Asteria The seven Relics

Between life and death

"No...!"

Lucien's voice echoed through the Grand Hall as he caught Ariana before she could hit the marble floor. Her body felt frighteningly light in his arms. Too light.

Blood stained the ivory silk of her wedding gown, blooming like crimson roses against untouched snow.

"Someone call the royal physicians!" King Alaric roared, and his command shattered the stunned silence like a stone through glass.

The hall erupted into chaos. Servants rushed in every direction. Guards closed the gates. Nobles stumbling back from the altar in disbelief.

Queen Elowen fell to her knees beside her daughter, her trembling hands cupping Ariana's pale face.

"Ariana... Ariana, look at me." Her voice cracked down the middle. "My little star. Please. Open your eyes."

There was no answer.

"Move!"

The royal physicians pushed through the crowd, leather satchels of herbs, tinctures, and surgical instruments swinging at their sides. The oldest among them dropped to his knees beside Ariana without hesitation.

"Lay her flat."

Lucien lowered her carefully onto the polished floor, one hand still cradling the back of her head.

The physician pressed two fingers to her throat. His expression tightened.

"Her pulse is racing and thready — that's not a shock alone." His hands moved to check her eyes, her lips, the spreading discoloration beneath her collarbone. "She is poisoned"

"What?!! poison?" King Cedric stepped forward, jaw tight.

"Yes, your highness. But I couldn't identify the type, There's no time to identify it properly." The physician was already reaching for his satchel. "Bring the emergency kit"

Another physician knelt to help, hands steady even as his voice wasn't. "Whatever poison entered her body, it's spreading fast, i have never seen something like this before”

Lucien remained kneeling beside her, his gloves soaked through with her blood. He barely noticed.

"Princess." His voice had fallen to almost nothing. "You said we'd begin as strangers who will trust each other no matter what You can't leave before we've even had our first real conversation."

No one heard him except Adrian, who stood several steps back, unable to make his legs carry him closer. He had grown up watching his brother win duels, win arguments, win over entire crowds without trying — he had never once seen Lucien look like this. Helpless. Small. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he simply stood there and let himself witness it, because it was the only thing he could offer.

The physicians worked with desperation. One prepared a broad emergency antidote, uncertain but determined , Another A murmured to Astra under his breath while counting the rise and fall of her chest, over and over, as if watching closely enough might keep it going.

Minutes stretched into hours.

Then the oldest physician slowly lowered his hands.

The room went unbearably quiet.

King Alaric's voice shook. "...Well?"

The physician could not meet his eyes. "My king. I am sorry. There is nothing more we can do."

Queen Elowen stared at him as though she had forgotten how language worked.

"No."

The physician bowed his head. "I'm sorry."

"No." She shook her head, again and again,

"My daughter was laughing this morning. She was okay , She was—" Her voice broke entirely. "She was supposed to become a bride today."

She collapsed against Alaric's chest, and the king wrapped both arms around his queen and held on as though he could keep her from shattering by sheer force. For the first time in decades, the ruler of Elaria wept openly before his people, and no one in that hall thought any less of him for it.

Lucien didn't move from where he knelt. He simply stayed there, one hand still holding hers.

Across the hall, the palace librarian stood frozen, his gaze drawn to the shattered silver goblet still lying forgotten on the marble floor. In all the chaos, no one had thought to clear it away.

A single drop of dark liquid clung to its rim.

His eyes narrowed.

He had spent forty years cataloguing the palace's oldest secrets, and something in the careful choreography of the last ten minutes — the attendant's trembling hands, the goblet's timing, the way the poison had waited exactly long enough to let the vows begin — told him this had been planned with precision.

Quietly, without drawing a single eye, he drew a clean handkerchief from his sleeve, wrapped it around the goblet, and tucked it beneath his robes.

*Someone had planned this. Someone inside the palace.*

He said nothing to anyone. Not yet.

Outside, the celebration came to an abrupt and terrible end. The joyful bells that had welcomed a royal wedding now tolled slowly across the capital — one, then another, then another, the rhythm of celebration bent into the rhythm of grief within the space of a single hour.

Citizens stopped where they stood in the streets. Musicians let their instruments fall silent mid-note.

An uneasy whisper moved through the city *Something has happened at the palace.*

By nightfall, the truth had reached every corner of the kingdom: the Crown Princess was dead.

Somewhere far beyond the palace walls, a cloaked rider waited at the edge of a darkening forest as a raven descended and landed on an outstretched, gloved arm. A narrow strip of black silk was tied around its leg.

The rider read the message once, expression unreadable beneath the hood.

"So," the rider murmured. "It is finished."

The parchment crumpled in a gloved fist and scattered to the wind in small dark pieces, indistinguishable from ash.

"Begin the next phase."

The horse turned toward the eastern road. Within moments, both rider and message had vanished into the trees, leaving no trace behind but hoofprints.

Darkness.

No sound. No pain. No fear.

Ariana opened her eyes.

There was no palace. No wedding. No sky. Only an endless expanse of shimmering silver mist, stretching farther than she could see in any direction.

She looked down. She was no longer wearing her wedding gown. Instead, she stood barefoot upon the surface of perfectly still water that held the reflection of countless stars, as though the sky had settled beneath her feet instead of above her head.

"...Am I..." Her voice carried strangely, softened by the mist "...dead?"

No answer came. Only a distant melody — gentle, ancient, achingly familiar, like a lullaby she was certain she'd heard once, long before she had words to understand it.

A single silver feather drifted down out of the darkness above her.

Before it touched the water, the entire world around her trembled, and a warm light bloomed somewhere in the distance. Waiting. Calling.

And beyond that light, she felt someone whispered her name.

*"Ariana..."*