Chapter 19: The Wound Between Stars

The northern sky had cracked.

What once might have been a horizon now split into jagged lines of violet light, like a wound left open too long. Stars pulsed behind the tear—some flickering, some frozen. It was neither day nor night here. Time passed like breath in a dream: slow, irregular, uncertain.

Rael stood on the edge of the crag, gazing into that fracture.

"The Pantheon did this," he said quietly.

Selene stepped beside him, arms crossed. "Trying to erase something, maybe. Looks like they failed."

"No," Nyssira murmured behind them. "They succeeded. For a time. But even silence frays."

The ground beneath them was brittle and brittle with divine residue. The group had made steady progress since leaving the Gate of Silence, but the land itself had grown stranger. Stone turned to glass. Rivers reversed flow. Divine bones jutted from hillsides like spears stabbed into the world by angry gods.

Birds no longer flew. Trees were petrified mid-sway, as if frozen by the fear of what approached.

And Rael…

He could feel it inside him.

Something shifting. Quietly. Persistently. Not painful, not even disruptive. Just… inevitable.

That evening, they made camp beneath the roots of a toppled world-tree. Its bark had hardened into obsidian. Faint veins of crimson light pulsed under its surface, like blood still tried to flow through its corpse.

Caelaris took first watch. Aelthaea sat near the fire, unmoving as ever, her blade laid flat across her lap like an offering.

Selene muttered something about "cursed forests" and found a place to lean against the roots, blades always within reach.

Rael sat alone, head bowed, staring at nothing.

A soft sound approached.

He didn't look up.

Nyssira sat beside him, a carved wooden bowl in her hands. Inside, a silvery tea shimmered—pale petals floating atop it like ice on moonlit water.

"For grounding," she said.

He took it with a nod and sipped.

Cold. Bitter. Faintly metallic. But it spread through him like weight dissolving.

"Forest brew?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not anymore. These flowers don't grow in soil. They bloom in memory."

Rael looked at her. "That's cryptic."

Nyssira smiled faintly. "It's this land. Things grow where they shouldn't. Like you."

Rael exhaled. "I saw her. Hel."

Nyssira's hands folded in her lap. She didn't speak.

"She wasn't a threat," Rael continued. "But she wasn't safe, either."

"She never has been," Nyssira said finally. "She waits, not because she's trapped… but because she chooses to. That's what makes her dangerous."

Rael turned toward her, expression unreadable. "Do you envy that choice?"

She didn't respond.

Instead, she asked softly, "Do you remember your first fear?"

He blinked. "What?"

"Not pain. Not loss. Fear. Of yourself."

Rael's hands gripped the bowl.

"…The first time I burned a man alive. A priest. He looked into my eyes and said, 'You are chosen.' And I believed him."

Nyssira's voice was soft. "That is fear. The moment you begin to believe the world's illusions about you."

She stood, brushing her skirt smooth.

"You're not Hel, Rael. But you carry the weight she discarded."

He looked down at the tea, at the reflection of violet skies in its surface.

Then at Nyssira.

"I didn't ask for any of this."

"No one does," she said. "But you walked into it anyway."

That night, Rael dreamed of falling stars that bled when they struck the earth.

By morning, the landscape had changed again.

The earth simply… ended.

They stood at the precipice of the Wound Between Stars.

A broken cliff split away into a swirling abyss of darkness. Not empty—not quite. It rippled with slow-moving constellations, like the night sky had sunk into the ground. Pulsing veins of divine energy stitched themselves across the void, lighting and dimming as though breathing.

"There's no bridge," Caelaris said, stepping back from the edge.

"There is," Aelthaea murmured, pointing. "There."

A string of black stones floated across the chasm—hovering platforms, each roughly circular, pulsing with faint sigils.

"Anchor relics," Nyssira said. "The gods used them to mend leylines. This place… was once a divine road."

Selene raised an eyebrow. "And now?"

Nyssira's voice lowered. "Now, it's a grave."

Rael stepped forward.

He didn't hesitate.

He jumped onto the first stone.

It trembled slightly beneath his weight, then stabilized.

One by one, the others followed—each leap forcing them further into the unknown.

The silence between each platform was thick. There was no sound here. Not wind. Not breath. Even heartbeats seemed muffled.

And then—

The void stirred.

Rael stopped mid-step.

He turned—and saw something rising.

A shape, vast and formless at first.

Then it resolved into a monstrous tangle of broken wings, rusted weapons, and divine seals torn and repurposed. Dozens of eyes blinked across its body—some weeping, some closed in prayer. A mouth opened, but no sound came out. Only agony.

Selene cursed aloud. "What in the hells—?!"

Nyssira's face darkened. "A Remnant."

"From the war?" Caelaris asked, raising her shield.

Aelthaea drew her sword slowly. "No. Older. These were before even the Pantheon."

The Remnant surged forward.

Blades of light and shadow lashed out.

Caelaris took the first blow—her shield held, but she was knocked back, slamming into another platform. She groaned, one leg twisting beneath her.

"Caelaris!" Selene shouted.

Aelthaea darted forward, intercepting a second strike. Her blade met divine sinew—and sparked. The force rattled the platform beneath them.

Rael leapt forward.

He struck—fire erupting around his blade.

The Remnant howled soundlessly, a ripple of pain radiating outward. It shuddered—but didn't fall. It regenerated, forming new wings from strands of divine essence that stitched together like flesh.

"We can't kill it like this!" Selene yelled.

Rael backed up, panting.

Then—

A whisper.

Hel's voice, soft and far.

"I begin… when memory returns."

He closed his eyes.

And remembered.

The garden.

The moment of clarity.

The silence between who he was and what he must become.

Rael raised his hand.

Not in fury.

In recollection.

Golden light poured from his palm—not flame, not energy.

Memory.

It radiated like truth. A light that refused to forget.

The Remnant froze.

Its wings spasmed. Its mouths collapsed inward. The divine cords that held it began to fray—rejecting themselves.

It wasn't being destroyed.

It was being unwritten.

The light touched it fully—and the Remnant collapsed into a ripple of dust.

Gone.

The silence remained.

Rael lowered his hand, chest rising and falling.

Selene stared at him. "What… the hell was that?"

He turned toward her.

"I remembered who it was. And the world decided it didn't belong."

They crossed the final stone and reached solid ground once more.

There, set into the rock, was a temple.

Or what had once tried to be one.

Its walls were half-formed, construction abandoned. Statues had begun to take shape—faces half-chiseled, arms missing, eyes uncarved. One mural showed gods kneeling—not in prayer, but fear. Another was scorched, as if someone had tried to erase its truth with fire.

They stepped inside.

Dust and silence met them.

Rael moved slowly, hand brushing the wall. The stone pulsed faintly beneath his touch—like memory still lingered here.

Selene approached a pillar.

Words were scrawled into it—jagged, not carved. Almost desperate.

"She Who Waits Wears No Crown."

She read it aloud.

Nyssira stepped beside her. "Then she's not waiting to rule."

Rael stood still, heart thrumming.

"She's waiting… to remember."

Aelthaea examined the chamber. "We're not alone here."

Everyone turned.

She pointed.

On the far wall, half-hidden behind a collapsed altar, was a cloak.

Black and gold.

Fresh.

Still warm.

Rael's jaw tightened.

"Someone's watching us."

And for the first time in hours, they all heard it:

A breath.Soft.Behind them.

They turned—blades drawn.

But nothing stood there.

Only the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps fading into deeper chambers of the ruined temple.