Kael is on one knee.
Silver blood drips from his mouth, pooling on the stone below.
The last pillar of starlight is still lodged in Veyra’s chest, veins cracked wide, violet-crimson light leaking like blood.
The crack begins to close.
Threads of void weave across the wound, pulling it shut with wet, stitching sounds.
The pillar inside dissolves into harmless sparks, absorbed.
Veyra straightens.
The white circles narrow.
The mouth slit curves — slow, amused.
“That tickled.”
Its voice is no longer soft.
It’s velvet over broken glass.
“You’re from the old Calaestar blood, aren’t you?
I can taste it.
Rare.
Wasted on children.”
Toren roars, pushing to his feet, fists igniting.
Mira’s moons reform, spinning faster than ever.
Vel flickers in and out, aura blazing.
Lark stands, ice cracking off his skin, scar bleeding fresh.
All four charge at once.
Toren barrels in first, hammer-fists blazing white-silver, roaring loud enough to crack stone.
Mira’s moons accelerate into twin comets, trailing razor light.
Vel vanishes and reappears in four places at once, palms striking from every angle.
Lark lunges low, axe-fist aimed to take Veyra’s leg off at the knee.Veyra doesn’t move.
It raises one void-hand.
Everything stops.
Toren freezes mid-charge, fists inches from its chest, aura ripping out in visible streams, sucked into the violet-crimson veins.
His eyes widen, mouth open in a silent scream as his glow is torn away.
Mira’s moons halt mid-flight, spinning uselessly in place, then shatter into a thousand sparks that swirl into Veyra’s aura like moths to flame.
Vel’s four copies are yanked together into one spot, her flicker failing, body slammed to the ground hard enough to crater stone.
She gasps, aura draining fast.
Lark’s axe-fist stops an inch from Veyra’s leg.
A single void-finger presses under his chin and lifts him clean off the ground.
Ice spreads across his skin again, faster, thicker.
His scar splits wider, silver blood freezing mid-drip.Veyra tilts its head, white circles gleaming.
“Four ants at once.
Cute.”
Kael rises behind it, aura burning wild, coughing silver blood.
He raises one shaking hand.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Palm open.
Starlight gathers — weaker, flickering, but pure.
A sphere forms, smaller than before, trembling with everything he has left.
Veyra turns.
The white circles lock on the sphere.
Kael opens his fingers.Thin rays shoot up — desperate, needle-bright threads.The sky answers.
Pillars drop — smaller, ragged, but still screaming down.
Veyra raises one hand.The pillars freeze mid-air, ten feet away.
Then it closes its fist.
Every pillar crushes into harmless sparks that swirl into its palm like dust.
It opens the hand.The crushed starlight leaks between its void-fingers, falling as glittering sand.
“Still raw,” Veyra says,
voice dripping amusement.
“Still small. I want the harvest when it’s ripe.
When the light is perfect.
Then I’ll come back and take it all.”
It drops the last sparks.
They vanish before they hit the ground. Kael lunges — one last, broken charge, fist blazing.Veyra catches his wrist mid-swing.
Squeezes. Kael’s aura pours out — white-silver feeding the violet-crimson veins like a river into the sea.
Pain like ice and fire.
Veyra leans in, mouth slit inches from Kael’s face.
“Grow, little star.
Make it worth my time.”
It releases him.
Kael drops to his knees, aura guttering, silver blood pouring from his nose.
Veyra turns.
Steps backward into a fresh rip that opens behind it like a wound.The white circles curve — a smile.
The rip closes.
Gone.
The five are left on the empty stone where Halrow used to be. Toren unconscious.
Mira on her side, breathing shallow.
Vel curled up, flicker dead.
Lark frozen solid, scar bleeding.
Kael on his knees, aura barely a whisper, staring at the spot Veyra vanished.
The horizon pulses violet.
Stronger than before.
