The sun was dying behind the northern cliffs.
Orion and Iris stood before the ancient checkpoint carved into the mountain's face, its spires jagged and crooked like broken fingers clawing at the sky. The land was still. No birds. No wind. Just a cold silence that pressed too tightly against the skin.
Orion's hand rested lightly on the hilt of Lunaris. His star-mark pulsed faintly, though Selene's voice—normally a quiet hum in the back of his mind—had gone quiet. It made the silence feel sharper.
"Do you think we'll come out the same?" Iris asked beside him, her fingers twitching near her rapier. "If we come out at all."
"I don't think we're meant to," Orion said, voice low. "That's the point."
They stepped forward.
The checkpoint gates opened not with noise, but absence. Sound vanished. A robed figure emerged—face hidden, voice echoing like it was being spoken through water.
"You seek the Trial of Intent," the Keeper said. "Do you accept its burden?"
They nodded. No words left.
The world changed when they crossed the threshold. Stone became fog. Solid ground became mist. And Orion's breath was no longer his own.
He opened his eyes to screaming.
He was in a room he should not remember.
Cold stone. Thin air. A single beam of moonlight cutting across the floor. The birthing chamber. Where his mother had once bled into the floor while cultists whispered behind the walls.
He wasn't a child. He was himself—but watching.
No… he wasn't just watching.
His hands trembled.
Across the room, Amelia lay in labor, her body wracked with pain. A child cried—he cried—and silver light burst from infant eyes, star-mark glowing like a second moon.
Orion staggered forward, reaching—but the world distorted. His hands passed through shadows. He wasn't real here.
The door slammed open. Robed cultists poured in like a tide, silent and hungry.
They couldn't see him.
They never saw him.
He screamed—but no sound came. He ran toward the altar, watching as they lifted the baby—him—high, chanting of fate, of sacrifice, of stars.
And Selene?
Nothing.
No warmth. No voice. No pressure behind his thoughts.
He was alone.
He died the first time when they slit his throat.
Not the child.
Him.
In a blur of confusion, the altar changed. Orion blinked—and found himself in the child's place. No transition. No warning.
He felt the blade kiss his skin. Cold. Silver.
Pain.
Then nothing.
He awoke screaming.
The same room.
Same light.
Same air.
But something felt… off.
A slow tilt in the walls. A hum beneath the floor. Moonlight shifted like oil on water.
He lived the memory again.
The crying. The cultists. The altar. His mother's eyes, wide with helplessness.
He screamed again. He cursed Selene. Begged her to answer.
Nothing.
He died again.
This time slower.
The loops continued.
Each time, he awoke with a deeper crack in his soul.
Each time, the trial adjusted. Warped. Played with time.
One time, Amelia pleaded with him directly, her voice knowing—You never asked for this, Orion. But you never said no, either.
Another time, the star-mark glowed on every child, and the cultists tore their marks away, laughing, stuffing them into glass jars like fireflies. And Orion couldn't stop them.
In one loop, he killed the priest.
But the altar was reformed. The priest stood whole again.
And the child cried.
And the blade fell.
Eventually, he stopped fighting.
Curled on the floor. Barely breathing.
No tears left.
His voice was hoarse from screaming into silence.
"I didn't choose this," he whispered. "Selene… why aren't you with me?"
No answer.
But something flickered.
A glimmer of light in the child's chest—not the star-mark, but something deeper. A thread.
He looked closer. Fell into it.
He saw his soul.
Small. But reaching.
Reaching for something in the sky.
And something reached back.
Not forceful. Not commanding.
Answering.
He awoke again
He opened his eyes to silence.
No crying. No screams. No blade.
Just silver.
The chamber was gone—replaced by a shore of smooth, mirrored water stretching endlessly in all directions. Orion stood barefoot on its surface. Every step sent ripples spiraling out, but they never reached the horizon.
Above him, stars pulsed—cold and infinite. One star burned brighter than the rest. Pale blue. Watchful.
He looked down.
There was a version of himself beneath the surface. A boy. Nine years old. Crying with a broken sword in his hand and a mark glowing on his eye. The boy looked up at him, eyes wild.
"I didn't want this!" the child shouted.
Orion knelt, water rippling beneath him. "Neither did I."
"Then why didn't you run?"
The stars trembled.
He didn't know how to answer.
But he felt the weight of the question. Heavy. Sacred.
He had survived. Fled the altar. Fought for every breath. Not because someone told him to—but because something inside him refused to die.
He had said yes.
Not to the pain. But to the bond. To the voice that met him in the dark and whispered, I see you.
Selene had not taken him. She had answered him.
And he had answered back.
Light burst through the water.
The child below dissolved into light—rising like moonlit mist around him.
He stood alone now, but not hollow.
The mirrored lake shimmered, then cracked upward like glass under pressure.
From beneath, something rose.
A crescent door, glowing with lunar runes.
His sword—Lunaris—lay embedded in its center.
And then: a voice.
Not loud.
Not external.
But familiar.
"You never stopped choosing me."
Selene.
Orion closed his eyes.
For the first time in the trial, he didn't cry.
He breathed.
A single inhale, deep and full, like returning from deep water.
He reached out and took the hilt of Lunaris. As his fingers closed around the leather grip, the runes ignited—pure silver, flowing like ink.
The crescent door opened.
He stepped through.
The fog returned.
But this time, it parted for him.
He emerged back into the Trial Chamber—no longer the birthing room, but a vast space between worlds. A starlit void underfoot. Iris stood waiting across the space, trembling, breathing shallow.
She saw him.
And he saw her.
Their marks pulsed faintly in the dark.
They moved toward each other—and the closer they got, the more real the world became. Stone returned beneath their feet. Air carried scent again. The wind stirred.
They met in the center, not speaking at first.
Then Iris said, voice soft but steady, "Maybe we're not chosen."
Orion's eyes met hers.
"Maybe," she continued, "we just didn't say no."
He nodded. "That's what made it real."
They stood in silence, side by side.
Above them, the stars blinked. One brighter than the others—a cold silver eye watching over them.
The Trial Keeper returned.
His voice was slow now, layered in echoes of time.
"You have passed the Trial of Intent."
His hand extended. Not welcome. In warning.
"The Star Academy will not celebrate this clarity. House and rank consume its halls. Clans cling to bloodline stars. You will not be welcomed for choosing. You will be feared for it."
They didn't flinch.
Orion gripped Lunaris. Iris touched the mark on her collarbone where Mara glowed faintly.
"We're not here to be welcomed," she said.
The Keeper inclined his head.
And behind him, in the mist, a pair of eyes watched. Pale gold. Curious. Measuring.
They walked in silence, side by side, tokens warm in their palms.
The wind had picked up again—cool and sharp against their faces, as if the world had shifted just slightly since stepping out of the Trial.
Orion turned his head toward Iris. "You okay?"
She nodded slowly, not looking at him right away. "Yeah. Just… tired. It felt like it lasted days."
"It did," he said softly, managing a tired smile. "In a way."
They reached a small outcrop overlooking the path ahead—an open stretch of land, and in the far distance, the silhouette of the Academy rising against the horizon like a monument carved into the sky.
Iris sat first, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Orion joined her.
For a while, they didn't speak. They just sat there, watching the last light fade.
Finally, Iris broke the quiet. "You said something when you came out. You said… you chose her. Selene."
He nodded. "Yeah. I always thought I didn't. But I did."
She was quiet a moment, thoughtful. "Maybe that's what this was all about. Not what we were given, but what we claimed."
Orion looked down at his token, fingers tightening around it. "Yeah. And maybe choosing is harder than surviving."
Iris glanced sideways, offering him a small, genuine smile. "Well. We did both."
Orion chuckled. It was soft, but real.
Ahead, the sky shimmered with starlight.
Behind them, the Trial was over.
The sun had vanished. But the stars remained