The world felt heavier after the storm.The nights were longer, quieter — as if the stars themselves were holding their breath.
Kael stood alone on the cliffs outside Varehn, the wind gnawing at his cloak. The horizon was fractured with lightning — violet streaks that came not from clouds, but from the sky's skin itself. Cracks in the firmament, pulsing with celestial fire.To most, they were called "Starfall scars."To Kael, they were the remains of gates — remnants of the wars that tore apart heaven and earth.
He had seen them before, in another life.When the Iron-Star Knights marched through those same cracks, wielding weapons that could burn constellations.
He touched the hilt of his blade. It trembled, as if remembering."You feel it too, don't you?" he murmured.
The blade pulsed faintly.Not in response — but in fear.
Down below, the campfires of the refugees flickered in the valley. Varehn was swelling with people displaced by strange omens — beasts migrating from the northern wastes, entire villages swallowed by shimmering fog, and rumors of an army of zealots moving under the banner of a broken sun.
And in the heart of it all, Kael's name was beginning to spread again.Whispered. Cautious. Dangerous.
"The Iron-Star has returned.""The sleeping god walks among us.""The Dominion will burn."
Kael wished it wasn't true.He had wanted this life to be quiet — a second chance to live without command or crown.But fate was never kind to the blade that once defied heaven.
At dawn, he returned to the makeshift hall the townsfolk had built.Inside, Eira waited for him — her silver hair catching the firelight like molten glass.She had changed since they escaped the Inquisitors: the timid priestess now carried herself with quiet authority. Her voice no longer trembled when she spoke.
"They found another rift in the northern marsh," she said, handing him a scroll. "The scouts said it's… singing."
Kael frowned. "Singing?"
"Not human," she added quickly. "Something inside the rift hums. Rhythmic. Like—"
"Like a forge," Kael finished, his tone dark.He unrolled the parchment. The map was marked with crude ink symbols — lines converging around a single black circle.At the center: an ancient sigil.A seal of the Stellar Dominion.
The same mark that had once been burned into Kael's armor, beneath his heart.
He sat in silence for a long while.Eira's voice softened. "You know what it means, don't you?"
Kael nodded. "They're waking up."
Her hands clenched at her robes. "Then… we're already too late?"
"No," he said, rising. "They think the old gods are gone. But they never understood what they were bound to."
Eira looked at him, uncertain. "And what were they bound to, Kael?"
He turned toward the fading stars."The stars weren't our masters, Eira. They were our prison walls."
That night, as the camp slept, Kael walked out alone toward the valley ridge.He carried the blade sheathed on his back — its hum growing louder with every step. The air itself began to vibrate, charged with ancient energy.
At the summit, the ground was scorched in a perfect circle, as if lightning had kissed the earth.Within it stood a figure — cloaked in black, holding a staff topped with a mirror of obsidian.
The stranger smiled faintly when Kael approached.
"So it's true," the man said. "The last of the Iron-Star still breathes."
Kael drew his sword in silence.
The stranger bowed slightly, the mirror-staff glowing."I am called Vaen of the Broken Dawn. I bring a message from the Dominion."
Kael's eyes hardened. "They should've sent someone with a death wish."
Vaen's grin widened. "Oh, they did."
He struck the ground with his staff.
The world ruptured.Light flared — not golden or blue, but black, radiating in perfect silence. The earth split beneath them, and Kael found himself suspended in the void, surrounded by fractured memories — battlefields, shattered planets, and the dying screams of star-forged warriors.
"You see it, don't you?" Vaen's voice echoed. "The truth you're kind refused to accept. The Dominion didn't destroy your order. They created it."
Kael felt his grip falter. His memories flashed — the forge halls of Astraon, the iron suns that gave birth to his sword, the voices of gods whispering oaths of loyalty.He had believed they fought against the Dominion. But if Vaen spoke truth…
"You're lying," Kael said.
Vaen tilted his head. "Am I? You still carry their sigil on your heart. Their power in your veins. Tell me, Kael Ardent — when you strike with your blade, whose will truly guides it?"
Kael's fury ignited.The Iron-Star within him awoke, blazing with celestial fire. The void trembled.He lunged forward, cleaving through light and shadow alike.
Vaen raised his staff, but the mirror cracked under the force.The next moment, the world collapsed — stars shattering, wind howling, space folding back into the real.
When Kael came to, the stranger was gone.Only the mirror shard remained, half-buried in the soil. It shimmered faintly, reflecting not Kael's face — but another version of him. Older. Crowned in flame.
He picked it up, heart pounding.A whisper bled from the glass, like a voice across time.
"You cannot destroy what was forged from yourself."
The shard melted in his hand.
Kael fell to his knees, breathing hard.The Iron-Star mark on his chest burned — not with light, but with darkness.
He realized then what the Dominion truly was.Not gods.Not enemies.But the reflection of mankind's own creation — the power they forged, given will.
And it was coming back to claim its maker.
When dawn broke, Eira found him standing among the ashes, his blade glowing faintly with black starlight.She approached cautiously. "Kael… what happened?"
He turned to her, his eyes colder than the morning frost.
"We've been fighting shadows of ourselves, Eira. And the real war… hasn't even begun."