The starlight message faded slowly, leaving a hollow afterglow in the dim training hall. No one moved for a long time.
Fourty-eight hours.
That was all the time they had.
Orion exhaled and stood, dusting off his knees. "We're not going to figure out the brackets tonight."
"Doesn't mean I won't try," Serah muttered, already pulling out a small folded scroll from her coat. It was covered in hastily scrawled notes, names, and rough diagrams. "Look, if the Skybound fought the Silent Choir next, that would leave us with—"
"We don't know," Iris interrupted gently. She was seated on the edge of the dais now, her rapier leaning beside her like an old companion. "And speculating too hard is going to spin us in circles."
Azrael nodded silently in agreement, arms crossed, half-shadowed in the lantern light.
Serah scowled, but tucked the scroll away.
Orion looked between them. "We've earned a moment to breathe. Let's take it."
That night, the four of them slipped from the training hall and wandered up one of the outer towers of the Academy. It was mostly abandoned at night, the stars overhead glowing clear and cold through the open arches. From here, they could see the vastness of the Starbound Arena and the dormitory lights glowing like fireflies along the cliffs beyond.
They didn't speak much.
Iris eventually sat with her back against a stone ledge and began humming—soft and low, weaving a thread of sound that matched the stars above. Not power. Just music.
Serah leaned against the parapet, arms folded, gaze distant. Azrael stood behind her like a shadow—silent, unmoving, but present.
Orion found himself smiling faintly. This moment wouldn't last, but it mattered.
They were still together. Still standing.
Still breathing.
Iris's humming faded into silence, replaced by the rustle of the wind over stone. A long, comfortable stillness settled over them.
"I keep replaying it," she said quietly, her voice catching on the night. "That moment. When Mira's blade nearly took my throat. If I hadn't tilted my wrist just so—"
"You did," Azrael said, flat but certain.
She looked over at him.
"You tilted. You're alive."
A smile touched her lips, fleeting but real. "Thanks."
Orion sat beside her. "You were brilliant, Iris. You didn't just win. You owned the rhythm of that fight."
She sighed. "I had to. She was faster than I thought. Stronger, too. Bladesong isn't just swordplay—it's tempo. Cadence. If I fell behind once, she would've ended it."
Serah scoffed. "Then you should be proud. You outplayed a songblade. That's not nothing."
She said it with her usual fire, but there was a tightness in her jaw.
"You're frustrated," Orion said, watching her.
Serah looked away, lips pursed. "Not with Iris. With them." She gestured in the vague direction of the Academy's central spire. "The announcers. The spectators. The way they cheer louder when blood hits the sand."
There was venom in her voice now.
"They don't care who we are. Just how pretty we break."
Orion looked at her for a long moment. "You're not wrong."
"I didn't want to hurt Rhett," she muttered. "But I had to burn him down to make them stop chanting his name."
Azrael's voice came low. "They always choose favorites. Until they don't."
Silence again.
The stars above shimmered faintly, like they were listening.
Eventually, Orion rose and turned toward the door.
"We're still here," he said. "Let's make that mean something."
As they left the tower one by one, Serah lingered last, gripping the stone edge until her knuckles whitened. Only when the wind shifted did she follow the others.
Behind them, the night held its breath.
Later that night, long after the others had gone to sleep, Orion sat alone on the balcony outside their shared quarters. The night wind combed through his hair, cool and whispering, stirring the faint edges of something he hadn't felt in days.
Then—like a ripple on the surface of still water—he felt it.
A soft, silver pull beneath his skin. Gentle. Familiar.
He closed his eyes.
And the world slipped.
The stone beneath him melted into stars, and when he opened his eyes again, he stood in the Astralum—that vast silver void where stars walked and truths whispered. The sky was a quiet ocean of light, pulsing like a great heart. And before him, waiting in her eternal calm, stood Selene.
She was moonlight made flesh, as serene as always, her form woven from glow and grace.
"I was wondering when you'd come," Orion said.
"I never left," Selene replied gently. "But you've been… clouded."
He nodded. "The Hollow's weight. The silence from flame inside. The pressure of this trial—it's like I'm unraveling piece by piece."
"You are not unraveling," Selene said, stepping forward. "You are becoming."
He met her gaze, searching. "Becoming what?"
"Something the world has not seen in a long time. A bearer who listens. Who resists. Who chooses."
Orion's breath caught. "Even if I falter?"
"Especially then."
She raised her hand, brushing her fingers along his brow. A cool, radiant warmth spread through him—centered, steady.
"I saw your blade today," she said. "You fight not to conquer, but to understand. That is the path of the moon. Reflection. Clarity. And even when shadow clings to your steps, you have not turned from me."
"I thought you were fading," he admitted.
"I was. But you remembered."
She smiled then—soft and sad.
"Hold onto that."
The light around her began to drift, breaking into silvery petals.
"I'm still with you, Orion. I always will be. But something stirs in the sky beyond the Astralum. Something old. And it knows your name."
The petals scattered into the void.
Orion stood alone once more.
And when he awoke on the balcony, the mark over his eye shimmered faintly—like moonlight touching still water.