It wasn't fire.
It wasn't wind.
It wasn't anything Maelin had words for.
The moment she stepped through the gate, the world just… blinked. Like a page turned too fast for your eyes to follow. Now she was standing in a space that wasn't a place. Just colorless noise—like silence had a heartbeat and time was holding its breath.
She couldn't feel her feet.
Couldn't feel her hands.
But she felt seen.
And that was worse.
---
The Star's Chamber
Something formed around her. Not walls, not really—just impressions of a place, like memories pretending to be architecture. Pillars made of distant screams. A ceiling formed from falling stars. And right at the center: a cradle of light, cradling... something.
The Star.
Not a sun. Not a planet.
It looked like an idea, held together by grief.
> "Key-Bearer," a voice said—not aloud, but inside her bones.
"You are early."
Maelin laughed, bitter and tired. "Yeah, well, I never liked being on time."
The Star pulsed.
> "You carry the Forge. But you do not understand it."
"I don't need to understand it. I just need it to work."
> "You are mistaken. The Forge does not serve. It remembers. It chooses. And it has chosen you."
---
A Memory Not Her Own
Suddenly she wasn't standing.
She was falling. Or flying. Or watching.
A vision wrapped around her like a second skin:
A city of light torn apart by screaming shadows. Choirs burning mid-song. People crying out to something in the sky that didn't answer.
And at the center of it all—her. Or at least someone wearing her face. Crowned. Radiant. Ruined.
She held the Starforge like it was her own spine. And she was singing—a sound that bent the world around her.
And then—silence.
Just endless, painful silence.
---
The Return
Maelin gasped and dropped to her knees.
The chamber was still there. The Star still pulsed above the cradle.
"You showed me the end," she whispered.
> "No," the voice said.
"We showed you the last beginning."
The Forge in her hand glowed. No runes. No hum.
Just... a steady light.
"Then tell me what I have to do."
> "Break the cycle."
> "Burn the Choir."
> "And let the Star fall willingly."
Maelin stood up slowly, eyes cold now. "Fine. But when it all comes crashing down, I won't sing your song. I'll write my own."
And with that, the chamber cracked.
The Star screamed.
And Maelin opened her eyes—back in the Forge.
But not the same.