Blood of Stars

Chapter 10: Part 4

The world shivered at her words. Far beyond the crater, across cities and fields, peasants and kings alike looked to the fractured sky. Some fell to their knees, weeping in awe. Others screamed, clutching their heads as her voice tore through their thoughts.

Kaelen’s breath caught. Her voice wasn’t just heard. It was felt — a hand inside his chest, pulling at his heart.

“She believes she’s saving us,” he muttered, half to himself.

“But?” Liora asked softly.

He swallowed hard. “…but if she keeps tearing the veil, there will be nothing left to save.”

⸻

Night fell uneasy.

They made camp by the ruins, a pathetic fire sputtering against the cold wind spilling from the crater. The air itself felt thinner, as though the collapse of the Spire had bled life from the world.

None of them spoke for hours. Kaelen sat sharpening his bent sword with hands that shook. Aelira traced faint wards in the dirt, though they fizzled out as quickly as she drew them. Liora simply stared into the fire, lips moving silently, as though in prayer — though Kaelen could not tell if she prayed to Heaven, to Karlene, or to something else entirely.

At last, Liora broke the silence.

“We can’t fight her,” she said. “Not yet. You saw what she did to the Host. If she wanted, she could have erased us where we stood. But she didn’t. That means something.”

“It means she’s not fully lost,” Kaelen said quickly, seizing on the hope.

Aelira shook her head. “Or it means she’s waiting. Watching how we respond before she decides whether we’re worth saving.”

Liora looked to Kaelen. “We need to follow her. Learn. Find the moment where she’s still Karlene, not just the relic’s vessel.”

“And if that moment is already gone?” Aelira asked.

Kaelen stared into the flames, shadows dancing across his scarred face. “Then I’ll bring her back myself.” He gripped his sword so tightly his knuckles bled. “Or I’ll die trying.”

⸻

High above, Karlene lingered in the fractured sky, her wings of glass and fire shimmering against the broken constellations. She watched the three by the fire, her gaze reaching through the veil as though distance no longer bound her.

Her voice whispered — not aloud, but into Kaelen’s thoughts alone:

You still believe in me.

His breath caught, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword.

Then believe a little longer.

And then she was gone, vanishing into the rift she had carved across the heavens.

Kaelen lifted his head, heart pounding. For the first time since the Spire’s collapse, he felt something stronger than grief or rage.

Hope.

But it was a hope laced with terror — because if Karlene was right, the war between Heaven and earth had already ended. And something far greater had begun.