As the group was walking back Azrael heard it again, the faint whispers of his fallen star, the fragment of abyss.
"They fear you." The star spoke."They're scared of the power you can have, they're scared because you can control it."
Academy students walked past whispering and murmuring.
"It's the cursed boy." Said a snickering girl, "House Selira was wrong to choose him." Said a boy. "It's only a matter of time till the star takes control of him."
The words didn't affect him, these were the words he heard everywhere from when he accepted the star to the trial before the academy.
But he never faltered, he would rather accept the corruption of the fallen star than to be powerless again.
His whole life before bonding with the star he was powerless and watched as his loved ones died to star creatures.
"I'll never be weak again." Azrael said firmly to himself.
The four of them kept walking until they reached the houses and where the House of Selira was located.
They reached the edge of the dorms when the familiar, sharp voice called out behind them.
"House Selira," Lucien Caelion said with a smirk, his arms crossed like a king without a throne.
"Child of Moonlight—Orion, wasn't it? You fought so hard to win the duel… only to waste your picks on outcasts."
Orion stopped. Turned slowly. His gaze was calm, but there was a glint of heat behind his eyes.
"Wasted?" he said. "Azrael and Serah are worth more than your entire smug, inbred clan."
Lucien's grin thinned, the arrogance peeling at the corners as his gaze shifted to Azrael.
"And you," he said, voice like silk over glass, "the Fallen Star. Just because you wear a brand doesn't mean you belong here. You'll burn from the inside long before you're recognized. How does it feel knowing your star owns you?"
Azrael's face didn't flicker. He stepped forward, slow and unbothered, then unsheathed his sword just enough for the edge to catch the light.
"Powerless, huh?" His voice was quiet. Calm. "How about I show you who's really powerless?"
Lucien's hand twitched toward his own weapon—but one of his housemates stepped forward and whispered in his ear. A calculated pause followed.
Lucien clicked his tongue. "Ah. Another time, then, Fallen One. We'll make sure it's in front of a proper crowd, where everyone can watch House Selira crumble."
He turned to Orion. "As for you, Child of Moonlight—remember this. You only won because we weren't using the power of our stars."
Lucien gave a mock bow, then strolled off laughing, his boots crunching against the gravel like it belonged to him.
Serah watched him go in silence.
She didn't speak, but she didn't miss a thing either—the stiffness in Lucien's jaw, the way his knuckles had whitened, the way Azrael hadn't so much as blinked.
Iris didn't bother hiding her disgust.
"What a prick," she said loudly.
No one disagreed.
They watched Lucien disappear into the winding halls of the Academy, his laughter echoing behind him like a curse.
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Orion turned without a word, continuing toward their dorms. The others followed.
Serah walked a half-step behind, her gaze still lingering on the corridor Lucien had vanished through. Not with fear—but with interest, like she was studying the way a fire moved before deciding how best to contain it.
Azrael slid his sword back into its sheath. "He talks too much."
Iris huffed beside him. "He'll choke on that ego before the semester ends."
They reached the dorm entrance—an old stone arch tucked beside the main tower, unadorned and quiet, like the house that had yet to earn its name.
A letter waited on the doorframe, sealed in dark wax with the sigil of the Academy pressed into it.
Orion pulled it free, breaking the seal. He unfolded the parchment slowly, scanning the text before reading aloud.
"To the newly formed House of Selira:
The time has come for your first trial.
All houses must carry a banner. You have none.
You will forge one… or you will not endure.
Report to the Headmaster's Hall at first light.
—M."
Silence fell again, but this one felt heavier.
"Forge a banner?" Iris asked, frowning. "What does that even mean?"
"It means they're testing if we're worth being remembered," Serah said softly, brushing past them to push open the door.
Azrael followed her in. "Good," he muttered. "Let's give them something they won't forget."
Orion stood there for a moment longer, staring down at the parchment. In his chest, Selene stirred—quiet, thoughtful.
A blank banner.
No history. No legacy. Just a name and a spark.
He folded the letter carefully and stepped inside.
Tomorrow, they'd begin writing what the stars hadn't.
The dorm was quiet. Moonlight filtered in through the high windows, pooling across the stone floor. A soft flicker of firelight cast long shadows on the walls. The four members of House Selira were scattered across the room, each caught in their own thoughts, their silence speaking more than words.
Orion sat near the hearth, hunched forward, running a cloth down the length of Lunaris. The silver blade caught the firelight with a faint sheen, the lunar runes along its edge softly pulsing.
Iris leaned against the window frame, arms crossed, staring out at the Academy grounds. "It still doesn't feel real," she said. "We were outsiders this morning. And now we're… a house."
Serah sat cross-legged on the rug, her eyes half-lidded, watching the flames. "A house with no banner. No legacy. Nothing but our names and choices."
Azrael leaned against the far wall, arms folded, eyes half-shadowed. "Better than being puppets in someone else's story."
Orion glanced over at him. "You think we'll make it through tomorrow?"
Azrael's voice was steady. "I didn't come here to fail."
"You say that like it's simple." Iris turned from the window, her expression somewhere between doubt and fire. "You don't care what people think, but the rest of us have to carry the weight of that, too. Of what they say."
Azrael didn't move. "They said worse before I came here. Didn't stop me then."
Serah looked between them, voice soft but sure. "You two are more alike than you want to admit."
Neither of them responded, but the silence that followed wasn't tense — just thoughtful.
Orion finally set Lunaris aside. "We'll earn that banner. Not just because the Headmaster expects it. But because we have to show them what a real house looks like. One made by choice, not legacy."
Serah gave a faint smile. "Then tomorrow we forge more than a banner."
No one said anything after that. The fire crackled quietly, and one by one, they drifted off — not entirely at ease, but bound now by something more than circumstance.
The light of dawn seeped through the windows, pale and cold. The warmth from last night's fire had long since faded, replaced by a quiet tension that hung in the air like mist.
Orion stood in front of the mirror, fastening the final strap of his cloak. His reflection stared back — crescent mark faintly glowing over his eye, expression unreadable.
Behind him, Iris tied her hair back, her movements quick and focused. "So," she said, "does anyone know what 'forge your banner' actually means?"
"No," Serah replied, pulling on her boots, "but I doubt it's just stitching symbols on fabric."
Azrael buckled his sword to his side, tone dry. "Would be too easy. And we're not exactly the Academy's favorite children."
Orion turned to face them. "It doesn't matter what they think. This is our house now — no one else is going to define it for us."
A knock sounded at the door. When Orion opened it, a robed courier stood there, silent, holding a sealed letter bearing the Academy's crest.
He handed it over and left without a word.
Orion broke the wax seal. The letter was short, but the words held weight.
House Selira,
You have been summoned to the Headmaster's hall.
Your trial begins now.
— Headmaster Vaelorn
Orion looked up at the others. "It's time."
No more words were needed.
They stepped out into the morning light together, each of them carrying quiet questions and silent resolve. Four shadows moving as one — fractured pieces learning to fit, walking toward a trial none of them could name.
The hall was unlike anything Orion expected.
Carved into the heart of the Academy, it was cavernous and dimly lit, the air thrumming faintly with old starlight. Pillars of obsidian and stone reached up like frozen flame, etched with runes that pulsed once as House Selira entered — as if the place itself acknowledged them.
At the far end stood Headmaster Vaelorn.
He didn't sit on a throne. He stood beneath a fractured star suspended above his head, its shards rotating slowly in midair — cold, silver, and impossibly still. His robes were layered, dark with accents of radiant blue, and his eyes shimmered faintly with age beyond age.
"You came," Vaelorn said, his voice like echoing steel. "Good. Most houses don't survive this far without splitting at the seams."
He studied them, one by one.
"Orion — Child of Moonlight. Iris — the one who dared to speak truth in the Trial. Serah — who walks the edge of flame. And Azrael… bearer of ruin. Each of you carries something broken, something buried. Perhaps that's why the Veil allowed your house to form."
Orion felt a flicker in Selene's presence, as if the star within him tensed at Vaelorn's gaze.
"Where is our trial held?" Serah asked, steady.
Vaelorn nodded, pleased by her directness.
"Beneath the Academy lies the Forgewarren, a chamber lost to time. You will descend there. If you survive what lies within, and if you can agree on a banner worth carrying — then House Selira will be recognized by the Academy."
Azrael crossed his arms. "And if we don't survive?"
"Then you will be remembered as a footnote. Or not at all."
He turned slightly, and a door behind him groaned open by unseen force — revealing a stairwell spiraling downward into shadow.
"One last thing," Vaelorn added, "the Forgewarren is not empty. Something stirs. A creature born of a fallen star roams those halls — a remnant of the Starfall itself. Perhaps it's fate. Or maybe just poor timing."
He smiled faintly. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Go. Earn the right to be more than fractured pieces."
Without another word, he turned and vanished behind the veil of starlight, leaving them alone before the path below.
The stairwell was narrow and wound downward like the inside of a coiled beast. Each step echoed in the silence, swallowed by the stone long before the next footfall landed. There was no torchlight — only a faint bioluminescence in the walls, as if the rock remembered starlight and was slowly forgetting.
No one spoke at first.
The silence between them wasn't heavy, just cautious — a shared breath held between uncertainty and trust. The further they descended, the colder it became. Not the kind of cold that bit at skin, but something older. Deeper. A stillness that didn't belong.
Orion finally broke it. "This place feels… dead."
"No," Serah said softly. "It feels like it's waiting."
Azrael ran his fingers along a rune carved into the stone wall. It lit briefly under his touch — flickering red before fading. "These runes are old. Maybe even pre-Starfall."
"That's impossible," Iris muttered. "The Academy doesn't go back that far."
"Doesn't mean this place wasn't here before it," Serah said.
The stairway opened into a vast chamber.
The ceiling was lost in shadow. At its center sat a broken forge, its anvil cracked down the middle, and its furnace cold — but streaked with veins of silver starmetal. Scattered fragments of old banners lay shredded along the ground, the remnants of failed houses or forgotten trials.
"It's here," Orion whispered.
Selene's voice stirred in his mind like wind across still water. Do not let the quiet fool you. Old places always remember pain.
They stepped in carefully.
At the far end, a gate loomed — sealed, with four empty crests carved above it. One for each of them. The trial wouldn't open the path until something had been decided.
"I guess this is where we forge our banner," Iris said, staring at the shattered anvil.
Before anyone could answer, the air changed.
It wasn't a sound exactly — more like a feeling, like breath held too long. The ground vibrated faintly. Then again. Then stronger. A shadow shifted at the far edge of the chamber, low and hulking.
Azrael slowly reached for his blade. "We're not alone."
From the dark, a shape emerged — slow, scraping against stone, limbs malformed and dragging, its eyes like smoldering coals buried beneath layers of cracked star-metal.
It wore remnants of banners too.
A failed house that hadn't left. A guardian forged from defeat.
Serah's hands caught fire as the Star of Cinders lit within her. "Warden of Ash," she breathed. "A fallen creature bound to trial grounds. It's here to test us."
Or destroy them.
Orion stepped forward, sword drawn.
"No more fear. We face it together