"Prince, His Highness—"
Nolan was already moving.
He pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against stone. Hinata did not rise. She watched him, one eyebrow raised, the bowl still cradled between her hands.
"What is it?" Nolan demanded, yanking the door open.
The guard stood rigid, his face pale beneath the helm. His words trembled; it seemed as though he had rushed to deliver the message.
"My prince. His Highness was poisoned. The healers say it's a slow-acting type. Already in his blood for days."
Nolan's blood turned to ice.
"Days?"
"Yes, my prince. The symptoms only surfaced tonight. Weakness. Shallow breath. Discoloration around the eyes." The guard swallowed. "The royal physician believes the poison was delivered during the king's return from Thornwood. Someone close to him. Someone inside the castle."
Inside the castle.
He turned back to Hinata.
Her face had changed. The playful, eccentric old woman was gone. In her place sat someone older, sharper, her green stars catching the candlelight like the eyes of a predator.
"Slow-reactive," she murmured. "That's odd."
She stood, then paused. Her expression flickered.
"I can't come outside, Nolan. You go."
Nolan stared at her. "Why are you always like this?"
"You know this. Why are you questioning then?" Her voice was flat. "Go. I will follow when I can. But you must see him now."
Nolan didn't argue. He turned and ran.
The corridor to the king's chambers had never felt so long.
Nolan's boots struck the stone in rhythm with his heartbeat. Faster. Faster. The torches on the walls blurred past, their flames like orange tears falling horizontally.
He could hear the crying before he reached the door.
Nora.
Her sobs were raw, desperate, the kind of crying that came from somewhere deeper than the throat. Nolan's mind drove him crazy. He slowed. Fear engulfed him. He wanted to stop.
He didn't.
The king's chambers were crowded with shadows.
His father lay on the massive four-poster bed, his face the color of old parchment. His breathing was shallow, each exhale a papery rasp. The bandages from his Thornwood wound had been removed; the injury itself had healed, leaving a pink, clean scar.
But around his eyes, the skin had darkened to a bruised purple. The same discoloration crept down his neck.
And he was not quiet.
"Stop fussing," the king growled at a healer who tried to adjust his pillow. "I'm not dead yet. And I won't be."
"Nora, stop that. I'm not dead yet."
"Healers say I was poisoned." The king's voice was weak, but there was something beneath it. Irritation. Almost impatience. "And you, there," he gestured vaguely at a cluster of soldiers near the door, "stop hovering like vultures. I can still hear you whispering. What is this, a funeral rehearsal?"
The soldiers stiffened. One of them started to speak. The king cut him off.
"I said stop. I am not dying today. Maybe not tomorrow either. So shut your mouths and guard the door like you're paid to do."
Nolan watched from the doorway. His father was weak. Pale. Poisoned. And yet he was scolding soldiers. Telling Nora to stop crying. Acting as if this was an inconvenience, not a death sentence.
He knows something. He knows he can be saved.
Nolan stepped forward cautiously.
"Father."
The king's eyes found him. A flicker of relief, quickly masked. "Nolan. Good. You're here. Now tell your sister to stop crying. It's making my head worse."
Nora turned to look at Nolan, her face wet, her eyes desperate. "He won't listen to me. He won't listen to anyone."
Nolan knelt beside the bed. He took his father's hand. The fingers were cold.
How are you so calm?
The door behind Nolan swung open.
An old man entered. Nolan's grandfather. He had not seen him for a few years. Bent by age and wounds, his face a map of scars. He wore the robes of the Order of the Silent Chime, higher than any healer. A silver chain hung around his neck, each link etched with symbols Nolan recognized.
The room went quiet.
The old man walked to the king's bedside. He did not bow. He did not speak. He simply placed his hands on the king's chest and closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Nolan saw the stars. Five green stars forming a pattern—not the same as Hinata's. His grandfather's eyes glowed faintly.
"I could not save my daughter," the old man said. His voice was rough, worn down by years of grief. "But this is not the same as before. These life-killing parasites—" He looked at the king with rage. "These are something I can remove."
"Disease Purge," he murmured.
Light spread from his hands. It crawled across the king's skin, seeking, searching. Where it found the purple discoloration, it drank it. The bruises faded. The spiderwebbing veins receded. The king's breath deepened.
Nolan watched, frozen.
It took less than a minute.
The old man stepped back. His hands were shaking. His face was paler than before.
"It is done," he said. "The poison is gone."
The king sat up. Slowly. Carefully. But he sat up.
Nora lunged forward, wrapping her arms around him, sobbing again—but different now. Relief, not grief.
The king patted her head. "There. I told you. Not dead yet."
The old man turned to leave.
Nolan stood. "Wait. What happened to you? This is where you've been?"
A long silence. Then, without looking back, the old man said, "Yes."
Before Nolan could ask why, the old man continued.
"Because I could not save her." His voice cracked. "That is a wound that does not heal."
He walked out. The door closed behind him.
Nolan stood in the silence.
The king watched him. "Nolan."
"I need a moment."
He walked to the window. Outside, the stars were bright.
My grandfather. A healer who could not save his own daughter in her time.
But now he has saved my father.
He looked up at the sky.
These stars need to be mastered. Quickly.
Nolan turned from the window. His father was sitting up now, drinking water, his color already improving. Nora had not left his side.
His body was already failing him, the adrenaline drain, the hollow ache behind his eyes. He could feel the edges of exhaustion creeping in, sharp and inevitable.
"Father. I need to rest. I guess you are doing well."
The king nodded. "Go. We'll speak in the morning."
Nora did not follow him. She stayed by their father's side, her hand still clutching his. She needed the certainty of touch, the proof that he was still breathing.
Nolan walked to his room alone.
He did not undress. He simply fell onto the bed, face-first, and let the darkness take him.
Sleep came like a collapsing building.
No voices. Just the weight of nothing pressing down on him from all sides.
Morning light cut through the shutters like a blade.
Nolan woke to the sound of birds, real birds, not the caged ones in the courtyard, but wild ones nesting in the eaves. The sound was so ordinary, so unchanged by war and poison and awakening, that for a moment he forgot where he was.
Not a dream.
He sat up. His head ached. His mouth was dry. But his mind was clear.
He washed his face in the basin, dressed in fresh clothes, and walked toward the chamber.
Nolan found Hinata exactly where he had left her in the dining room.
She was sitting in the same chair. Her hands were folded on the table. Her eyes were closed.
"Come in," she said without opening them. "And close the door."
Nolan stepped inside and closed it. The candles flickered once, then steadied.
Hinata opened her eyes.
"What happened to Leonhardt?"
Nolan told her. The guard's message. His father's strange calm. The healers' helplessness. Then his grandfather's entrance. The five green stars. Disease Purge. The light drinking the poison from the king's blood.
Hinata listened without interrupting. Her face was still, unreadable.
When he finished, she was quiet for a long moment.
"Your grandfather," she said finally. "He came back."
"Yes."
"After all these years." Her voice was flat, but something moved behind her eyes. A flicker. Too fast to name. "I see, so this is how it went."
Hinata broke the silent act, and her smile widened. It was not a typical grandmother's smile. It was the smile of a storm.
Hinata walked toward a corner and called Nolan to come near her. As Nolan approached, her eyes met his.
"Experiment time, Nolan. Real ones. Not the gentle, careful nonsense I had planned. We start now."
She snapped her fingers.
The floor beneath Nolan's feet opened like a wooden chest being opened, not in the usual way, but rather it was made to be pushed.
Both of them fell.
Nolan's stomach lurched. He tried to scream, but the wind ripped the sound from his throat. Hinata fell beside him, her robes billowing, her green stars blazing. She was laughing.
The darkness swallowed them.
They landed finally.
Nolan's knees buckled. He caught himself with his hands, his palms scraping against not rock, but a soft mat. The air was damp, heavy, smelling of moss and old water.
He looked up.
They were in a cavern. Massive. Ancient. Pillars of black stone rose around them like the ribs of a dead giant. Water dripped somewhere in the distance.
Hinata stood beside him, untouched by the fall.
"Welcome to the Bastian Sanctuary," she said. "Built by the first Alanorian Awakeners. Made a hundred years ago, which has been closed for a while. And now—" She spread her arms. "Open again."
Nolan's heart hammered. "What is this place?"
"A test." Her smile was sharp. "Your star is hungry, right? You need to feed it. And hunger needs to be balanced, or it will just be another starvation." She pointed into the darkness. "Somewhere in this cavern, there is a door. Behind that door is a creature. Not a beast. Something worse. An echo of an Awakener who failed his own awakening three centuries ago. He is not alive. But he is not dead either. He is stuck. Repeating the same moment over and over."
She turned to face him.
"Your task is simple. Find the door. Enter the room. Survive the echo for as long as you can."
Nolan's throat tightened. "And if I can't?"
"Then you fail. And we will try again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that." Her voice hardened. "Until your star eats you from the inside out."
She stepped back.
"I will not help you. I will not save you. If you die in there—" She paused. "You won't die. The echo cannot kill. It can only push. That is its nature. It pushes and pushes until you either learn to stand or you break."
Nolan swallowed, a look of a wounded cat on his face. "And if I break?"
Hinata's eyes softened. Just a fraction.
"Then I will carry you out. And we will try again."
She pointed into the dark.
With a calm, cheerful face, "Now come on. Go."
Nolan hesitated. Just for that look. Yet he walked toward it.
The cavern stretched endlessly. The pillars loomed. The dripping water marked his passage. He walked for what felt like hours, though it could have been minutes. Time felt strange here, thick and slow, like wading through honey.
He found the door.
It was made of iron, rusted, its surface scarred by something sharp. No handle. No lock. Just a single word carved into the metal:
ENTER
Nolan placed his palm against the cold iron.
The door swung inward.
The room was small. Circular. The walls were smooth, black, polished like glass. In the center stood a figure.
It was a man. Or had been. His skin was gray, stretched tight over bones. His eyes were empty sockets, but from them poured a faint light. He wore tattered robes, the insignia of an ancient Alanorian house faded beyond recognition.
He did not move. He did not breathe.
Then he spoke.
"You came."
His voice was dry, rusted.
"I have been waiting."
Nolan, with a confused expression, asked, "Waiting for what?"
"For someone to push." The figure tilted its head. "The last one who came here ran. He did not return. I have been alone for three hundred years, repeating the same moment, the same failure."
It stepped forward.
"Push me, boy. Or I will push you."
Before Nolan could react—
Nolan's arm felt heavy. Not tired. Heavy. As if something had grabbed his bones and was pulling them down toward the earth.
The figure smiled. Its lips cracked. Something dark seeped from the fissures.
"Gravity," it whispered. "It's the first law. The pull that precedes all others."
It raised a hand.
Nolan's knees buckled. The weight on his shoulders multiplied. He could feel his spine compressing, his ribs pressing against his lungs. The air grew thick, impossible to breathe.
"You feel it, don't you?" The figure stepped closer. Each footfall sent a tremor through the stone. "The weight of existence. You have spent your whole life ignoring it, standing, walking, running. But for what?"
Nolan tried to move. His legs would not obey. His arms hung at his sides like lead pipes.
"The body is mostly water," the figure continued. "Water has weight. Blood has weight. Your heart is pumping against a force you never noticed. Until now."
It raised its other hand.
Nolan's chest caved inward. Not breaking—compressing. He could feel his organs shifting, pressing against each other. His vision blurred at the edges.
"You wanted to push me," the figure said. "But you cannot even push against the air."
Nolan's knees hit the ground. The impact cracked the stone beneath him.
The figure's voice grew creepier. "Get up. Get up."
Then it crouched in front of him. Its hollow eyes stared into his.
"Gravity is not cruelty," it said. "It is simply... inevitable. You will fall. Everything falls. The only question is how long you can pretend otherwise."
It touched Nolan's forehead with one gray finger.
The pressure shifted—now in front of him, pushing him back.
I can't see.
I can't breathe.
I can't—
The figure stood in the darkness.
"Three hundred years," it murmured. "And still, no one pushes back."
The figure's words echoed in his skull.
Gravity is inevitable.
Everything falls.
The only question is how long you can pretend otherwise.
He woke on the soft mat in the cavern.
Hinata stood over him, arms crossed. "That was four seconds."
Nolan tried to sit up. His body screamed. Every muscle, every joint, every bone ached as if he had been folded in half and held there.
"Four seconds?" His voice came out as a croak.
Hinata looked down at him. "Don't think about what just happened. You're just overthinking. Nothing broke you. That's just your imagination."
She paused.
"This is one type of corruption enforced by stars. Just a living authority."