CHAPTER SIX — THE FIRST STARBORN.
912 Words
The Hunter’s roar wasn’t sound.
It was pressure.
A crushing wave that rattled the metal flooring, cracked the observatory glass, and sent Kael sliding back despite bracing with both boots locked into the ground.
Annastasia, glowing with starfire leaking through her skin, didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
The light wasn’t coming from her.
It was coming through her, like she was a doorway someone had just opened.
The Echo knelt before her, its body of living shadow trembling with a strange reverence.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Kael saw it too.
“Annastasia—” he choked out, eyes wide with something she’d never seen before: awe. “You’re stabilizing. Already?”
She didn’t understand the words, but she felt the truth in her bones.
Her heartbeat wasn’t normal anymore.
It thrummed like a pulse from a distant star.
The Hunter recoiled, claws lifted as if blinded by her glow, the black wound it stepped from flickering behind it in agitation.
Annastasia raised her hand.
The light followed.
It coiled up her arm like a ribbon of molten gold, humming against her skin, reacting to her breath.
“I don’t know how to stop it,” she whispered.
Kael shook his head.
“You don’t stop it.”
His voice dropped to something softer, almost reverent.
“You become it.”
The Hunter screeched.
The Echo rose, spreading into a massive star-shaped silhouette, but Annastasia stepped forward before either could shield her.
Her bare feet touched the ground,
and it glowed.
Kael’s breath hitched. “Anna—”
She didn’t hear him.
Her mind was no longer trapped inside her body.
She saw everything.
Not with her eyes.
With her origin.
Threads of fate.
Strings of light.
Stars pulsing like living hearts.
And one thread, thick, dark, wrapped in metal, connected directly from the Hunter’s chest to hers.
Her stomach flipped.
“It’s tethered to me,” she whispered. “That’s why it’s here.”
Kael cursed. “You’re awakening too fast—”
But it was too late to slow anything down.
The Hunter lunged.
Kael moved.The Echo moved.
But Annastasia was faster.
The light in her chest surged outward, forming a gravitational burst that flung both Kael and the Echo away from her, but gently, like invisible hands placing them out of harm’s reach.
The Hunter reached her,
And her hand closed around its claw.
The metal hissed and melted under her touch.
The Hunter shrieked.
Annastasia’s eyes blazed white-hot.
Her voice was not entirely her own when she spoke.
It layered,
hers, and something older, something ancient,
something starborn.
“You were forbidden from crossing into this plane.”
The Hunter recoiled, trying to pull back, but the light held it in place like a chain.
Kael froze.
He knew that voice.
Everyone in the universe knew that voice.
The voice of the First Starborn.
But it was coming out of Annastasia.
Her hair lifted as if underwater, strands shimmering with iridescent gold.
Her skin glowed with constellations swirling under the surface.
The Hunter writhed.
“We answer only to the Sovereign,” it hissed.
Annastasia’s chest tightened.
The name echoed somewhere deep and unremembered inside her.
“The Sovereign?” she whispered. “Who—”
The Hunter snapped forward, trying to strike,
And the Echo appeared in front of her, slamming a dark shield of shadow into the creature’s face.
Kael grabbed her arm. “We need to move. NOW.”
But Annastasia couldn’t move.
Because the light wouldn’t turn off.
“Kael…” she whispered, voice breaking. “Make it stop.”
He cupped her face with both hands, his touch grounding her even through the glowing heat.
“Look at me.”
His forehead pressed to hers.
“You’re not dying. You’re not losing control. This is your inheritance responding. You’re remembering who you are.”
Her breathing slowed.
The light pulsed.
Far slower now.
Far steadier.
Kael exhaled shakily, relief flooding his eyes.
“There you go. Stay with me.”
Behind them, the Echo held the Hunter back as shadows and void-metal clashed.
A violent crack split the air,
another tear opening.
More Hunters.
Kael’s grip tightened on her shoulders.
“We can’t fight all of them.”
Annastasia swallowed. “Then what do we do?”
His eyes flicked to the starfire swirling around her hands.
“We run,” he said. “But this time… we run to the one place they can’t enter.”
She frowned. “Where?”
Kael hesitated.
Like the answer itself was dangerous.
Then he whispered:
“Your birthplace.”
Annastasia froze.
“My… what?”
Kael stepped back, pulling a small device from his belt, triangular, glowing, vibrating with energy.
“The Celestial Gate,” he said. “I didn’t want to open it until you were stable, but—”
The Echo screamed.
Not loud.
Not human.
A deep, dimensional tear of sound that shook every bolt in the room.
Kael spun.
Three Hunters emerged from the rip in space, their void-metal masks cracking under the pressure of Annastasia’s glow.
“Kael,” she whispered, fear trembling through her chest. “We won’t make it.”
Kael grabbed her hand.
His voice was quiet.
Certain.
“Annastasia, listen to me.”
She looked up at him, heart pounding.
His words came out like a vow.
“I will get you home.”
He slammed the device into the ground.
Light exploded.
The Celestial Gate began to open.
- Writer
