from the towers. Columns explode. Screams vanish into the dampened soundscape, mouths open, voices swallowed by the Echoing Arch's southern gate.
The clash swirls inward — toward the Starwell. The ground cracks. Blood mixes with starlight.
Elysia's breath catches as her brother steps forward. His gaze holds no kinship — only cold precision, a sovereign's challenge cloaked in betrayal.
"You were never meant to rule, sister."
Her single blade meets his in silence. Sparks fly, refracted by the shifting constellations beneath their feet.
— He presses with relentless lunges, each thrust like a stone dropped into a river, ripples of force expanding outward. He is unyielding, seeking to dominate her, to break her flow. Each strike is a drumbeat, a hammer driving against the current.
— She meets him with fluidity, her body moving around his strikes as though the very space between them bends and shifts like water. Her blade never blocks; it guides, folding his momentum aside, her wrist bending in a near-circular arc to redirect him.
— He forces his way forward, but she dissolves, slipping to his side like a rushing stream flowing around rocks. The space between them seems to stretch — a heartbeat drawn long — and she reappears beside him, her blade cutting upward in a sharp, precise arc. The edge of her blade, rimed with frost, shatters on impact, the icy shards scattering in the air like fleeting droplets of water — remnants of the same ice that once shielded the innocent from harm.
He bleeds. But she falters.
She stumbles.
Edric's blade finds her shoulder, biting deep.
The final leyline surge hits — the sky gardens explode in blue fire. Columns collapse like ancient trees, clouds of crystal dust sweeping across the Court. Half her forces are cut off. The Celestial Gate fractures, raining fragments of glowing crystal like divine shrapnel.
Her hand trembles. All around her, her people are dying — Aetheros and Aetherius alike, pawns of ambition, blood on moonstone. The sigil beneath their feet, once a symbol of unity, cracks and becomes unreadable.
Then she sees him — Edric — bloodied, unshielded, charging her with a cry that finally, finally carries emotion: grief. Rage. Regret.
She meets him with a final motion: parrying his strike with an upward deflection so smooth, it's as though she's parting the very air around him. Her feet glide across the shattered floor, not sliding, but flowing with the control of a current. She steps forward, blade low, and with a single, glacial motion — drives it through his chest. No hesitation. No rage. Just inevitability.
He gasps.
Her hand cradles the back of his head as he falls to his knees. His blood runs over the Starwell's edge — a river feeding the stars.
Flash — A memory tears through her: Sir Caelum, her commander, screaming her name as flame consumes him beneath the Celestial Gate. A knight's duty is to protect. Always.
Flash — Her single blade cleaves through Lucien's neck, His lips twist in a faint, sardonic smile as the light fades from his eyes — no apology, no regret, only cold satisfaction.
Flash — A dozen of her knights — loyal to the last, bound by oath and honor — fall under Edric's decree, their shields raised, never to see dawn again.
Flash — Amidst the vast Court of Accordance, Elysia stands alone, surrounded by the bodies of the fallen, her gaze distant and void of life. In the end, even royalty is but a shadow beneath the stars.
Flash — Elysia alone walks the Starlight Path, her blade dragging behind her, each step rippling faint constellations beneath her boots. The silent statues whisper, but she does not hear.
She enters the Throne of Valenmir — the seat untouched, wreathed in shadows.
She sits.
It is cold. Too heavy.
Blood stains her clothes, the once-glimmering silk now dark and heavy with the weight of battle. Her brother's last breath still clings to her fingers. Her people — her knights, her enemies, her city — are gone.
Elysia hands raised slowly, fingers tracing ancient symbols in the air. A whisper of cold spreads outward, creeping along the stone like the first breath of winter.
Ice begins to form, delicate tendrils climbing the sides of the throne, glistening in the shattered light of the Court. The air grows still, as though time itself holds its breath.
A crackling sound, soft at first, then sharp — like the breaking of glass under pressure. The ice expands, covering her in its frosted embrace.
Flash — Her eyes flutter closed, the world around her fading, her breath slowing. The ice curls around her, sealing her within its crystal tomb, an eternal slumber beneath the weight of the stars.
But — A sharp intake of breath.
The sensation of cold vanishes, replaced by the weight of the present. Elysia's gaze remains fixed on the Court of Accordance.
Her voice echoes through the air, carrying the weight of centuries, dignified and calm.
"I lingered in silence longer than I should have. And in that stillness, many were lost.
To those whose hope dimmed… to those who bled when I could not stand beside them — I offer no excuse.
Their burden has passed. It is mine now to carry what I did not prevent.
I do not ask forgiveness. I remember. And I will bear it."
Elysia closes her eyes and draws a slow breath. Deep within, a pulse stirs—subtle, then surging—as radiant blue light ignites in her veins, flowing swift and deliberate through her blood like molten sapphire.
She lifts one hand, steady and precise, moving in a slow, deliberate arc. Water gathers into her palm, drawn from the thinning air, coalescing with a faint, resonant hum.
Her lips part. The words rise from a place older than memory, calm and irrevocable.
"netraṁ udghāṭaya | tamasi lekhaṁ kuru."—ancient, measured, each syllable threading into the next like silk spun from the bones of forgotten ages.
The water stretches, thinning into the shape of a book, crystalline and fragile. Pages of ice begin to form, one after another, flipping rapidly, inscriptions of frozen light flickering too fast to follow. The cyclone of water spirals upward around her, her voice folding deeper into the chant, unwavering.
Each syllable leaves her lips with the weight of invocation. The chant is not loud—it coils, ancient and low, like a tide moving beneath stone.
"chāyāyām satyaṁ sañcinu | maṇḍalaṁ udghāṭaya."
The words spiral with the cyclone itself, fusing sound and motion.
They are not merely spoken—they are etched into the world, written in breath, binding water to form and thought to sigil.
The book dissolves into waves, the cyclone sharpening into an intricate sacred circle, etched in shifting, luminescent sigils.
Elysia exhales, slow and measured. Her eyes open—calm, clear, saturated in deep cerulean glow.
She raises both hands, fingers moving into precise mudras, sharp yet effortless.
Left Hand Palm down, fingers curled, thumb pressing against the middle finger, the index standing upright like the last breath.
Right Hand Palm up, fingers forming a circle, the middle finger rising as the index curls outward like the first breath.
her gestures sharp yet effortless. The air thickens, the stones beneath her feet dim, and for a breathless moment, even the wind seems to pause.
She lifts from the terrace without a sound, robes flowing around her like slow-moving currents. She rises higher, folding into a cross-legged lotus posture, levitating effortlessly above the stone. Her chin dips slightly. Eyes close again. Her breath deepens, sinking into the pulse of the ritual.
Her veins burn brighter, the blue light threading intricate pathways across her skin, converging at the center of her forehead. Between her brows, the ajna glows sharply, a point of radiance locking her into alignment with the forces above. With a calm, reverent breath, she Chants, "Namo Kāla-Jīvaya," the words like a binding seal, a silent invocation that echoes in the space between life and death.
Above her, the mandala ignites.
It bursts outward, unfolding across the sky like a celestial bloom. Rings of sacred geometry ripple wide, intricate layers of sigils, gates, and latticework stretching vast and endless. The first circle spirals, then the second blooms from it, and another, until the whole formation sprawls above Valenmir, immense and impossible.
Far from the Court of Accordance, within the quiet sanctuary of the resting chamber, Asen lies still — yet his senses remain awake.
He feels a voice. It hums through the stone walls, a vibration more than a sound, like the breath of an unseen presence brushing past his thoughts. His eyes open.
His gaze sharpens, eyes narrowing just slightly, as if measuring the air itself. His tone is calm, but there's an edge to it—an undercurrent of something deeper, yet controlled.
"The air feels off… not a change I can see, but one I feel. This place… there is a disturbance here. A disruption in the flow of things. The balance is not as it should be—too subtle to be instinct, but unmistakable nonetheless."
Asen rises without urgency, yet with purpose, his movement quiet but certain. The low fire in the limestone hearth glows faintly, casting slow-moving shadows across the tapestry above — the figures of a silent council seem to shift, their peace no longer at rest.
He crosses the polished stone floor, the cool marble inlays brushing against the soles of his feet. The carved wooden door gives easily beneath his hand, and he steps into the gallery beyond, where the light has begun to seep in pale and gold.
The Hall waits.
He enters, and the air changes. Dust swirls in the shafts of early light streaming through tall lancet windows. The old frescoes high above seem newly vivid, their scenes of harmony and craft charged with subtle life. The long oak table stands like a sentinel at the center — scarred, massive, bearing silent witness to centuries.
Asen's eyes widen. The moment settles around him like a mantle. Something stirs — in the stones, in the air, in the memory of the hall itself.
He stands still. The silence presses in — vast, weighty, like the breath between worlds. His breath is steady, but his pulse answers to something older than thought. The air tastes changed. His skin tightens — not from cold, but from the unmistakable sense of being seen by something that should not see.
"This… isn't vision. It's revelation."
His voice is low, each word placed with care — but just beneath the surface, something strains.
"Euclid that moves — not carved in stone, but cast in sky."
"A language drawn in pattern. Not for man… for memory."
The mountains whisper of things they were not shaped to hold. The lake no longer reflects the world Asen Velarion knows—it mirrors something older, deeper. He feels the weight of the sky shift, as if time itself falters beneath a name better left unspoken.
Elysia hovers at its center. Still. Unmoving. But not absent. The air bends around her. Power coils through her like thread through a needle, stitching the heavens to flesh. Asen does not pretend to understand it.
Yet across Valenmir, he feels the change. In the stone. In the silence. In the places even memory avoids.
Asen Velarion watches.
And though the veil between worlds thins, though powers beyond mortal reach begin to stir, he does not flinch.
He does not need to understand the rite.
Only to remember this:
That he stood beneath it. And did not yield.
Because not all truths are meant to be grasped. Some only witnessed.