Asteria navigated the corridors with the wary grace of a stray cat.
As she re-entered the main courtyard, her eyes zeroed in on the epicenter of the commotion. There she was. Nephis. Or, as the flashing boards so loudly proclaimed: Changing Star.
The girl stood tall, her silver hair catching the light like a beacon. She was surrounded by a sea of Sleepers, all of them tossing questions like fanatics franticly throwing offerings to a goddess.
Asteria lingered at the edge of the crowd, eavesdropping. The whispers painted a daunting picture.
Nephis wasn't just a Legacy; she was the last spark of the Immortal Flame clan. Her father, Broken Sword, was a legend – one of the first Transcendents to walk the earth. A Saint.
'A real heavy hitter,' Asteria thought, a cold lump forming in her throat. 'I met two dead gods in a crumbling nightmare, but she was born in the middle of a legend.' Her musing was cut short when the air around her shifted.
The crowd didn't part, but their attention did – swinging toward her like a heavy tide.
"Queen of Nightmare," a voice drawled.
It was smooth, cultured and carried the unmistakable bite of inherited arrogance.
Asteria didn't have to turn around. She knew who that voice belonged to.
Caster.
"Bold name, isn't it?" Caster continued, stepping into her field of vision. His handsome face was a mask of polite curiosity, but his eyes were cold. "Changing Star comes from a lineage of legends... but where do you come from, Asteria?"
"The Outskirts, actually," she snorted, crossing her arms. She felt the eyes of the Legacies on her – those polished, well-fed children of the elite. "Isn't it charming? Someone who spent their life scrubbing floors and living on scraps has the one thing most of you will never have."
'Is this too far?' she wondered. 'Probably. But where is the fun in stopping now?'
"You Legacies are all about honor and triumph," she continued, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper. "But your honor is borrowed, isn't it? It's a hand-me-down from your parents. Tell me, Caster... does it feel heavy, wearing a name you didn't earn?"
Caster's face went blank – an empty sheet of paper. The animosity radiating off him became thick, almost oily.
"A True Name isn't a gift," he said, stepping closer until he invaded her personal space. "It's a record of a deed. Only three people have ever received one in their First Nightmare: Lady Nephis, Smile of Heaven, and now... you. So tell me, Your Majesty... what did a girl from the gutters have to do to deserve a crown?"
'Really? Is this his goal? "Don't anger a legacy." Sure, but what if they do it first? Come on Adam, you didn't tell me what to do in this situation...'
Asteria sang a defensive hum. "Who knows? Maybe the Spell just likes a good underdog story. But tell me, Legacy... isn't an Awakened's job to protect the weak? Or do you only protect the people with the right last name?"
***
The tension followed her all the way to the dojo.
The air inside was thick with the scent of sweat and effort. The instructors were separating the Sleepers into groups, and Asteria – thanks to her new found fame – was placed in the highest tier.
The test was simple: raw physical output. Strike the measuring plate. No Memories allowed, but Aspects were fair game.
Asteria watched as the numbers climbed. Ten, twelve, fourteen.
The "normal" results were impressive, but the ones with physical-enhancement Aspects were hitting fifteen or higher.
Panic began to claw at her chest. 'I've had this whole charade of being strong, and even that's segmented by my True Name. But my Aspect is completely useless in combat... I'm going to hit that plate and it's going to read 'Zero.'
She reached out to her runes in a desperate, silent plea. 'Glass Eyes, give me a break.' She practically begged the Spell. 'My Aspect is called "Blessed by Nightmare" for Spell's sake...Spell, if you're actually listening, don't make me look like a fraud.'
[...As you wish, Queen of Nightmare.]
The words burned into her ears and retinas.
Asteria nearly tripped. 'Did it just answer me?! Damnation, what is going on in this world...'
[Glass Eyes have peered into your runes...]
[Glass Eyes have expanded upon your Flaw.]
Flaw: [The Call]
Flaw Description: [The nightmare calls to you, welcoming you home. The nightmare and its creatures long for family and they sense the blood of the Seventh within you. To the world, you are a savior; to the Dream, you are a child returning to her cradle. Beware, for the embrace of a titan is often a strangling one.]
She read the new description. It felt like a cold hand wrapping around her heart.
'I asked for help, and you told me I'm actually corrupted like those things in the dream realm? Thanks, Spell. Real helpful.'
[...]
"Alright, Lady Nephis, you're next!" Awakened Rock barked.
Asteria's ears perked up, it meant she was up soon..
'I'm going to humiliate myself, horribly.'
Nephis stepped forward. She didn't wind up or shout. It was a short, sharp snap of a punch.
Result: Sixteen.
Asteria squinted. 'She didn't use her aspect, right? That was pure muscle.'
After that, only one person other than her remained.
Caster.
FLASH
He moved like a blur and like a crack of lightning.
Result: Twenty-One.
The room erupted in whispers. Rock looked like a proud father. Then, those flint-grey eyes turned to Asteria.
"Finally, Lady Asteria. Would you mind finishing us off?"
'I'm screwed.'
"O-Of course not..."
She stepped up to the machine, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She thought about her childhood in the Outskirts — the desperate, messy brawls over a piece of bread. She thought about the Messenger's obsidian limbs shattering under her fist. 'Yeah, still hurts thinking about it.'
She curled her fingers into a fist. And that's when she felt it.
It wasn't a whisper. It was a pull. A magnetic, carnal hunger that seemed to draw power from the vibrant light of her soul sea. It felt like the "Home" that the Spell described. It felt like a desire to crush, to consume, to belong.
She didn't like the feeling, but she didn't fight it either. She channeled it.
Her blow wasn't elegant like Nephis's or fast like Caster's. It was heavy. It felt like she was throwing her entire body into the metal plate.
CRACK.
The machine groaned. The number flickered on the screen, pulsing with a faint light before settling.
Result: Nineteen.
Asteria stared at her hand, which was trembling. She hadn't used an Aspect. She hadn't used a Memory. She had just used... herself.
Asteria gazed at the number on the display. Nineteen.
It was a physical impossibility for a girl who had spent her life malnourished and without family in the Outskirts. It was higher than Nephis — the daughter of a Saint, a hero of Humanity — and just shy of Caster, who had used a lightning-quick Aspect.
The dojo was so silent that Asteria could hear the hum of the overhead lights. Awakened Rock's smile had vanished, replaced by a look of intense, clinical scrutiny.
Caster's blank slate like face finally cracked, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of her slender frame with the raw force he just witnessed.
But Asteria wasn't looking at them.
The moment her fist had connected with the metal plate, that "feeling" at the back of her mind didn't just whisper; it roared. It was a cold, ravenous tide that rushed through her veins, a hunger that didn't belong to her stomach, but to her soul.
It was the feeling of a predator recognizing its claws for the first time.
The embrace of a titan is a strangling one. That's what her Flaw now said.
Suddenly, her [Glass Eyes] didn't just see the runes or the people. They saw through them.
The world tilted. The clean, white-washed walls of the dojo began to bleed away, replaced by the flickering, jasmine-scent of her First Nightmare.
She saw the Sleepers around her not as teenagers, but as flickering candles in a vast, encroaching dark. And then – she saw herself.
Within the rainbow-colored mess of her soul sea, something was waking up. It wasn't the "Queen" she pretended to be for the Legacies. It was something older – a primal, carnal hunger that belonged to the Seventh. The blood that flowed through her veins.
She saw the "home" the Spell had promised her. It wasn't her room with the private bathroom. It was a vast and endless void. It was the act of devouring until everything was a dream.
'Oh,' she thought, her breath hitching as the hunger clawed at her insides. 'I'm not just a Sleeper, am I?'
The desire to reach out and take; to consume the essence of the people around her – to shatter the "Changing Star" just to see if she tasted like the star her name described her as – hit her with the force of a physical blow. It was a corruption so sweet it made her knees buckle.
"Lady Asteria?" Awakened Rock's voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.
She tried to pull herself back, to hide the shadow that was blooming in her eyes, but the 'Call' was too loud. She had looked into the infinite.
The weight of that recognition was too much for a mortal mind to carry.
Asteria's vision fractured like the obsidian of her blade. The last thing she saw was the silver hair of Nephis turning toward her, a look of sudden, sharp alarm on Changing Star's face.
Then, the darkness she had been "welcomed" to finally rose up to meet her, and Asteria collapsed into a dead faint before her result could even finish flickering on the screen.