At first, her face seemed young and timeless. But as the figure turned, her features fractured. Subtle at first, then all at once.
Eyes hollowed to voids, glinting like ice trapped in crystal. Her mouth opened, and words scraped out, bone grating against stone.“Ascension was promised,” she rasped. “But the stars turned their gaze.”
Then she shattered. Light burst apart, scattering in jagged arcs across the walls.
And from the fragments…more rose.
Turquoise halos seeped from the stone as dozens of Aelfyn shimmered into view. Warped and distorted, some hovered in the air or sagged in collapse, their bodies bent at impossible angles. A few stood too still, statues in the dark, while others wavered—snared in time’s unbroken loop.
Faces blurred, eyes dead yet burning. Some fixed on Serenna, the rest turned to Vesryn. Mouths stretched in silent screams. But the voices came in a broken chant—layered, clawing, each whisper raking through her skull until even the stone seemed to speak.
“We bore the fire of suns, but it guttered in gold.
The Starpath was sealed. Denied.
We reached for the light, but the way stayed dark.
Buried us beneath roots. Left us to rot.
Ascension…revoked.
The stars never answered—
—never answered—
—never answered our call.”
Serenna turned, half stumbled—still caught in Vesryn’s grip—and gasped as he flung out a hand. A burst of Essence flared down the tunnel. Shadows braided with light as he lashed the radiance outward to chase back the dark. The apparitions disintegrated, dissolving like smoke.
Stone gleamed bare in the wake of the light, and Vesryn’s hold tensed against her.
Corpses.
Scores of them, embalmed by time. Flesh shriveled to bark, roots winding up limbs, claiming what skin no longer held. Empty sockets seemed to stare, locked forever in terror of their final moments.
One corpse clutched a Starshard, fingers fused around the crystal. Another had been half consumed by the tunnel itself, its mouth forced open around a root that jutted through teeth like a spike.
The walls carried evidence of their struggle—blood dried in narrow rivulets, grooves clawed into rock, nails torn free. A body slumped beside the markings, fingers ground to knuckles, stilled mid-scrape.
Others had simply died reaching, hands raised toward a sky offering freedom too far above.
Serenna’s lungs locked. For an instant she thought she felt something in the earth spreading across her skin, rooting her in place.
Beside her, Vesryn’s breath came shallow and uneven. “Still holding them,” he whispered, gaze fixed on a corpse gripping a Starshard.
Drawn by quiet reflex, Serenna’s fingers found the gem at her throat, unable to believe that those here had trusted the magic ofstarlight to carry them home. Perhaps once that faith had held power. But not in this prison.
She knew the Aelfyn hadn’t all been innocent. They’d hunted dragons in their hunger for magic, paving the path the king still walked.
But this… She wasn’t sure justice lived in a tomb devoid of hope. Or if anyone deserved to die grasping for a light that was forever out of reach.
Vesryn’s hold eased down her arm, fingers threading tightly into hers.
Behind them, the air exhaled. Serenna tensed, but no illusion followed as a final whisper curled through the stone.
“Starlight should have opened the path. But ascension was denied. Why does it still burn?”
Serenna turned toward Vesryn as the words dissolved, her pulse stammering against her throat. “Do you think the illusions were tied to the Starshards? Are they still active?”
