Where The Stars Fall

Chapter One: The Girl Who Counted Stars

In the small village of Aethermoor, nestled between two silver mountains, there lived a girl named Lyra. She had wild copper hair, eyes the color of a stormy sea, and a habit of staying up far past midnight to watch the sky.

Every night, Lyra would climb to the roof of her grandmother's cottage, wrap herself in a patchwork quilt, and count the stars one by one. She never got to the end. The sky always had more to offer.

"Stars don't fall for nothing," her grandmother had once told her, pressing a smooth obsidian stone into Lyra's small hand. "When a star falls, it means something magical is beginning."

Lyra had never seen a falling star. Not once in all her eleven years of watching.

Until tonight.

The streak of light split the sky like a c***k in a dark mirror — blazing gold and violet — and it fell not into the distance, but directly into the forest behind the village. The trees lit up for just a moment, then went dark again.

Lyra's heart hammered. She clutched the obsidian stone, now warm in her hand, and made her decision. She climbed down from the roof, pulled on her boots, and walked toward the trees.

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