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adohr · 25 days ago

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Part I: The Fire-Walker’s Oath

The Aetherian Citadel, perched atop a floating island known as Lunavine, drifts slowly across the twilight skies. Crystals embedded in its spires pulse with ancient starlight. Below, the world sleeps beneath a dream-thick mist. The Celestial Empire has ruled for a thousand years from a golden throne no one remembers being built.

But tonight, prophecy stirs.

The Hall of Echoing Law rang with the low, droning hum of the Starlight Council—twelve figures in robes woven with fragments of fallen stars, standing like pillars in a temple untouched by time.

A single voice rang out like a sword being unsheathed.

“Solenne of Ember Vale,” boomed Eiloran the Hollow-Eyed, the eldest among them. “You must do as the Starlight Emperor has decreed. The celestial order must fall. This is not mere rebellion. This is our restoration.”

His eyes shimmered with something unearthly—glee, perhaps, or madness made holy.

“Cite the Lunis Codex,” hissed Thessalora of the Shattered Veil, her breath visible in the cold magic of the chamber. “Say the words. Let the sky split at dawn.”

Solenne stood in the heart of their circle. Slender, quiet, cloaked in ash-grey linen stitched with mothwing thread. Her eyes, dark as forgotten wells, did not flinch.

She did not speak.

Only a nod. A simple bow of the head that betrayed nothing, though her pulse roared in her ears.

Around her, the council seemed to grow, their shadows dragging long fingers across the floor, their voices echoing louder, heavier, as if spoken underwater. The ancient runes on the walls flickered. Her vision bent — the marble beneath her feet felt as if it might liquefy.

“You will rise at dawn.”

“The stars are watching.”

“We remember the First Flame. Do you?”

Solenne whispered, just loud enough for the marble to hear:

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Council.”

Her footsteps clicked like clockwork teeth across the obsidian-tiled floor. With both hands, she pushed open the great door — ancient oak bound with sunstone hinges — and the wood creaked like a beast roused from sleep. The moment she crossed the threshold, the door slammed behind her with a soul-deep clang that made the air tremble.

She dropped to her knees.

Breathing. Fast. Wild.

The stone corridor was empty, quiet except for the crystalline whispers of the torches. The weight of her choice sank into her bones like winter.

Then —

A spark.

A gesture.

Her middle finger met her thumb, and—

Snap.

Fire bloomed from her fingertips like a phoenix being born. The hall behind her erupted in a ribbon of golden flame that licked the ancient tapestries and fed hungrily on sacred air. The torches gasped, then died.

Solenne ran.

Cloak flaring. Footsteps echoing. Her heart pounding in strange rhythms — one beat for fear, one beat for purpose. Terrified, yes.

But something deeper had taken root.

A certainty.

A resolve born not from hatred, but from the aching hope that even empires forged in starlight could be wrong.

Above, through a high arched window, the first sliver of dawn peeled open the dark.

And somewhere, far above the Citadel, a forgotten god exhaled.

✵ Scene: The Moon’s Garden ✵

On the western edge of the Aetherian Citadel, hidden between illusion and sky, lies the Moon’s Garden — a sacred haven where the moonlight is thick enough to drink and the air hums with the breath of old gods.

The spiral staircase, etched with constellations only visible during lunar eclipses, coiled endlessly downward. Solenne moved like smoke, her burnt cloak flickering at the edges as the invisibility spell shimmered around her. She passed two palace guards — both slack-jawed and half asleep, unaware that power older than the Empire brushed past their polished boots.

The deeper she descended, the louder the stillness became — the sound of breathing trees, of paper rustling in windless air, of moonlight settling over silver moss like dew.

She stepped into the garden.

The Moon’s Garden was carved directly into the rock of the floating isle. The walls glistened with blue-veined crystal, and the sky above was a perfect dome of starlit velvet. In the center, a small altar of moon-glass held offerings: rice flowers, ink-painted feathers, a bowl of spring water reflecting three moons though only one hung in the sky.

And there —

Metztli.

Her voluminous brown curls spilled like ivy down her back. She wore a deep blue cloak flecked with starlight motes, as if the sky itself had woven her clothing. Her hands folded intricate flowers from rice paper, placing them gently at the foot of the altar. She hummed — an old lullaby from the Silver Coast — and then, without looking up:

“I know you’re here, Teacher. No sneaking up on me.”

Solenne let the spell fade. The light around her broke like water. The moon caught the soot-smudges on her cheek, the singed hem of her cloak, the wild gleam in her eyes.

“You always were too clever.”

“Is something wrong?” Metztli tilted her head, smiling. “Your cloak is burnt. And your face is flushed like you ran through lightning…”

Solenne's voice wavered, then steadied.

“My successor. My prodigy. I need to tell you the truth about something... Something I should have told you years ago.”

Metztli leaned forward. Her brows knit together in concern.

Solenne stepped closer, her hands trembling. She stared at her, not as a mentor to a student — but as one soul burdened with a secret too heavy to carry alone.

“Do you remember the first spell I ever taught you?”

Metztli blinked. “The one from the storybook? ‘Only the one foretold by moon and star may speak the True Name of the Sky’... That one?”

“Yes.”

“But… you said only the Prophet could use it.” Her voice softened. “You read it to me before bed, remember? I thought it was a fairytale...”

Her eyes widened. Slowly, wonder blooming into disbelief.

“Wait. Wait wait wait. You’re not saying— It’s about you, isn’t it? The woman drenched in starlight, who’d rebirth this land through moonlight?”

She stood now, her hands still dusted with rice flour and magic. Her breath caught.

“The Celestial Festival is happening tonight and—”

Solenne raised her hand sharply, silencing her.

“It’s you, Metztli.”

A beat of silence.

Solenne reached forward, cupping Metztli’s face. Her thumb pressed gently between the girl’s brows — and with a whisper of ancient syllables, a searing light etched into skin.

“Nuri’thira lumae.”

A sigil — shaped like a crescent moon clasping a sun — blazed into existence, burning a line into Metztli’s brow.

“Agh—!” Metztli staggered, grabbing at her forehead. “What—? What did you—?”

The scar shimmered gold before fading into a ghostly white mark, pulsing faintly.

“It’s done,” Solenne said, stepping back. Her eyes gleamed with tears and pride and grief all at once. “They’ll sense the mark soon. We have little time.”

Metztli touched the mark, trembling. “You… branded me. You chose me. Why now?! Why like this?!”

“Because I’m not coming with you.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice cracked. “You’re Solenne, the Fire-Walker of Ember Vale, the council’s own shadow. You taught me everything. We’re supposed to—together—”

“They’ve marked me for death,” Solenne whispered. “I used forbidden fire. They’ll hunt me through starlight and snow. But you—” she reached out, grasping Metztli’s hands — “you are the one the moon has chosen. And tonight, when the moon eclipses the sun, you will stand at the Spire and speak the Sky’s True Name. The Empire will fall. And something gentler will grow in its place.”

Metztli shook her head, tears forming like constellations. “But I don’t know how to save a empire.”

Solenne smiled, her voice no louder than a candle flame.

“That’s why the moon chose someone who’d try.”

From above, a low horn echoed — distant and ominous.

The Starlight Council had found the flames. And they were coming.

A sound cracked across the skies like a rift being torn — a deep, ancient horn that hadn’t been heard since the days when the stars still walked among men.

Solenne’s head snapped toward the garden archway, eyes wide.

“Oh no…”

The garden trembled faintly, the crystal-laced walls humming with pressure, reacting to the presence of too many soldiers drawing near.

Solenne’s breath hitched.

“They’ve found us. I wasn’t—” Her voice faltered, pain flickering behind her composure. “I wasn’t expecting them so soon.”

Metztli reached for her hand, desperate. “Then we go! Together. We can outpace them. We’ll take the wind stairs down to the Vale. You said you had routes—”

But Solenne’s expression turned like a blade. She stepped back, her face suddenly hard, her voice like iron wrapped in sorrow.

“You will damn us all to hell if you stay.”

The garden stilled. The moon above seemed to flinch behind a passing cloud.

“They cannot know you carry the Sigil, Metztli. The spell I etched into your mind—it will protect you only if you run. Only if you vanish.”

She placed a hand on Metztli’s chest now, over her racing heart.

“I burned the knowledge into your soul. Every name, every map, every forbidden thread of magic they erased from history — it’s in you now. Hidden. Locked away behind moonlight and memory.”

Metztli’s eyes shimmered. “But I don’t want to leave you.”

“You must.”

Solenne’s voice broke slightly — not loud, not dramatic — just human. A break between breaths, a lifetime between words.

“Run to the furthest ends of the land. Past the Moon Range. Beyond the Aurora Lakes. Seek the Valley where only moonlight drenches its forests.”

“The Nyxmere Hollow?” Metztli gasped. “That place is cursed. No one returns from it.”

“It’s not cursed,” Solenne said. “It’s guarded. It is the last sanctuary of the Old Light — the only place their magic can’t touch. There you will wait. And when the eclipse crowns the sky… you will rise.”

From behind the garden walls came the sound of footsteps — not ordinary ones, but floating, flickering — the footfalls of those who had forsaken gravity, who traveled by will and law alone.

The Starlight Council was near.

Metztli clutched her cloak, her voice trembling. “Please, Teacher. Please come with me. We’ll hide together. We’ll find the valley—”

But Solenne had already turned, her cloak catching moonlight like fire in the wind.

“Go.”

“Solenne—”

“GO!”

A gust of power surged from her, blowing open the gates of the garden in a burst of pale flame. The path to the skies — and to the Valley of Moonlight — was open. But it would not remain so for long.

Tears streamed silently down Metztli’s face as she turned. As she ran.

Behind her, the last thing she saw was Solenne standing beneath the altar’s silver tree, arms raised, fire curling around her like a halo — ready to delay the council with her life.

The moons wept that night.

And the stars turned away.

"But how long would it take for the eclipse to crown the sky, when war slows it down, and creates blisters in our souls?"

“The Aetherian Citadel” and all related characters, settings, and stories are original works of fiction by @adohr. Do not repost, reproduce, or adapt without explicit permission. Reblogs are welcome and appreciated.

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