Chapter 2 – The Echo of Starlight
The morning after the raid, Starfall Village was heavy with silence. It wasn't the kind of silence that comes with peace, but the heavy kind that presses down on your chest, the kind that makes every footstep sound too loud. Smoke from the burned huts still lingered, drifting above the roofs and carrying the bitter smell of ash. Dogs barked half-heartedly in the distance, but even they seemed subdued, as if they too had seen too much.
People moved about like shadows. Some patched broken fences, others carried water to put out smoldering spots that still hissed faintly in the dirt. Mothers held their children close, eyes swollen from crying. Near the river, men dug shallow graves. Every now and then, a sob would break through the stillness, only to be swallowed up again by the air that felt too thick, too heavy to breathe.
Xing Yun sat by the old stone well at the center of the village, his stick lying across his knees. He hadn't let go of it during the night, not even after the fighting was over. His knuckles were sore, and there was a bruise across his forearm where the bandit's blade had glanced past before it broke. He kept staring at his hands, as if they might still carry the answer to what had happened.
The light, that strange silver glow where did it come from.
He could see it clearly whenever he closed his eyes the way it rippled across the ground like water, the way it seemed alive, humming as if the earth itself was singing. And then the sword shattering, shards spinning through the air, he wanted to believe it was him, he wanted to think he'd done something brave, something powerful. But he knew better. He was ordinary. Always had been.
"Yun!"
The voice snapped him from his thoughts. He looked up to see Liang running over, dirt still smeared across his cheeks and his shirt torn at the sleeve. Despite that, his grin was wide, 1(the kind of grin only someone young and foolish) could manage after a night like that.
"You were amazing last night!" Liang said, eyes shining. "Everyone said you stood up to that bandit!"
Xing Yun rubbed the back of his neck, unsure what to say. "I… I just swung a stick, anyone would've done the same."
Liang's grin grew wider. "But it worked! You broke his sword in half! Even elder han said he's never seen anything like it. Maybe you've been hiding your strength all this time, eh?" He elbowed Xing Yun playfully.
Xing Yun tried to smile back, but it felt thin, stretched. He wanted to laugh with Liang, but the unease in his chest wouldn't let him, the stick hadn't broken that blade, he hadn't done anything except stand there, frozen and terrified, something else had stepped in. He didn't know what, and that frightened him more than the bandits had.
That night, long after the villagers had gone to sleep, Xing Yun slipped away into the fields. The grass was still damp with dew, and the night was cool, a breeze carrying the scent of river water. Above him stretched the sky vast, endless, scattered with stars that glimmered like lanterns hung by invisible hands. He lay down, folding his arms behind his head, staring upward the way he always did when the world below felt too heavy.
"Was that you?" he whispered. His voice sounded small in the open night. "Did you help me?"
Of course, there was no reply. The stars kept their silence, burning cold and far away. But he didn't look away. Even if no one answered, looking at them made him feel lighter, as if all his worries could be carried off into that endless sky.
Yet, far beyond the stars someone was listening to him while smiling.
High above the world of men, past the clouds and past even the veil of night, there was a place where starlight flowed like rivers and mountains floated in seas of light. In that place sat a woman upon a throne carved from crystal. Her hair shone like silver silk, spilling across her shoulders, and her eyes closed for now glimmered faintly as though she dreamed with her eyes shut.
Her lips curved into the faintest smile.
"So," she whispered softly, her voice carrying across the starlit hall, "the first seal has stirred."
In the shadows behind her, other figures stirred. Men and women, cloaked in robes that shimmered with the glow of entire galaxies, their presence so vast that even the stars themselves seemed to bow. Yet none of them spoke. None of them moved closer.
For they all knew the rule that bound them: he must walk his path alone.
And so they watched, their gazes fixed on the small, ordinary boy lying in the fields of a forgotten village, whispering to the stars.