Asteria walked through the Academy, her footsteps echoing against the cold floors. Even here, in the heart of the NQSC's prestigious institution for the Awakened, the smell of gilded reputations and honor; it still smelled like the stagnant plastic and metallic tang of cheap synth paste.
A scent she knew far too well.
New Sleepers are processed almost daily. New people ready for the slaughter of the nightmare spell, terrified, eyes wide and hollow with dread.
'That was me,' She thought, her heart tightening in her chest. 'Alone, clueless and scared.'
She moved past them, her presence a silent ghost. They didn't notice her — thankfully. But the sight sparked a cold and pragmatic clarity in her mind.
Being a Master wasn't enough for her. In the hierarchy of the world in the Spell, she was nothing except a slightly more expensive tool.
If she truly wanted to be untouchable, she needed strength. Desperately. A might so blinding, a strength so terrifying that the world was too afraid to oppose.
Asteria returned to the solitude of her accomodation — the same one that Jet chided her for staying in. Asteria opened her communicator once more, skimming over the four paths she was given.
She ignored the surface, the flowery language of rewards and honor and started looking into the cold logic hidden within it's mantle of lies.
'The House of Night wants me as an errand girl, the government want me as a poster girl, Valor want me for war and... Song wants my identity.'
Ki Song was offering to make her a Princess. A title and status of immense weight. In the Great Clans, blood ties were everything. By adopting her, Ki Song wasn't hiring her or taking her in — she was claiming Asteria as family.
'It's funny isn't it? If I die in Valor I'm a statistic; if I'm hurt as a Princess of Song it could be called an act of war... '
Asteria's fingers traced the flickering crest of the flute. She knew it was a trap. She knew that Ki Song was a lonely, predatory entity who collected daughters like dolls; even if Asteria didn't understand why.
A dark, calculating smile touched her lips. An expression almost mimicking Changing Star's emotionless, stoic and calculating gaze. 'It's a good offer, at the end of the day. If I take the title, the benefits, I can play the part, can't I? A lonely girl looking for family... I can use it all, just for my own freedom within a cage they're giving me.'
She read a single line once more. The single line that told her who would own her. She would he guaranteed to conquer a Third Nightmare and become a Saint. A guarantee of immense strength.
Asteria did what she had to do. She arranged a meeting with the representative of Song — a survivor of the Forgotten Shore: Seishan.
But before that, The Queen of Nightmare had another debt to settle.
***
Asteria found herself within the Glass Palace — her Theatre of Crystal.
The opulent throne room where her gateway was stationed, and her city sized citadel that was infested with nightmare creatures — even if a large portion of them have been eradicated.
There was one reason The Queen of Nightmare came back her so soon, and it wasn't due to the Great Clans or even to wipe the rest of the invaders out — even if Asteria has been feeling quite territorial.
She had to rescue the people who saved her. The survivors of the Hollow Oak. All she had to do was make the grueling traversal South.
The same one that nearly killed her on numerous occasions.
But Asteria was strong now. She challenged a second nightmare and came out alive. Ascended — despite her runes calling her Fallen. The Queen of Nightmare was full of resolve and confidence that she could bring her saviours back to humanity.
The desert wasn't so hot anymore; comparatively to when she was a mere Sleeper. The white dunes on the glassy desert expanded for miles upon miles it seemed, creating swirls of sand in the air, disruptions on an otherwise flawless surface.
It left Asteria nervous.
Her eyesight was better, her strength was tenfold what it was before, her confidence was sharp.
But that didn't excuse the nervousness and fear that she felt to her core.
A gigantic, terrifying and almost divine pyramid looming over the horizon. A pyramid that dwarfed the Crimson Spire, the tip reaching into the heavens — where not even Asteria could see how far it went.
'You're telling me that was here the whole time?' Her shoulders shook, from fear or woe she did not know. Swallowing the pool of saliva building in her throat with an audible gulp.
Asteria turned her head and continued on her journey back to the Hollow Oak, the sand crunching beneath her feet, her head bowed as if surrendering to the Divine creation she gazed upon.
'I really hope I never have to go there.'
After an unknown amount of time passed, Asteria was walking — or what could be called sprinting for a mundane human — in a world of her own thoughts that was suddenly interrupted by the sight of lights and towering walls.
"They're still alive, it seems." Asteria breathed a sigh of relief, a breath she was holding for far too long. "I hope they remember me, I do look a little different after all."
Making her way to the walls she was intimately familiar with, the Queen of Nightmare came towards the gate. The same gate she was hoistered through on her deathbed and the same gate she left — abandoned — these poor souls for her own survival.
"Are you a new Sleeper?" A voice shouted from the top of the walls, his face obscured by a hood.
"I'm afraid not no," Asteria calmly responded, "I was here a year ago. Is Elara around?"
The hooded man on the wall shifted, his silhouette sharp against the relentless glow of the desert sky. A moment of heavy silence stretched between them, punctuated only by the whistle of the wind through the glassy dunes.
Then, the man pulled back his hood. His face was gaunt, his skin leathered by the harsh environment, but his eyes — wide with a mix of suspicion and dawning recognition — fixed on her iridescent hair.
"Asteria?" he whispered, his voice cracking. He turned and shouted into the settlement. "Open the gate! It's the girl! The one who left to find freedom!"
The heavy timber and iron of the gate groaned, scraping against the sand as it swung inward. Asteria stepped through, her boots thudding against the packed dunes.
The Hollow Oak was just as she remembered — a fragile bubble of humanity clinging to the edge of a nightmare. People began to emerge from the shadows of the makeshift huts, their faces weary and etched with the hollow hunger of those forgotten by the world. They looked at her, but they didn't see the dying girl they had pulled from the desert floor a year ago.
They saw a woman clad in the ethereal glow of confidence. They saw the strength radiating from her features, a presence so dense it made the air around her ripple with power.
"Asteria?"
A woman pushed through the small crowd. Elara. Her hair was greyer, her posture more stoic, but the kindness in her eyes remained a familiar anchor. She stopped several paces away, her gaze raking over Asteria's mighty form.
"You look... different," Elara breathed, a faint, trembling smile touching her lips. "Did you conquer the sun while you were gone?"
Asteria felt a lump in her throat. She looked at the faces around her — the people who had shared their meager rations with a stranger, who had tended her wounds when she was a nameless Sleeper with nothing to offer. They were still here, trapped in a cycle of survival while she had ascended to new heights of the Spell.
"I went to the North, Elara," Asteria said, her voice steady and resonant, carrying to every corner of the settlement. "I found a way out. I found a place where you can go home."
A murmur went through the crowd — a spark of hope so fragile it felt like it might shatter.
"Are you here to take us back?" a boy asked, clutching his hands. "To the waking world?"
Asteria looked toward the horizon, where the terrifying shadow of the pyramid that loomed like a silent god sat. She thought of the Great Clans, of the title she was about to claim, and the cold cage she was entering. But as she looked back at Elara, the Queen of Nightmare felt a different kind of resolve — a debt that transcended politics.
"I cannot take you to the waking world yet," Asteria admitted, her violet eyes flashing with a fierce, protective light. "But I found a Citadel, a gateway you can anchor to and finally end this long, arduous nightmare you have sought respite from."
She stepped forward, taking Elara's calloused hands in her own.
"You saved a dying girl when she had nothing," Asteria said, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper that echoed with the weight of many. "You gave me a chance to survive. Now, it is my turn. I didn't come back just to visit. I've come to settle the debt. Pack what you can, and gather everyone. I am taking you all home. You won't have to hide anymore."
She straightened her back, her iridescent hair shimmering like a banner of war.
"I have returned," she declared to the Hollow Oak, "and I am bringing you home."