Celeste's POV
I ran.
My feet slipped on the wet cobblestones as I bolted down the alley, away from the creatures with glowing red eyes. Rain blurred my vision, but I didn't care. I just needed to get away.
"You can't run from destiny, little star!" one of them called behind me, his voice echoing off the alley walls.
I didn't look back. My heart hammered in my chest as I burst out of the alley onto the main street. People in fancy clothes hurried past under umbrellas, heading home from expensive restaurants and theaters. None of them noticed me—a soaked, desperate girl in a ruined gown.
I ducked into a crowd of people leaving the theater district, hoping to lose the creatures in the chaos. My lungs burned. My legs ached. But I kept moving.
After several blocks, I risked a glance behind me.
Nothing. The alley was empty. The creatures were gone.
I pressed my back against a brick wall, gasping for breath. Maybe I'd imagined them. Maybe the shock and heartbreak had made me see things that weren't real.
But those red eyes... those sharp teeth... they felt real.
Thunder rumbled overhead. The rain fell harder, and the last few people on the street scattered for cover. Within minutes, I was alone on the empty street, shivering in my soaked gown.
Where could I go?
Not back to the Ashford mansion. Stepmother had disowned me in front of everyone. She'd probably already sent servants to throw out my belongings—what few I had.
Not to any friends. I didn't have friends. I'd spent the last three years working day and night on research with Dorian, too busy to build relationships with anyone else.
Not to Dorian. The thought made my chest ache. He'd never wanted me. He'd used me, stolen my work, and tossed me aside the moment I stopped being useful.
I had nowhere to go. Nobody to turn to. Nothing left.
My feet moved automatically, carrying me through the rain-soaked streets while my mind spiraled. I passed shops closing for the night, their warm lights blinking out one by one. Through lit windows, I saw families gathered around dinner tables, laughing and talking.
I'd never had that. Even when my real father was alive, before he married Lady Margaret, it was just the two of us in our small apartment. He worked constantly, trying to provide. Then he died, and Lady Margaret took me in—not out of kindness, but because Father's will required it.
She gave me a room in the servants' quarters and put me to work immediately. I was eight years old.
Seraphina was ten and already learning to be a proper lady. She had tutors, beautiful dresses, riding lessons. I had a uniform and a list of chores.
But I didn't complain. I worked hard. I studied late at night using borrowed books. I taught myself mathematics and astronomy by candlelight after everyone else was asleep.
I thought if I just proved myself—if I showed everyone I was smart and capable—they'd finally see me as family.
I was so stupid.
The rain plastered my hair to my face. Water squelched in my ruined shoes. I didn't know where I was anymore, but my feet kept moving, taking me farther from the city center.
The buildings grew smaller and farther apart. Streetlamps became scarce. Soon I was walking along a muddy road leading out of the city, with dark forests pressing in on both sides.
I should turn back. It wasn't safe out here at night.
But what did safety matter anymore? What did anything matter?
My credentials were gone. My reputation was destroyed. Everyone believed I was a thief and a liar. Even if I could prove the truth, who would listen? Dorian had evidence—forged evidence, but evidence nonetheless. He'd planned this perfectly.
And Seraphina... my own stepsister had helped destroy me. How long had they been planning this together? Months? Years?
Fresh tears mixed with the rain on my cheeks.
I walked until my legs couldn't carry me anymore, then collapsed against a tree at the edge of the road. Above me, through breaks in the storm clouds, I could see stars beginning to appear.
The Celestial Convergence was complete. Seven stars aligned in a perfect pattern across the sky, glowing brighter than I'd ever seen them.
I'd spent three years mapping those stars. Calculating their movements. Predicting this exact moment.
And I couldn't even watch them from the Observatory. I had to witness my greatest achievement from a muddy roadside, alone and broken.
"I hate you," I whispered to the stars. "I wished on you my whole life. I studied you. I dedicated everything to understanding you. And you gave me nothing."
The stars didn't answer. They never did.
I closed my eyes and tried to decide what to do next. Maybe I could find work in another city. Change my name. Start over.
But the Royal Academy Director had revoked my credentials in front of everyone. Word would spread. By tomorrow, everyone in the kingdom would know my name and my supposed crimes.
I was ruined. Completely and totally ruined.
A strange tingling sensation ran through my body, pulling me from my thoughts. I opened my eyes and gasped.
The stars were moving.
Not drifting slowly across the sky like they should. Actually moving, shifting positions, the seven aligned stars beginning to spin in a circular pattern.
That was impossible. Stars didn't move like that.
The tingling sensation grew stronger, centering in my chest. Silver light began to glow beneath my skin, faint but visible even in the darkness.
"What's happening to me?" I whispered.
The spinning stars spun faster, and suddenly I remembered something—a story my father told me when I was very small, before he died.
"The Constellation Ruins," I breathed.
Father said that centuries ago, before astronomy became a respected science, stargazers made pilgrimages to the Constellation Ruins outside the city. It was a sacred place where the barrier between the mortal world and the celestial realm was thinnest. Ancient people went there to make wishes during special astronomical events.
But the practice was forbidden now. The ruins were considered dangerous, possibly cursed. Nobody went there anymore.
Except... the ruins weren't far from here. Maybe another hour's walk through the forest.
The silver glow under my skin pulsed brighter, like my body was responding to the spinning stars above.
I stood up on shaking legs. This was crazy. The ruins were forbidden for a reason. And those creatures with red eyes had said something about me "becoming a problem" their master couldn't control.
What if going to the ruins was exactly what they wanted?
But another part of me—a deeper, desperate part—didn't care.
I had nothing left to lose.
If the ruins were dangerous, so what? If making a wish there was forbidden, who would stop me? I was already a criminal in everyone's eyes. Might as well earn the title.
I stepped off the road and into the forest, following an old overgrown path I'd seen on ancient maps during my research. The trees grew thicker, blocking out the rain. My wet dress caught on branches, but I pushed forward.
The silver glow under my skin grew brighter with each step, lighting my way through the darkness.
After what felt like hours, the trees opened into a circular clearing. Stone pillars stood in a ring, taller than buildings, covered in strange symbols that seemed to shimmer in the starlight. In the center of the ring was a raised platform made of smooth black stone.
The Constellation Ruins.
I stepped into the clearing, and every symbol on every pillar suddenly blazed with silver light.
Above me, the seven stars stopped spinning and locked into perfect alignment.
The silver glow beneath my skin exploded outward, lifting me off my feet.
I tried to scream, but no sound came out.
And then I heard a voice—not from the ruins, but from inside my own head:
"Finally. After twenty years of waiting. Welcome home, daughter of starlight."