CHAPTER SIX:When Stars Where Gods

Narration

Before names, before kingdoms, before even time itself was numbered, the stars were not mere lights in the sky.

They were gods.

Burning, sentient beings. Each with will, purpose, and voice.

They watched. They ruled.

And they fell — one by one — when the First Flame chose to become mortal.

That Flame… was Alarienne.

And now, reborn as Elianah, she had returned to the place where divinity once slept.

Elianah

The staircase of molten glass twisted endlessly upward, yet with each step, her body felt lighter — not from fatigue but from something shedding inside her.

Like parts of herself were remembering how to be more than human.

She could hear the stars now.

They whispered in tones no mortal tongue could shape.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

Kael nodded solemnly. "They remember you."

Thorne grunted. "Great. She's a god again. As if she wasn't terrifying enough."

Elianah shot him a look. "You're not scared of me, are you?"

"I'm scared of the things that follow you," he muttered.

At the Summit

They reached the top.

Before them stood a celestial hall, its ceiling open to the cosmos, where constellations spun like living tattoos across the sky. Pillars of starlight held it up, and in its center…

A circle of empty thrones. Thirteen in total.

Twelve cold.

One burning.

Kael stepped forward. "The Council of Origin."

Thorne nodded. "When the gods still walked. When they judged planets and fate."

Elianah moved toward the burning throne. Flames licked the air above it, taking shapes — wings, hands, her old face.

And then the throne spoke to her.

> "You left us, Alarienne. You broke the Accord and chose flesh. Why now do you return?"

She lifted her chin. "Because what I loved is in danger."

The flame dimmed.

> "And what you loved also destroyed you."

Kael stepped beside her. "She doesn't need your permission."

Elianah placed her palm over her chest. "I came to remember — not to repent. I need your power… not your approval."

The Test

The other twelve thrones began to stir.

One by one, spirits of old gods flickered to life above them:

The Hunter. The Weaver. The Dreamer. The Silence. The Tide. The Iron Bell. The Mirror. The Beast. The Thorn. The Gate. The Seed. The Stranger.

Each wore her name like a wound.

Each had once called her sister.

> "To awaken what you were, you must pass the Circle of Remembrance."

> "Prove you are worthy of the power you abandoned."

The hall trembled.

Twelve illusions formed — scenes from Elianah's past lives.

Moments she regretted. Choices she had buried. Faces she had loved… and betrayed.

Kael gripped her hand. "You don't have to go through it alone."

But she stepped forward.

"I do."

The Circle Begins

As the first memory rose — her standing over the ashes of a fallen planet, blade in hand, crown at her feet — a voice echoed:

> "When stars were gods, we shone. Now we burn. Will you rise again, Flame? Or flicker out for good?"