Song of Shattered Stars

The Argent Whisper cut a path through an ocean of new stars, their light pulsating with rhythms that vibrated in the mariners' bones. Lysandra leaned elbows on the rail, storm-eyes reflecting constellations swirling like tapestries in motion. The stars did not just shine—they sang. Loud, crystal notes merged with low, resonant growls, generating a song which made the air tremble.

"They're not singing to us," Lysandra whispered, her voice trembling. "They're singing about us. Can't you sense it?"

Sera stood merged with the helm, her flesh an intertwining of gold and writhing roots. The energy of the One Anchor had incinerated the decay of the garden, but the merging had left her flesh cracked and resplendent, her nerves threaded into the wood of the ship. She closed her eyes, permitting the song of the stars to wash over her. It was not music—it was a story. A dirge for the death of the Veil and a psalm for the new cosmos.

Garvin paced the deck, his lone remaining arm twitching where the thornvine had been severed. The rot's black veins still crawled toward his heart, a ticking time bomb under his skin. "Sounds like a dirge to me," he growled. "Or a trap."

Zmey flew in circles overhead, his scales glinting with refracted starlight. "The Dawn Pirates heard these songs. They followed them to the edge of oblivion… and never returned."

Lysandra deployed the Compass of Shattered Skies. Its needle ceased to be immobile—it shook, leaving untamed designs on the air like a lunatic writer. The sigils softly hummed, echoing with the symphonic cries of the stars.

"It's reacting to them," she explained, raising the compass. "Like it's trying to… guide the song."

Sera jammed a root against the compass. The needle clicked into place, burning a sigil into the air: a serpent coiled around an anchor, its jaws closed over the skull of the Dawn Pirates' thorn-vine head.

"The Serpent's Coil," Zmey growled. "A grave of ambition. The last voyage of the Dawn Pirates ended there."

Garvin frowned at the holographic chart unfolding from the compass. "Why's it look like the snake's eating itself?

"Because some hungers cannot be sated," Zmey spoke, his voice dark.

They docked beside a dying star, its light flickering like a candle in the breeze. As the crew approached in a bony longship, the star shuddered. Its surface rippled and folded in upon itself until it looked like a gigantic figure built of crackling energy.

"You bear the Anchor," it said, voice thundering with the weight of dead galaxies. "And the blight of the garden. You are savior and destruction."

Sera moved forward, roots gripping her to the deck. "What are you?"

"A memory. A fragment of the madness of the Dawn Pirates." The star-being wavered, and the hollowness around them twisted, revealing a mural etched on the face of reality: an armada of vessels fleeing a whirlpool, their sailors shrunk to skeletons, their eyes burning with stolen starfire. "They attempted to raid the heart of the Veil. They became its prisoners instead."

Lysandra's storm-marbles crackled. "Why remind us of this?"

"Because you keep repeating their mistakes." The star's light ebbed, its form disintegrating. "The Veil was never a boundary—it was a caging. And you've unleashed its ward."

Sera dreamed of the Inverse Spires that night.

She stood among the Chronovaults, ozone and old parchment thick in the air. Elara knelt before the Wall of First Light, his hands pressed against old runes. "See, Sera," he whispered, his voice as it had been prior to the Veil's claim on him. "The answer is here. The gods do not govern us—they imprison us."

But when he turned to her, his eyes were vacant spaces.

"You think you've won, little star?" Shadowy tendrils slithered from his fingertips, wrapping around her throat. "The Talasüm are patient. We've already seeded the new stars. Your crew will rot from within… starting with him."

She woke to screams.

Garvin's bunk was a nest of writhing thorns. His single arm had exploded into a thorny thicket, blackened vines tunneling into the walls. His eyes were wild, veins pulsating like ink beneath his skin.

"Back!" he roared, voice slurred as thorns ripped his jaw. "It's—hungry."

Lysandra attacked, storm-marbles burning. "Garvin, fight it!"

"Can't!" He caught her wrist, thorns biting into her skin. "Sera—burn it! Now!

Sera's roots broke out, golden flame scorching the corrupted vines. The bitter stench of charred flesh hung in the air as Garvin dropped, his arm reduced to smoldering ash. But the rot had spread—black veins spreading towards his heart.

Zmey slammed down in a deafening crunch. "The Labyrinth's curse. It feeds on regret."

Lysandra put a hand against Garvin's chest, her storm-marbles spiking. "We need a cure. Now."

The star-memory came back on deck, its light paling to yellowish gray. "The antidote is in the Serpent's Coil. But to take it, you will have to offer a name to the void."

Lysandra smiled. "We've paid enough."

"Then he dies," the star said with calculating coldness. "And the corruption spreads. To you. To her. To all."

Sera stepped between. "Whose name?"

"One that is significant. A thread in the tapestry."

The crew fell silent. Garvin's labored breathing filled the air.

"Take mine," Lysandra exclaimed.

"No." Sera's roots wrapped protectively around her. "Take his."

She pointed to the star.

The Argent Whisper sailed into the Serpent's Coil—a ouroboros-shaped nebula, its glowing gases curling in hypnotic loops. Rubbish floated through the void: shattered hulls, frozen corpses encased in ice, and rusting guns reduced to dust.

In the center of the nebula floated a hulk of a vessel, its hull adorned with the Dawn Pirates' thorn-vine skull. The Argent Whisper arrived with an objection, the crew disembarking on the moldy deck.

Inside, a vault was locked by a godglass door. On it, a warning:

"Here lies the First Anchor. To wield it, you must forget."

Zmey smashed the door with a claw. Inside was a body, skeletal hands clutching a journal.

The journal pages groaned with age. The entry read:

"We thought we were heroes. We were fools. The Veil's heart was no one's to take—it was a cell, and we freed its gaoler. If you're reading this, run. The Talasüm arrive. And they'll have familiar faces."

The final page had a sketch of the warden—a woman with Sera's face and Zmey's wings.

The head of the dead body rolled, revealing Lysandra's storm-blue eyes.