Chapter 1: The Starbound
1791 Words
Part I : Valecrown,the Eternal Lie
Valecrown had always called itself eternal.
Its historians said the city was born of divine favor, raised by kings whose bloodlines were blessed before the world learned how to lie. Marble towers clawed at the sky, their banners stitched with crests of conquest and inheritance. Every stone road was a reminder that power here was not earned—it was inherited, guarded, and enforced.
In Valecrown, blood decided the truth.
Royal blood shimmered brighter than justice. Noble blood outweighed mercy. And any blood not recognized by the crown or council was considered a flaw in the world’s design.
Magic existed—but only the kind Valecrown could control.
Anything older, wilder, or bound to forces beyond crowns was hunted, dissected, erased from record. Creatures of the old world were rewritten as myths. Survivors were branded monsters. And those born beneath the stars themselves were spoken of only in warnings whispered to frighten children.
The Starbound brings ruin.
The Starbound bend fate.
The Starbound must never be allowed to rise again.
Valecrown did not fear war.
It feared what it could not own.
That fear was why the armies marched at dusk.
Part II : Sorahi of the Hidden Sky
Valecrown was a death sentence to my kind.
That truth had been pressed into me long before I ever set foot on its blood-soaked soil—taught in hushed tones, carved into memory with fear sharp enough to survive centuries.
I learned to hide before I learned to speak.
My name is Sorahi, and the stars knew me before the world ever did.
I was not born screaming. I was born beneath a sky that burned brighter than it had in generations. Constellations shifted to witness my first breath, and for one terrible, glorious moment, the heavens forgot to be silent.
That was what Eryndor told me, years later, when I was old enough to understand the danger of such a beginning.
He was the one who found me. The one who lifted me from a cradle of starlight and shadow and chose to raise me not as a weapon—but as a secret.
“You were not meant to shine yet,” he had said. “Power like yours draws eyes. And eyes like Valecrown’s do not look away.”
So I learned restraint.
I learned how to fold my magic inward, how to silence the hum beneath my skin when the stars called too loudly. I learned how to walk like someone ordinary, how to bleed without healing too quickly, how to bow my head so no one noticed how the night leaned closer when I passed.
I learned survival.
By the time Valecrown’s banners appeared on the horizon, I was already wearing borrowed armor, my ears bound, my magic locked deep where even I could barely feel it.
I was Starbound.
But on that battlefield, I was only a soldier.
And as the horns sounded and the sun bled into the earth, I understood why Eryndor had always feared this moment.
Because Valecrown did not march without reason.
And whatever reason had brought them to war would not end with the battlefield.
Part III : The March to Dusk
The order to advance came without ceremony.
Valecrown’s commanders did not waste breath on speeches when victory was assumed. Drums thundered instead—low, relentless beats that sank into bone and marrow, driving the army forward like a single creature with no heart of its own.
I moved with them.
Rows of armored bodies stretched endlessly ahead and behind me, steel catching the dying light of the sun. The banners rose above us—gold and crimson, stitched with symbols of bloodlines older than most men walking beneath them. Each banner was a reminder of what Valecrown believed: that lineage made one worthy, and anything born outside its sanctioned history deserved to be erased.
Whispers traveled through the ranks as we marched.
“They say the enemy hides magic in their blood.”
“I heard they’re not fully human.”
“Doesn’t matter. The crown wants them gone.”
Every word tightened something in my chest.
They did not know they marched beside what they feared.
The battlefield lay ahead—a wide, scarred stretch of land where hills dipped into shallow valleys, perfect for slaughter. Smoke already hung in the air from the first clashes, darkening the horizon like a warning the sky itself could not ignore.
I kept my head down. My hands remained steady on my weapon.
Control. Always control.
Yet beneath my skin, something stirred.
The stars were restless.
It was subtle at first—a faint pressure behind my eyes, a hum like distant thunder carried through constellations unseen. I swallowed hard, pressing the sensation down as Eryndor had taught me.
Not yet. Not here.
Then I felt it.
A presence.
Not magic like mine—not light or song—but something heavy, pulling at the world rather than shaping it. Shadows bent strangely at the edge of my vision, stretching where no torchlight touched them.
I looked up despite myself.
Across the field, surrounded by chaos and smoke, stood a figure I had never seen before—and yet, somehow, I had been waiting for.
Part IV : The Battlefield at Dusk
Valecrown had always believed itself eternal.
But at dusk, on a battlefield choked with smoke and screams, it looked fragile.
The sky burned red, as if the sun itself were bleeding out. Ash drifted like snow over shattered shields and fallen bodies. Steel rang against steel until the sound blurred into something animal—something desperate.
Men no longer fought for glory.
They fought for breath.
I fought with them.
Blades clashed around me. I parried, struck, twisted away from a blow that would have split my skull if I’d been slower. A body fell at my feet. Then another.
Each life ended, tugged faintly at the stars above.
I felt it every time.
My grip tightened until my fingers ached. I forced my breathing into a steady rhythm, burying the pull of the heavens deep beneath muscle and bone. If I lost control here—if the light answered me openly—I would not leave this field alive.
A shout to my left. A scream to my right.
A blade glanced off my pauldron. I turned on instinct, driving my weapon forward, feeling the dull shock of impact travel up my arm as another enemy collapsed. Blood soaked into the dirt, steaming faintly in the cooling air.
Then—silence.
Not peace.
A pause.
The kind that comes when the world holds its breath.
The smoke thinned just enough for me to see him clearly.
He stood across the ruined stretch of earth, unmoving amid the chaos, his sword lowered but not sheathed. His armor was fractured, darkened as if something beneath it drank the light. Shadows clung to him unnaturally, curling at his feet like living things.
Our eyes met.
The battlefield vanished.
There was no roar of war, no screams, no clash of steel—only the weight of recognition. Not familiarity. Something older. Deeper. Like two wounds sensing the same ache.
His gaze was not cruel.
Nor was it kind.
It was weary. Ancient. As if he had watched too many endings and feared this would be another.
For a single heartbeat, neither of us moved.
It felt like a truce declared by the universe itself.
The stars inside me surged—violent, demanding, desperate to answer whatever darkness called to them from his presence. My breath caught painfully in my chest.
No, I begged silently. Not now.
A horn sounded.
Reality snapped back into place.
Someone shouted his name—Cyrian—and the shadows around him tightened, wrapping him like chains as he turned away and vanished back into the chaos.
The moment shattered.
But the damage was done.
That night, after the battle had ended and the dead were counted, I sat alone by a dying fire. My armor lay discarded beside me, stained with blood that was not all mine. My hands trembled despite the stillness.
Above me, hidden by cloud and smoke, the stars shifted.
One constellation burned brighter than it had in centuries.
I pressed my palm to my chest, breath shallow.
I did not yet know his truth.
He did not yet know mine.
But somewhere between the void that clung to him and the stars that answered me, something had awakened.
And it would not be denied.
Part V : What the Stars Remember
The battlefield emptied slowly.
Not because the dead were honored, but because there was nothing left to take from them.
Torches burned low as soldiers moved among the bodies, stripping armor, counting losses, murmuring prayers they did not mean. I kept to the shadows, helping where I could without drawing attention, my senses dulled with exhaustion.
Yet the stars would not be silent.
Even hidden behind clouds and smoke, I felt them watching—pulling, shifting, remembering something I could not name. The sensation lingered beneath my skin like an unfinished thought.
Cyrian.
The name echoed without permission.
I had never heard it before today, and yet it settled inside me as if it had always been there. I did not know who he was, only that his presence had unsettled something ancient and tightly bound within me.
Eryndor’s voice surfaced in my memory, calm and firm as ever.
Some forces do not collide by chance, Sorahi. They recognize one another.
I wrapped my arms around myself, grounding my breath, forcing the sensation inward where it belonged. Whatever had stirred on that field would have to remain buried.
At least for now.
Part VI: The cost of survival
I left before dawn.
Valecrown soldiers did not question a lone figure slipping away after battle. Loss made them careless. Victory made them blind.
By the time the first light touched the horizon, the battlefield was far behind me. The land grew quieter with every step, the air cooler, the world slowly returning to itself.
Only then did I allow myself to stop.
I knelt, pressing my palm to the earth, steadying my breathing as the last tremors faded from my hands. The stars responded faintly—soft, distant, restrained.
Good.
Control meant survival.
As I rose, I cast one final glance toward the direction of Valecrown. Toward the man of shadows whose presence had marked me without touch or word.
Whatever had awakened between us would not be answered today.
But I knew this much with absolute certainty:
The life I had lived before the battlefield was over.
And the stars would never let me forget it.
- Writer
