She was already in labor when the stars began to whisper.
The pain came in waves, relentless and ragged, tearing through Amelia's body as the wind howled outside the birthing chamber
She was alone… except for the voice.
"He is coming."
It wasn't spoken. It wasn't even sound. It was the hush before a prayer, the silence between waves. Cool. Feminine. Ancient.
And Amelia knew it.
Selene. The Pale Eye. The Watcher of the Unseen.
The Star of Lunar.
Fear gripped her throat. Not for herself. For him.
When the child came, the world changed.
He did not cry.
He blinked-once. Calmly, his eyes the color of winter seas.
And then his right eye lit with light.
Not from the candles. Not from flame.
From within.
A crescent mark shimmer across his iris, pale silver glowing like moonlight caught in a tide.
Starlight, alive.
Not a wound. A bond.
Amelia's hands trembled. Her heart stuttered.
"No..." she whispered. "No, please..."
She had tried everything.
But it didn't matter.
The mark pulsed once.
"He sees me," the voice whispered. "And I see him."
Tears filled her eyes. "Why? He's just a child."
"He chose me."
"But why him? Why now?"
"It's his fate."
The candlelight dimmed. The room darkened—*but not with shadow*. With light. Pale, silver, infinite. It poured into the chamber through cracks in the stone, wrapped around the child like mist, like memory, like moonlight given shape.
The baby turned his head—not toward his mother. But toward the light.
And he smiled.
That was when Amelia understood.
This was no ordinary bond. This was not the common flicker that came to star-bearers in dreams, weeks or months after birth. This was not a claim of convenience or necessity.
This was something older.
Something chosen.
By both of them.
"He's not supposed to know you," Amelia whispered. "Not yet. Not as a newborn."
The air grew cold.
"But he does."
And Selene—silent, eternal—wrapped herself around him like a second soul.
Amelia held her son against her chest, clutching him close. Her breath was ragged. Her body was weak. But her mind raced.
He had not just been chosen.
He had answered.
That had only happened once before, in the ancient records of the Cult. A legend they whispered about in fear, not awe. A soul so aligned with a star that they were born *already bonded*. No waiting. No struggle.
Amelia had prayed that legend would never return.
Because it ended in sacrifice. Every time.
The mark shimmered across her son's eye, a crescent shape glowing like silver fire. The room smelled of frost and moonlight.
And outside the chamber walls, the cultists *stopped chanting*.
They had felt it too.
The choosing.
It echoed through the stone. Through the earth. Through the stars.
The child had been claimed.
And the Cult of Stars would never let a soul like his go unharvested.
Amelia pressed her forehead to her son's and sobbed.
---
An hour passed. The voice of Selene faded, but her presence lingered, quiet and coiled within the child like a second heartbeat. The glow in his eye dimmed to a faint silver, but it never fully vanished.
Amelia didn't sleep. She rocked him, whispering stories of the outside world. Of trees and lakes. Of light that didn't burn and sky that didn't watch.
But she knew the truth.
This room wasn't a sanctuary. It was a cage.
By sunrise, the guards came.
They did not speak. They didn't need to. She saw it in their faces. The fear. The reverence. The greed.
They knew what he was now.
And they would bring him to the altar.
The Cult of Stars was born in silence.
They believed the stars were not gods, but hungers. Ancient intelligences bound in flame and gravity, too vast for comprehension. And yet, in their mercy-or madness-they offered mankind power. But only through blood.
Each star had a price. Lunar demanded purity. Solar demanded ambition. Ruin demanded suffering. And the Cult, in its sacred devotion, paid those prices with willing hands.
Sacrifice was not punishment. It was a privilege to be sacrificed for the Celestial.
That was the lie Amelia had grown up believing. That to be chosen by a star was the highest honor. That to give yourself-your soul, your child to feed the Celestial's power was beautiful. Holy.
It was said that in the beginning, there was only darkness—unbroken, endless, cold. And then, like a blade cutting through the black, the stars *fell*. Some fell into the hearts of men, and others into the earth. The stars granted power, but in return, the stars demanded service.
The Cult was founded to answer that demand. And for centuries, they had answered it faithfully.
---
The cultists, draped in robes woven with the threads of night itself, moved in unison, the air thick with incense that smelled of ash and blood. They were not people. They were vessels, empty shells for the stars that called them.
Amelia had known this. She had been raised to this truth since childhood. The stars were to be served—nothing more. The people who followed them were merely instruments, tools to channel their will.
Orion's birth, however, shattered that truth.
---
The chamber was vast, its stone walls carved with symbols older than the world itself. In the center of the room stood the altar—a towering structure, as cold and unforgiving as the stars themselves. It was here that sacrifices were made, where the chosen were brought to their end to power the Celestial, the pinnacle of the Cult's twisted aspirations.
It was here that Amelia had been raised to believe she would lay her son. Her heart, wrapped in dread and love, ached in preparation. The cultists around her chanted softly, their voices rising and falling in rhythm with the pulse of her son's glowing mark.
It had been an hour since she had first seen the crescent-shaped mark on Orion's eye, but it still burned, still hummed with the power of Selene, the Star of Lunar. The pale light that poured from him twisted the shadows of the room into strange, distant shapes. She could feel the pull of it, the weight of it—a connection she had never thought possible.
The ritual was about to begin.
—
"Bring him forward," a voice intoned, its tone hollow and deep. The high priest, standing atop the altar, motioned for the guards to approach. They were masked figures, their faces hidden beneath the shadow of their hoods. But Amelia knew them. They had always been there, always watching.
Her legs trembled as she stepped forward, cradling Orion close to her chest. His small body was impossibly warm, as if he were burning from the inside, the mark on his right eye a stark contrast to his pale skin.
She reached the altar, the cold stone beneath her feet biting through her thin shoes, she stepped to the altar, the stone biting through her shoes as she clutched Orion
"Do not be afraid," Amelia whispered, brushing her fingers over his forehead, though her own heart thundered. She could feel the weight of every star ever born pressing down upon them, squeezing the very air from her lungs. "This is how it must be. They will not hurt you."
But she had no faith in those words.
---
A guard stepped forward, reaching for Orion. His fingers brushed the child's cheek.
"No!" Amelia gasped, pulling him close. "Not yet. Not until I—"
"You are not the one who chooses," the priest snapped. His voice was like the crash of waves, cold and unyielding. "The time has come."
"Through this vessel, the stars are fed, Through his light, the Celestial rises." the priest chanted, the words echoed like a well worn litany.
A low murmur passed through the gathered cultists, their eyes fixed on the child, the marked one. The air thickened with their anticipation.
Amelia stood frozen, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She knew what was to come. She had seen it many times before—sacrifices, rituals, the merging of star-bearers with their celestial bonds. But this... this was different. Orion was not just a vessel for Selene's power. He was *chosen* by the star. He was something more.
But I will not let them take you, Amelia thought fiercely, clutching Orion tighter.
---
The priest raised his hands to the sky, and the chanting grew louder, more insistent. The air shimmered with power, and the very walls seemed to pulse with the energy of the stars themselves. The altar, cold and unyielding, began to glow with the light of the moon. Selene's mark was everywhere—on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling.
"Now," the priest commanded, his voice reverberating through the chamber. "The star-bearer is claimed."
He moved to draw a dagger—an ornate, silver blade, the edge shimmering with the glow of moonlight. He lifted it high, ready to carve the star from Orion's eye and offer it to the Celestial.
The dagger hovered, silver catching the moonlight.
Then-
"Enough."
The word wasn't shouted. It didn't need to be. It echoed in bone, not air.
Moonlight burst into the chamber. Not reflected. Poured.
The mark in Orion's eye flared to a searing white.
The priest stumbled. The dagger clattered to stone. "The mark... she... has chosen him."
And then the light came.
It was radiant. Blinding. It bathed the room in pure, unrelenting white.
Selene had arrived.
And she was not merciful.
Amelia gasped, her heart leaping in her chest. She had *felt* the presence of the star before, but this... this was something beyond what she had ever imagined.
"The Celestial is not the one who claims," the voice whispered through Amelia's mind, clear and eternal.
Selene's voice.
The star had spoken to her son. Not as a prophecy. Not as a curse.
But as a bond.
---
With a flash of moonlight, the priest was struck by a blast of energy, his body flung across the room. The other cultists scrambled back in fear as the altar cracked, the stone fissuring under the weight of the power filling the room.
Orion was no longer just a child.
He was marked. He was chosen.
---
And Amelia, her heart pounding in her chest, finally understood.
Selene had not merely claimed Orion to use him. She had chosen him. And the altar, the ritual, the blood—none of it would matter now.
Selene would not allow Orion to be sacrificed.
With a final, earth-shattering flash of light, Selene's power surged. The room, the cultists, the altar—everything around them was consumed in brilliance.
The light dimmed, leaving Amelia gasping for breath, Orion still cradled in her arms. She blinked against the sudden quiet. The ritual was over. The stars had spoken.
And they had intervened.
Amelia whispered softly as she gazed down at Orion, holding him close. She could feel the warmth radiating from his tiny body. This moment, this marked change, would not go unnoticed.
They would be coming for him.
The footsteps of the cultists echoed in the distance, too slow to matter. Amelia knew they had no time.
We have to go, she thought. We cannot stay here.
And then, as if summoned by the very name that had surfaced in her thoughts earlier, a name appeared once more.
Isol.
A former cultist, someone who might still hold the key to their survival. Someone who could help them escape.
The choice was clear.
There was no other path-only the one away from the stars.