The sky was wrong.
Nyra stood barefoot on the roof of the Starborn Temple, where the wind always sang in tongues and the stones remembered things. Tonight, the stones were silent, and the wind was afraid.
No stars. Not even one.
She searched the sky again, desperate. A few days ago, she could trace every constellation with her eyes closed. The Ram's Eye, The Serpent's Wheel, the River of Bones. But now all she could see was just darkness that covered the sky.
She touched her thumb to the birthmark between her collarbones, but just a little lower, the one shaped like a six-pointed star. It pulsed under her skin. Everything felt wrong.
"You're late," came a voice behind her.
Nyra didn't flinch. She knew that voice better than her own heartbeat.
Finn stepped out from the shadows, his coat soaked through, black hair slicked to his forehead. It had just rained. "You shouldn't be up here."
"Where else would I be?" she murmured. "They're gone, Finn. Every one of them."
He looked up. Even he, the skeptic, frowned. "That's not just cloud cover."
"They've been taken," she said, voice cracking. "Ripped out. I can feel it in my blood."
He said nothing. Just held out a slip of paper that was creased, damp, and stained at the corner.
Nyra unfolded it.
Three words, scrawled in ink that shimmered faintly silver.
They know now.
The temple bell tolled, not once, not twice, but six times. Things were moving fast.
"They're here," she whispered.
Finn nodded. "We need to run."
But Nyra's eyes were fixed on the note. On the silver ink that hadn't faded.
She closed her fist around it and whispered, "No. Not this time"
The catacombs beneath the Temple were built to keep secrets.
Stone walls closed around Nyra and Finn as they ran with their footsteps muffled by centuries of dust and silence. Torchlight flickered in Finn's hand, throwing long shadows that danced like spirits on the walls.
"They'll block the southern stair," Finn muttered. "We go west. Through the echo gate."
Nyra hesitated. "That leads to the sanctum."
Finn shot her a look. "You want to live, or kneel before a pyre?"
She didn't answer, but her legs moved before her brain caught up.
The sanctum hadn't been entered in nearly two decades, at least not since the last star priest died screaming, his mind shattered by visions. Nyra had only seen it once, as a child, through a crack in the door. Enough to know it wasn't just a room. It was a wound in the world.
They reached the gate which was a round arch covered in silver runes that pulsed faintly as she approached. The air changed. It grew heavy, metallic, and charged.
Finn pressed his palm to the seal.
Nothing happened.
Nyra stepped forward. Without thinking, she reached up and touched the rune at the center, a hollow star.
It flared beneath her fingers, and the gate hissed open.
Inside, the sanctum was colder than the tunnels. Colder than any place she'd ever felt. Like the void between stars.
A single pedestal stood in the center. Upon it was a crown of blackened silver, shaped like overlapping constellations, its core was hollow where a jewel should have been.
Nyra stared.
"That's it," she whispered. "The Hollow Crown."
Finn was staring too. "It's real."
"I thought it was just... a story." Her voice shook.
"So were the Moon Wars. So were the gods."
She stepped closer. The air around the crown shimmered, pulling at something deep inside her chest. A thread she hadn't known was loose until now. The birthmark between her collarbone burned.
"Nyra," Finn said slowly, "do you feel that?"
But she wasn't listening. Images swam in her mind, burning skies, screaming stars, a throne made of obsidian and bone. A woman's voice whispering in her ear.
"We burned the heavens to save the world. You must choose what to burn next."
The vision shattered. She stumbled back.
Finn caught her. "What did you see?"
Nyra looked at the crown again. "Not what's coming. What already happened."
Above them, the bells tolled again but it was different this time.
No alarms this time.
A ceremony was being held.
Nyra's blood ran cold.
"They're crowning someone," she said. "Already."
Finn's jaw clenched. "Someone unworthy."
She turned back to the crown.
"We can't let them take the throne."
Finn glanced between her and the artifact. "You mean to take it yourself?"
Nyra didn't answer.
She just reached out and picked up the Hollow Crown.
It didn't burn her.
It sang.