After learning the unseen truths of the world under Master Kael Draven, I thought I had begun to understand the island's mysteries. But Elder Aarion smiled and said, "What you've learned so far belongs to the earth — reason, skill, and silence. Now, it's time to look upward. Your destiny begins in the stars."
That night, he led me to the highest mountain on Aarvak Island — a place the masters called the Celestial Terrace. From its peak, the entire world stretched under a deep silver sky. No city lights, no smoke, no clouds, only endless stars glimmering like living eyes.
At the centre of that terrace stood an old man leaning on a bronze telescope much larger than himself. His hair was white as the milk of the moon, his beard long and braided with tiny gems that twinkled like constellations. His eyes glowed faintly violet, and his robe shimmered with shifting star maps.
He didn't turn to look at me when I arrived — he was busy drawing circles in the air, and each movement left behind trails of light forming strange symbols.
"I knew you'd climb tonight," he said softly. His voice carried the calm of the galaxies.
Elder Aarion bowed deeply. "Mukul, meet Master Orion Vael, The Star Reader, keeper of the cosmic charts and guardian of destiny itself."
The old man lowered his hand, and the constellation map he had drawn slowly merged into the sky above. He smiled faintly. "I am only a student of light, not its keeper. Welcome, child of the Seven Marks."
When I stepped closer, a strange thing happened — the mark of seven stars on the back of my neck began to glow faintly, reacting to the starlight around us.
Master Orion nodded, his gaze never leaving the sky. "They know you. The Seven Stars that mark your fate — each one tied to a truth you haven't reached yet. I can teach you how to understand their language."
And that was how my tenth training began.
Master Orion lived among the stars — not literally, but his home felt like it belonged nowhere else. The walls of his observatory were made of transparent crystal, always open to the night. His room glowed softly with floating orbs, instruments both ancient and modern, mixed — brass astrolabes rested next to floating holograms projecting entire galaxies.
He told me, "I study both — the old sky and the new. Ancient astrology is the whisper of the gods. Modern astronomy is man's attempt to echo it. Combine them, and you learn how destiny breathes."
His first lesson was unlike anything I had ever imagined. "Lie down," he said, pointing to a smooth platform carved with silver lines. As I lay there, he drew a luminous map above me, connecting the stars into shapes — lions, serpents, chains, and wings.
"These," he said, "are the rivers of fate. The lines that tie every soul to its purpose. Every birthmark, every instinct, every strange dream — all are echoes of where the stars stood when your spirit crossed into the mortal realm."
He made me memorise constellations, measure shadows, and calculate celestial paths, teaching me both mystical and scientific techniques.
From ancient methods, I learned how the sages tracked destiny using sound — by humming vibrations that matched planetary rhythms. He taught me to listen closely to my heartbeat at midnight, align my breathing with the pulse of the constellations overhead, and feel a faint warmth flow through my veins. "That is your starlight," he whispered. "Your life's frequency."
Then came the modern lessons. He introduced tools that defied understanding — star trackers, maps that moved like living paper, devices that predicted solar pulses. "Modern science," he said, "has learned to read data, but forgotten to read wonder. Bring them together, Mukul. Let knowledge have a soul."
I watched him calculate planetary orbits effortlessly while muttering ancient mantras, blending mathematics and meditation into one fluid rhythm. It was beautiful — numbers glowing with meaning, stars answering back.
One night, I asked him, "Master Orion, can the future really be seen?"
He chuckled. "Not seen — understood. The stars don't tell you what will happen. They tell you what can happen. The rest, my child, depends on your choices."
He told me each of my stars represented seven virtues — wisdom, courage, compassion, creation, balance, truth, guidance, and unity. "Every light has a mirror on earth," he said. "The stronger your heart reflects them, the brighter they grow."
Sometimes, he spoke quietly about why he came to Aarvak. "Once, I believed I could control destiny," he confessed one night, staring at the constellations. "I warned kings before their wars, tried to bend fate with prophecy. But fate does not obey pride. One mistake — one false word — destroyed a world I meant to save. That is when I realised, stars guide; they do not command."
Then, with tears in his glowing eyes, he added, "So, I came here to listen again."
He taught me techniques beyond anything I'd imagined. One he called Starflow Meditation — a form of deep focus that allowed me to visualise cosmic maps in my mind. Through it, I could sense connections between people, even feel on which days power or tragedy might touch them. Another he called Astrocyphering, a modern technique of analysing quantum star data to read probability, a science that mixed destiny and pattern-recognition.
With every lesson, my mark of seven stars glowed brighter. Once, it shone so brilliantly that it cast shadows on the walls.
Orion smiled that night. "Your energy hums in alignment with your destiny now, Mukul. When the seventh star of the heavens aligns with your mark, you will awaken something forgotten by time."
"What is that?" I asked quietly.
He only said, "The Guardian's Path — your true inheritance."
At the end of my training, he gave me a ring with a small gem shaped like a glowing galaxy. "This isn't power," he said. "It's remembrance. Look through it whenever you forget your purpose. You are a traveller of stars now, not a servant of them."
He looked at me one last time and said, "You carry heaven's mark, but you walk on earth's soil. Never forget — destiny is written above, but its meaning is carved by your footsteps below."
As I left the Celestial Terrace, the stars seemed to move closer, as though bowing in silent farewell.
And that was how I met Orion Vael — The Star Reader, the master who showed me that destiny is neither promise nor curse, but a map — one that shines brightest only for those brave enough to walk in its light.