The moon sat low and thin, a silver sliver over the slums, as if the heavens themselves were watching Lucas' small world with mild curiosity. He felt exposed — the carved star under his palm still hummed faintly in the night air — but Elara's presence above him made the cold less biting and the danger more palpable.
She stood with her arms folded, cloak pulled close. Up close, the frost embroidery on her sleeves caught the moonlight like spun glass. Her expression was warm only at the edges, mostly composed in that cool, considerate way nobles used to make poor people feel small and safe all at once.
"You should've told me about this sooner," she said softly. "If there's a sealed ruin beneath the slum, that's not an accident. Someone hid it for a reason."
Lucas' throat tightened. If he told her everything — the reincarnation, the system, the stolen memories — it would shatter the plan he'd sworn to himself. He swallowed.
"I didn't want to involve anyone," he replied. "Especially not nobles."
Elara's mouth quirked the faintest fraction of a smile. "I find that odd, coming from a man who's born under a star emblem."
His heartbeat spiked.
He forced a shrug. "Coincidence."
She lifted a brow, amusement and suspicion layered together. "Coincidence is a comfortable lie for cowards. You're not a coward, Lucas Starlight. You showed that when you refused to be stolen from by thugs."
Lucas kept his face blank. He did not want her to see how the compliment warmed him. He also did not want her to ask probing questions about his parents. He'd decided long ago: people would learn the truth on their own time — when they'd earned it.
Footsteps approached. Kael returned first — carrying a knotted rope looped over his shoulder, a rolled torch, an iron hook fastened to a short pole, and a small satchel of food. He dumped the supplies at Lucas' feet, chest heaving from the run.
"Got stuff," Kael huffed, casting a wary glance at Elara. "This noble… I dunno. She's on the roof. Watching. Like she owns the night. Creepy."
Elara inclined her head. "You could say I 'own' curiosity." Then she turned to Lucas. "I didn't come to spy. I came because the Academy caught a scent and I wanted to see if you truly were worth the trouble."
Lucas felt the system twitch with a new notification. He kept his face expressionless as the blue text pulsed faintly at the edge of his vision.
[Hidden Event: A Noble's Gaze — Ongoing]
Effect: Elara Valenford — Curiosity +5
He didn't mention it out loud.
Kael rubbed his hands together. "So what's the plan? We go down, grab whatever treasure is down there, then run like idiots, right?"
Lucas felt the pull stronger now than before; the sealed ruin's resonance was pressing less like a whisper and more like a summons. He could feel the faint outline of memory fragments moving in his bones. The system flagged progress.
[Quest Updated]
"Find the Sealed Ruin" — Progress: 75%
Next Objective: Enter the ruin safely.
Warning: Unknown entities may be monitoring the area.
He took a steadying breath. "We go down. We move carefully. We take only what we can carry. No heroics."
Kael snorted. "Easiest plan ever."
Elara stepped down from the rooftop with a grace that made the motion look almost casual. She reached into the inner fold of her cloak and produced a thin silver thread — like a hair, but woven with subtle enchantments that made the air shimmer when it unfurled.
Lucas' eyes widened. "What is that?"
"Elara's Favor," she said. "A warding thread. It's minor — will not block a court-level soulreader — but it muffles naive mana signatures and dampens elemental bleed for a short while. It's enough to make a casual probe think there's nothing special." She flicked it toward Lucas. "Not for long. Ten minutes at best."
He hesitated. Accepting aid from a noble would raise questions, but the thread would protect the one thing he feared most — the probing touch of Academy examiners like Aegis Norwood. He nodded and accepted the silver strand, tying it loosely around his wrist.
[Item Acquired]
Elara's Favor (Temporary Mana Dampener) — Duration: 10 Minutes
The system confirmed in a soft chime.
Lucas felt a subtle smoothing under his skin — like an annoyance eased. The ritual didn't touch the deeper registers of his Talent Source; it simply dimmed obvious signatures. He exhaled.
"Why help me?" he asked yet again, wanting to understand the price of this kindness.
Elara's eyes softened infinitesimally. "Curiosity. And because someone once helped me when I was young and foolish. Consider it—an investment." She stepped back, the nobility of her posture keeping a small, unreadable distance. "I will not enter the ruin with you. I must not be seen. But I will watch. If anything goes wrong, I will intervene — discreetly. The Academy will not notice if I move carefully."
Kael spat, unconvinced. "She's got an ulterior motive."
Elara smiled politely. "Perhaps." Then she turned her gaze toward the sinking stone slab and the flickering void below. "One more thing. Do not touch any sigils unless you know what they mean. Many houses of old sealed their artifacts with bindings tied to bloodlines. Touching them can wake the wrong sort of attention."
Lucas pressed his fingers to his lips, considering. The star emblem had thrummed before; he'd already touched a sigil. Whatever was beneath — his parents' secret, perhaps — would not be a simple chest of copper coins. It might be a ward, a record stone, or worse: a trap designed to test or slay those without rightful blood.
He tightened the rope loop around his hip and fashioned the torch to the hook. Kael handed him the satchel of food. Elara's gaze moved over both of them with a cool, almost clinical detachment; she was studying patterns while disguising interest as leisure. Then she spoke quietly.
"One more warning: others are watching this slum for anomalies. The Demon Cults and certain private collectors like to poke around for relics. If they sense the Starlight crest, they will come." Her tone made the words heavier than the night air. "If you can — delay your treasure hunt until you're stronger. If you must go now, leave no traces."
Lucas swallowed. The old man's dying words echoed in his mind again: Find the sealed ruin before they do. If others were looking, waiting might mean losing whatever lay beneath. He weighed that against Elara's pragmatic counsel. He could not afford to be naive.
"We have to go now," he said, deciding with the same resolve he'd used to train and survive. "If someone else knows about this place, they may be moving even as we speak."
"But you can't afford mistakes," Kael protested. "You nearly passed out yesterday. If you faint down there, you won't just lose the chance — you'll die."
Lucas met Kael's eyes — the raw, hot loyalty that had cheered him up when he felt most alone. He nodded. "Then we do it smart. We go together. We cover each other."
Kael grudgingly accepted. "Fine. But if I say go left, you go left."
Elara inclined her head once. "Good. I will wait. Lucas — one more thing." She stepped back into the shadow of the rooftop, voice lowered so only Lucas could hear. "If the sealed place resonates with your blood, act like you don't know the tune. Acting like you belong is the fastest way to get a blade in the back."
He felt her meaning like a slap. Do not reveal any knowledge you are not meant to have. Maintain ignorance. Let others be the ones to reveal. The thought of pretending ignorance felt like a cruelty — but it was a cruelty necessary to survive.
Ten minutes later, with Elara watching from the high roofs, Lucas and Kael descended the newly exposed stairway.
The air changed as they moved down: the moonlight thinned until a pale, icy dark enveloped them. Dust floated in veils. The smell of old stone and ozone cut the air — a smell that always crawled under Lucas' bones and whispered histories he could not remember.
The torch sputtered in the dim, but Lucas pushed forward with Kael at his shoulder. The steps led deeper, then steadied into a wide, circular chamber. The architecture was different from the crude slum structures above—there were iron bands sunk into the stone, and along the perimeter, low alcoves that once held, perhaps, offerings or carvings. In the center, a shallow pool reflected the torchlight like a dull mirror.
Lucas' system stirred again as they entered.
[Area Scanned] — Sealed Ruin (Minor)
Residual Mana: Old — Mixed Elements Detected (Light-Arcane signature faint)
Warning: Bloodline-linked Warding Present
Light-Arcane signature faint. The phrase landed in his mind like a footfall, a confirmation that his parents' name was connected to something substantial. He had to remind himself to breathe.
Kael whispered, "You see anything?"
Lucas moved forward, every sense taut. He traced his fingers over the edges of the alcoves and felt grooves — shallow inscriptions. Some were too eroded to read; others hinted at names lost to time. The pool in the center made him uneasy; it reflected shapes that the torchlight could not fully explain.
In the far alcove — half-hidden behind a stone relief — Lucas found a low stone plinth. Something lay upon it, wrapped in tarnished cloth. His heart skidded. He knelt, took a breath, and reached out.
Before his fingers closed on the cloth, the torchlight flickered.
From the ceiling, a whisper of mana passed through the chamber — a filament of cold, barely visible to mortals, and it brushed Lucas' wrist.
The silver thread around his wrist twitched once and went dull.
Ten minutes had passed.
Elara's ward collapsed.
A cold voice — not human — seemed to slide along the walls, barely a sound that a mind could listen to if it knew how.
"You who seek the Starlight… state your name."
Kael bolted; his hand went to his fist.
Lucas froze.
A voice in stone queried him, as if the ruins themselves were a sleeping sentinel that had just awakened. He thought of the old man's whisper: survive. He thought of the system, of the emblem, of the star at his chest.
He forced his voice to be steady. He could not reveal too much. He could not speak like someone who owned this place.
"Lucas Starlight," he said, keeping the pitch even. "A wanderer."
The chamber sighed — as if satisfied with an answer, but not pleased.
"You are blood-tied," the voice said. "Yet the mark is dim. Awaken the name or be judged."
Lucas swallowed. Judgment by a ruin was not in any of the books he'd read on Eldorin. He did not have time to debate philosophy. He could feel the ruins testing him, looking for proof, for claim, for lineage.
He kept his face blank and thought of nothing — of Kael, of survival, of the path he'd chosen.
"Then judge," he whispered.
The stone's voice softened. "Then live."
A shiver raced across Lucas' skin — like ice across a wound — but somehow, the chamber accepted the claim without fully revealing. The plinth's cloth loosened and fell away, revealing an object wrapped in silvered leather: a small disk etched with the twelve-pointed star and a blade carved into its center.
Lucas' breath left in a soft sound. He picked it up; it hummed faintly, a memory of motion under his palm. The system registered the item.
[Item Discovered]
Starlight Seal Disk (Sealed)
Description: A family relic. Sealed to Starlight bloodline. Unknown properties until attunement.
He had touched his family's relic.
Somewhere above, on the rooftops, Elara watched, lips pressed thin. A thousand calculations passed in the blue of her eyes. She did not move to interfere.
Lucas tucked the disk into his shirt like a secret and felt its quiet weight like a promise — or perhaps a challenge.
He looked at Kael and offered the smallest of smiles.
"We found something," he said.
Kael's grin glinted with adolescent triumph. "I knew it! Told you this wasn't just another pile of rocks."
Lucas allowed himself one small laugh, even as the chamber's whispers wrapped around him like a warning. Outside, the slums slept uneasily, and above them, a noble watched, and somewhere else, eyes he could not yet see, turned toward the Starlight crest with hungry intent.
Whatever the Sealed Ruin offered, the world had already taken notice.