Chapter Five — Echoes of Elderstar
969 Words
The twenty-eighth day came and went.
Then the twenty-ninth.
The thirtieth.
Life within the castle settled into an unfamiliar rhythm. Isella no longer felt like a prisoner, yet neither did she feel like a guest. She occupied a strange place somewhere in between—a mystery everyone acknowledged but no one understood.
Least of all herself.
The warmth beneath her skin had never left.
Some days it was little more than a comforting ember.
Others, it flared unexpectedly, spreading through her veins before fading as quickly as it had come. Vaelthar noticed every time, though he never commented on it unless she looked unwell.
She never did.
Instead, something else began to change.
Her dreams.
At first they were only fragments.
A forest unlike any she had seen, where the trees shimmered with silver leaves beneath a sky filled with stars even during daylight.
A mountain crowned with a crystal palace.
A city carved into the roots of a tree so vast its branches disappeared beyond the clouds.
None of it resembled the mortal realm.
None of it belonged to the Abyss.
Night after night the visions grew clearer.
She heard laughter.
Children running through fields.
The sound of water flowing over white stone.
They weren't dreams anymore.
They felt...
Remembered.
Then came the voices.
At first, they were impossible to understand, muffled as though carried on the wind.
A woman's gentle laugh.
A man's calm reassurance.
Always close.
Always just beyond reach.
Until one night...
"...Little star..."
The woman's voice.
Warm.
Tender.
Filled with a love so profound it made Isella's chest ache.
She turned toward the sound.
A silhouette stood beneath a great silver tree.
She couldn't see the woman's face.
Only long hair dancing in the breeze.
Another figure approached.
Taller.
Broad-shouldered.
His voice was deep.
"You'll find your way."
Isella reached for them.
"Wait!"
Neither turned.
Instead, the man spoke one final word.
"Elderstar."
She woke with a sharp breath.
The room was dark save for the dying embers in the fireplace.
Her heart pounded.
"Elderstar..."
She whispered the name aloud.
It felt ancient.
Important.
As though it belonged to her long before she'd ever heard it.
She knew then that the voices hadn't belonged to strangers.
Some instinct deeper than memory told her the truth.
My parents.
She had no proof.
No faces.
Only certainty.
The following morning, she skipped breakfast.
Instead, she went directly to the castle library.
The palace held thousands upon thousands of books collected over millennia. Histories of forgotten kingdoms, treatises on magic, records of extinct races and vanished empires filled shelves that stretched so high they disappeared into shadow.
Surely...
Somewhere...
Someone had written the name.
She began with histories of the mortal kingdoms.
Nothing.
Atlases.
Nothing.
Books concerning celestial beings.
Nothing.
Demonic genealogies.
Still nothing.
"Elderstar..."
She murmured the name over and over, hoping it would stir some forgotten memory.
Hours became days.
Whenever Vaelthar attended council or court, Isella disappeared into the library, surrounded by towering shelves and fading parchment.
She became a familiar sight to the elderly librarians, who quietly brought her stacks of books before she even asked.
Each evening she returned to her chambers empty-handed.
Until...
Late one afternoon, while searching a forgotten corner of the library rarely visited by anyone, she noticed something odd.
One shelf stood several inches farther from the wall than the others.
Curiosity won.
She pressed against the heavy oak.
With surprising ease, it shifted just enough to reveal a narrow recess hidden behind it.
Inside rested a single book.
It was enormous.
Bound in cracked black leather.
No title adorned its cover.
Dust lay so thick across it that she disturbed centuries of neglect simply by lifting it into her arms.
"...How old are you?"
The leather creaked as she opened it.
Ancient parchment greeted her.
The ink shimmered faintly, untouched by time.
Then her excitement faded.
The writing meant nothing to her.
The letters twisted into elegant symbols unlike any language she'd ever encountered. They flowed across the pages almost like artwork, beautiful and utterly unreadable.
She turned another page.
Illustrations filled the margins.
A towering tree whose branches held stars instead of leaves.
A figure crowned in radiant light.
A circle divided into three halves—one glowing white, one black as midnight, and one... empty.
Her pulse quickened.
Near the bottom of the page, only one word stood apart from the rest.
Even though she couldn't read the script...
She recognised it.
"Elderstar."
The symbols surrounding it seemed to shimmer as she spoke the name.
Then fell still once more.
A chill crept up her spine.
She closed the tome.
There was only one person in the entire castle who might be able to read something this old.
Vaelthar.
She rose from the table, the heavy book held tightly against her chest.
She made it halfway to the library doors.
Then stopped.
Would he know what it meant?
Or worse...
Would he take it from her?
He had been honest with her from the beginning, never hiding difficult truths. Yet something about this book felt deeply personal, as though it had been waiting for her alone.
She wasn't ready to share it.
Not yet.
With one last glance toward the corridor leading to Vaelthar's study, she turned back.
Carefully, she wrapped the tome in a length of plain cloth and returned it to the hidden alcove behind the shelf.
"If you're connected to me..."
She rested a hand against the ancient cover.
"...I'll find you again."
Sliding the bookshelf back into place, she brushed the dust from her sleeves and quietly left the library.
Behind the concealed shelf, the forgotten tome remained in darkness.
Its ancient pages lay closed once more.
Waiting.
As though they had waited for centuries.
And could wait a little longer.
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