The last day of Starfrost Month arrived faster than expected.

  At dawn, Valian City lay shrouded in thin mist.

  The outlines of the Northwind Twin Towers were blurred, the lights atop them like two weary eyes, barely glowing.

  The sound of the Inner Sea’s tides was duller than usual—thump after thump, like a heartbeat pressed to its limit.

  The inner courtyard of House Starcrown had been cleared.

  The circular clearing where wind-bell flowers once grew was now nothing but bare stone slabs.

  At its center, a complete Grand Invocation Array had been carved—three concentric circles.

  The outer ring bore Vali’s Starcrown runes; the middle ring interwove the triune symbols of the Three High Gods; the inner ring was a blank bearing field, left for symbols and intent.

  The grooves were filled with obsidian powder, reflecting a cold silver-blue sheen in the morning light, like a frozen ring of stars.

  The people of the Church had already arrived.

  Three monitoring priests stood in deep-blue robes, Vali’s Starcrown insignia hanging on their chests, their faces devoid of excess expression.

  The ritual chests they brought were arranged neatly outside the array: pure silver guiding needles, purified whale-bone powder, twelve vials of mana fluid in varying hues, and a temporarily sealed “Sacred Echo Stone”—a tool used to capture and stabilize the first response.

  Iris stood outside the array. Her cloak had been replaced by formal priestly robes; her silver-white hair was pinned up with a sapphire hairpin, sapphire earrings at her ears scattering fine shards of light in the dawn.

  She did not look at the priests. Her gaze was fixed on the blank space at the center of the array, as if measuring something.

  Her fingers tightened slightly within her sleeves, her knuckles paling—the only sign of her tension.

  Ryan stood beside her.

  The cuffs of his gray-blue robe were rolled up, exposing old scars on his wrists.

  His expression was calmer than usual, but also more exhausted, as though he had not slept all night. He looked at the two children, his Adam’s apple bobbing once, but he said nothing.

  Ian and Lorne emerged from the side hall.

  They wore matching pure-white ceremonial robes, the collars and cuffs embroidered with delicate Starcrown patterns.

  Ian’s collar sat slightly askew, his silver-white short hair tousled by the wind, blue eyes filled with excitement and nerves.

  Lorne’s robe was fastened neatly, cuffs flat and even; his silver-white hair lay orderly against his forehead, his gaze deep and calm, like a bottomless sea.

  Ian spoke first, his voice low but trembling.

  “Mother… does it really have to be now?”

  Iris turned to him.

  Her gaze fell on Ian first, then shifted to Lorne.

  “Yes,” she said. “Now.”

  Ian bit his lip and looked at Lorne.

  “Are you scared?”

  Lorne shook his head.

  “Not afraid.”

  His voice was light, but steady.

  Ian took a deep breath and clenched his fists.

  “That’s good,” he said. “No matter the result, I’ll be in front, protecting you.”

  Lorne looked at his brother, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

  “Mm.”

  Iris stepped forward and opened her hands.

  Two prepared Taki lay in her palms—two fragments of meteorite, smooth as mirrors, with faint silver-blue veins within, like stones frozen with starlight.

  Ian and Lorne took them.

  Their mother gently brushed the tops of their heads.

  “Remember,” she said, “no matter what response you receive, you are children of House Starcrown.”

  “That will never change.”

  Both nodded.

  The priests stepped forward and began the final calibration of the array.

  The obsidian powder within the grooves slowly lit up, silver-blue veins of light flowing along the carvings like awakened still water.

  The guiding needle was placed into the blank center of the array, its tip pointing downward, suspended in midair.

  Iris stepped back to the edge of the array.

  Her fingers clenched the edge of her cloak, knuckles faintly white.

  “Begin.”

  The first priest murmured the activation incantation.

  The array flared to life.

  Silver-blue light surged from the outer ring inward, like a reversed tide.

  Lorne and Ian stepped into the center at the same time.

  Three paces apart, they faced each other.

  The guiding needle at the center began to vibrate.

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  Silver-blue light spread upward from its tip, like a fine thread connecting heaven and earth.

  The priests’ chanting grew lower, faster.

  “O gods.”

  “We beseech your gaze.”

  “From the winds that sweep the sky.”

  “To the trees that grow upon the land.”

  “To the rivers that race through the underworld.”

  “O gods, cast down your sight, and touch us with your divine will.”

  The light veins erupted.

  A pillar of silver-blue light shot skyward from the center of the array, piercing the clouds and reaching the skies above the Holy City.

  All of Valian City could see it.

  The lights atop the towers dimmed at once, as though suppressed by that pillar of light.

  Lorne felt himself standing at a crossroads.

  Endless pages began to whirl around him. A road made of knowledge stretched out, vanishing beyond sight.

  The sound of turning pages was like whispers, like tides, like countless people far away reading the same book at once.

  Then another road appeared.

  The tide surged in, forming a path of ocean—waves rolling, deep blue filled with infinite acceptance and annihilation.

  Just as Lorne prepared to step forward—

  Boom!

  A deafening thunderclap rang out.

  Lightning split down from the heavens, shredding the pages and dispersing the sea.

  Both roads collapsed in an instant.

  Only one remained.

  A path woven of starry sky and lightning.

  Countless silver-white stars flickered in the darkness, like a night sky sliced apart by thunderlight. On both sides stretched endless void; starlight and electric arcs intertwined, like a rift torn open and forcibly stitched together.

  Lorne stood at the crossroads.

  He felt the road calling to him.

  Then he saw him.

  A white-haired, blue-eyed youth, holding a silver-white long spear.

  Lorne reacted faster than ever before, his blue eyes widening.

  The Sky God, Vali.

  The road of stars and thunder extended beneath Lorne’s feet, stabilizing, as if that single moment had already made the choice for him.

  The white-haired, blue-eyed youth stood at the end of the road.

  He neither stepped forward nor retreated—he simply looked at Lorne.

  That was not the gaze of a mortal upon another.

  It was a gaze that had long existed on high, only now lowering itself.

  Thunder rumbled behind him, no longer roaring.

  Starlight surrounded him, restrained and bound.

  Lorne’s breath hitched for an instant.

  He did not kneel.

  Nor did he speak.

  Not because of courage, but because—

  Under that gaze, all forms of declaration felt unnecessary.

  Vali raised his hand.

  It was neither a summons nor a blessing.

  He merely extended it forward.

  Lorne felt a clear binding,

  a sacred taboo (Tapu):

  “Brothers and family are the fundamental units of order. The sky is vast because it holds all stars without letting them fall into one another. If you abandon your brother, you abandon order itself.”

  Specific clauses:

  Lorne must not actively harm or betray his brother (Ian), unless:

  Ian willingly accepts the harm, or

  Ian initiates a lethal attack against Lorne.

  If Ian is in mortal danger, even if it violates other taboos, Lorne must do everything possible to protect him. This clause has priority over all other Tapu.

  The Star-Thunder Road trembled once.

  A silver-white light extended from Vali’s palm. It did not touch Lorne directly, but stopped before his chest.

  Like a mark not yet set.

  Vali’s voice came from no direction at all.

  It appeared directly within Lorne’s consciousness.

  “There is no need to fear.”

  In the next instant, the Star-Thunder Road began to collapse.

  Not destroyed, but like a structure that had completed its task—disassembling itself, retracting. Stars winked out one by one, lightning arcs drew into fine threads, and at last condensed into a sacred eight-pointed star that sank into Lorne’s chest.

  Lorne snapped his eyes open.

  The light of the real world flooded his vision.

  He stood at the center of the invocation array.

  The guiding needle hovered between him and Ian, vibrating violently, its tip skewed toward Lorne.

  The glow of the obsidian runes had already begun to recede.

  The outer-ring symbols dimmed one after another.

  The first priest’s chanting stopped.

  He froze for a heartbeat, then immediately looked up.

  “—One side has completed its response.”

  The second priest swiftly pressed a hand to the Sacred Echo Stone.

  The stone lit up.

  A lightning sigil appeared upon it, then transformed into a sacred eight-pointed star.

  The meaning was clear.

  This was not merely a calling,

  but a revelation.

  Lorne’s Tavala Path had skipped Karahia entirely and become Fanaki directly.

  A grace granted to only a very few.

  Outside the array, Iris clenched her cloak, knuckles turning white.

  Ryan’s pupils constricted sharply.

  The priests exchanged glances, shock appearing on their faces for the first time.

  Ian stood at the center of the formation, the guiding needle still vibrating.

  But this time, it did not immediately tilt toward either side.

  The priests’ chanting resumed.

  Lower than before, yet more taut—

  like a bowstring drawn to its limit.

  The formation’s sigils had not fully faded.

  Silver-blue veins of light flowed again beneath Ian’s feet, like a hesitant tide—slow, uncertain, as if waiting for some final confirmation.

  Ian took a deep breath.

  He closed his eyes.

  The world grew quiet.

  Not the kind of quiet that comes from being stripped away,

  but—

  a stillness pressing in from all directions at once.

  The next instant, the ground shook.

  A deep, subterranean rumble,

  as if some enormous, slumbering presence had shifted in its sleep.

  Cracks spread beneath his feet.

  Ian snapped his gaze downward.

  The flagstones were no longer flagstones.

  He stood upon a land split and fractured.

  —More than one road.

  The first road was formed of heavy strata of rock.

  Earthy yellows and deep browns interwove, ancient patterns etched across the exposed stone,

  as if touched again and again by countless hands.

  Each step felt weighty, yet secure.

  From far away came the faint sound of hammering—

  not destruction,

  but construction.

  The second road was a forest.

  Roots tangled, trunks thick, leaves so dense they nearly blotted out the sky.

  Life pressed, grew, fought for space within it.

  The air was warm and heavy.

  The third road was shrouded in gray-white mist.

  Within the fog were stairs, descending downward.

  Each step was clean, straight,

  as though measured over and over again.

  The air was cold, but not unpleasant.

  A fourth road.

  A fifth.

  Ian’s breathing quickened slightly.

  He could feel it—

  these roads were all watching him.

  “…I can…”

  He took an unconscious half step forward.

  And then—

  Boom—!!

  The earth violently overturned.

  Not collapse,

  but wrath.

  The first road of layered stone split apart.

  Massive blocks shattered as if crushed by an invisible hand,

  the sound of hammering cut off mid-breath.

  The forest road was torn asunder.

  Trees toppled, roots exposed to the air,

  the breath of life severed in an instant.

  Ian staggered back a step.

  “What—”

  The quake did not stop.

  On the contrary, it became directional.

  The road of gray-white mist began to tremble.

  The steps shattered one by one,

  falling downward.

  From within the fog,

  skeletons emerged.

  Not broken remains,

  but bones cleaned spotless, arranged in perfect order.

  There was no light in their eye sockets,

  yet they turned toward Ian in unison.

  One road after another collapsed.

  No hesitation,

  no reprieve.

  Ian stood frozen,

  his chest heaving violently.

  “Wait…!”

  His voice sounded small in the vast space.

  At last, only two remained.

  One was the earth.

  A vast plain.

  Solid, silent, bearing everything.

  The ground was riddled with cracks and patches,

  as if it had endured countless destructions, only to be rebuilt again and again.

  The other led downward.

  The mist was gone.

  A clear, straight road stretching into gloom.

  Skeletons stood on both sides,

  arrayed like an honor guard.

  Ian’s heart pounded.

  He felt two gazes.

  One came from beneath his feet—

  heavy, patient, silently enduring.

  The other came from the depths ahead—

  calm, lucid, devoid of emotion.

  He suddenly understood—

  the answers that remained.

  The God of Earth, Mokai.

  The God of the Underworld,Hake.

  Two chief gods were watching him at the same time.

  Ian’s breathing grew more and more rapid.

  He felt his will being torn between the two roads.

  He wanted to move forward.

  He wanted to seize one of them.

  But both were pulling at him.

  The earth whispered: stay, bear, stabilize.

  The underworld whispered: advance, measure, conclude.

  Ian’s head throbbed, his body feeling as though it were being split in two,

  drawn by different paths.

  Each of his shoulders was touched by a hand.

  Suddenly, the pain receded like a tide.

  One hand was bronze-colored, solid and powerful.

  The other was pale, cold, and awe-inspiring.

  “I think we can do this together, Hake,” a gentle, steady voice sounded.

  “…..”

  In a space Ian could not perceive, the two chief gods had clashed more than once.

  Boom!

  A deafening peal of thunder rang out.

  “I agree.”

  The thunder fell.

  Both roads stabilized at the same time.