The sun burned eternal over Solaris, and Lyra Valtoris had never known a single day of darkness.
She knelt in the training yard of the Solarian Legion, her knees pressing into sun-warmed stone, her palms flat against her thighs. Sweat traced a path down her spine beneath her golden armor. The morning drills had ended an hour ago, but she remained. Waiting. Watching.
The Commander would come soon. He always did.
Around her, the Citadel rose in gleaming spires of white marble and gold inlay, each surface polished to reflect the endless sunlight. Towers stretched toward the sky like fingers reaching for their god. Banners of amber and crimson snapped in the warm breeze, each one bearing the Crest of the Sun—a blazing star encircled by flames.
Solaris never slept. There was no night to signal rest, no darkness to hide in. The people of the Day-Realm worked in shifts, their lives measured not by the sun's position but by the great Chrono-Bells that rang across the city every eight hours. Time was order. Order was everything.
Lyra's stomach growled. She ignored it.
Footsteps echoed across the stone. Heavy. Measured. Familiar.
"Still here, Knight Valtoris?"
Commander Theron Valus was a mountain of a man, his cropped grey hair and close-trimmed beard streaked with white, his face a roadmap of old battles. He wore the black and gold of the Legion's high command, and when he looked at you, you felt weighed and measured—and found wanting.
Lyra rose smoothly, snapping to attention. "Sir."
"You've been kneeling for two hours."
"Yes, sir."
"The noon meal was served forty minutes ago."
"I am not hungry, sir."
Theron circled her slowly, his boots clicking against the stone. She kept her eyes forward, her breathing steady. She knew this game. He was looking for cracks, for weakness, for any sign that she was less than the weapon she had been forged to be.
"Your brother used to say that," Theron said quietly. "Right before he collapsed from exhaustion during a border patrol."
Lyra's jaw tightened. A flicker. A crack.
Theron stopped in front of her, his grey eyes sharp. "I felt that, Valtoris. Grief is an emotion. Emotions cloud judgment. What have I taught you?"
"Emotion is the enemy of discipline," she recited. "A knight who feels is a knight who fails."
"Again."
"Emotion is the enemy of discipline. A knight who feels is a knight who fails."
"Again. Louder. Mean it."
She met his eyes, her voice ringing across the empty training yard. "EMOTION IS THE ENEMY OF DISCIPLINE. A KNIGHT WHO FEELS IS A KNIGHT WHO FAILS."
Theron studied her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Good. You're dismissed. Eat. Rest. Tomorrow's drills begin at first bell."
He turned and walked away without another word.
Lyra stood alone in the sun, her hands trembling slightly at her sides. Not from fear. From the effort of keeping everything locked inside.
Kael. Her brother. Dead three years now, cut down by a Shadow-Weaver's blade during a skirmish in the Twilight Pass. She had been fifteen. She had not cried since the day they brought his body home. She had sealed that door shut and thrown away the key.
Emotion is the enemy.
She walked toward the barracks, her reflection sliding across the polished marble floors. Gold armor. Dark hair pulled tight. Face like carved stone. The perfect Ember-Knight.
Inside, she was ash.
The barracks hall was mostly empty when she arrived, the long wooden tables scrubbed clean, the smell of roasted meat and spiced bread still hanging in the air. A few off-duty knights played cards in the corner, their laughter low and easy. They nodded as she passed. She did not nod back.
She collected a tray of cold food from the kitchen—they never saved hot meals for those who skipped the proper time—and sat alone at the far end of the hall. Bread. Cheese. Dried meat. Water.
She ate mechanically, her mind already running through tomorrow's forms. Sword drills at first bell. Tactical theory at third bell. Paired combat at fifth bell. Then—
"You always eat alone?"
Lyra looked up. A young man stood across from her, tray in hand, an easy smile on his face. She recognized him. Corin Vale. Newly promoted to full knight. Two years younger than her. Too confident by half.
"Yes," she said.
"Mind if I sit?"
"I mind."
He sat anyway, sliding onto the bench across from her. His armor was still bright, unmarked by serious combat. His eyes were curious, not cautious. He hadn't learned yet.
"You're Lyra Valtoris," he said. "I've heard about you."
"Good for you."
"Fastest sword in the Third Legion. Highest tactical scores in a decade. Never lost a sparring match."
She bit into her bread and chewed slowly, watching him.
"They also say you never smile," Corin continued. "That you don't have friends. That you train until you bleed and then train some more."
"Is there a point to this conversation?"
He leaned forward, his smile fading into something more serious. "The point is, I've been here six months, and I've never once seen you look happy. Or sad. Or angry. Or anything. You're like... a statue. A very pretty statue, but a statue."
Lyra set down her bread. "Let me explain something, Knight Vale. In three years, I have never lost a fight. I have never missed a drill. I have never given my commanders a single reason to doubt me. Do you know why?"
"Because you're a statue?"
"Because I don't feel. Feeling makes you slow. Feeling makes you hesitate. Feeling got my brother killed." Her voice was flat, empty, a wasteland. "If you want to survive in the Twilight Pass, if you want to kill Shadow-Weavers before they kill you, you will learn to lock everything away. Or you will die."
Corin stared at her. For a moment, she thought she saw pity in his eyes—and that was worse than any insult.
"I'm sorry about your brother," he said quietly.
"Don't be. He was weak. He felt too much. I won't make the same mistake."
She stood, leaving her half-eaten meal on the table, and walked out of the hall without looking back.
Behind her, Corin's voice followed, soft but clear: "You're wrong, you know. Feeling isn't weakness. It's the only thing that makes the fighting worth it."
She kept walking.
That night—or what passed for night in Solaris, the dimming of the great light-crystals that mimicked darkness for the sleeping hours—Lyra lay in her narrow bunk and stared at the ceiling.
She couldn't sleep. She rarely could.
Her dreams, when they came, were always the same: fire and shadow, a voice calling her name, a forest of silver trees under a cold moon. She woke from them gasping, her heart pounding, her skin prickling with something that felt almost like longing.
She had never told anyone about the dreams. They were irrational. They were emotional. They were cracks in her armor.
Emotion is the enemy.
She closed her eyes and willed herself empty.
And in the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw silver.
A forest. A moon. A voice like velvet shadow.
Lyra.
Her eyes snapped open. The room was silent. Her bunkmates slept peacefully.
She pressed her palm to her chest, feeling her heart race.
Just exhaustion, she told herself. Just stress. Nothing more.
But somewhere deep inside, where she kept all her locked doors, something stirred.
The Next Morning
First bell rang across the Citadel, a deep, resonant tone that vibrated through stone and bone. Lyra was already dressed, already armed, already waiting in the training yard when the other knights arrived.
Theron stood at the center of the yard, his expression grim. Behind him, a squad of Legion messengers stood at attention, their faces unreadable.
"Knights," Theron called out, his voice carrying across the yard. "Fall in. Priority message from the High Council."
The knights formed ranks instantly. Lyra found her place in the third row, her hand resting on her sword hilt.
Theron waited until the last shuffle of boots faded. Then he spoke.
"Three days ago, a joint force of The Eclipsed raided the Twilight Pass. They breached the old watchtower at the border's heart. They have stolen the Sundering Crystal."
A murmur ran through the ranks. Even Lyra felt her blood chill.
The Sundering Crystal. The artifact that maintained the balance between day and night. The reason Solarius existed at all.
"If the Crystal is activated incorrectly," Theron continued, "it will trigger an eternal eclipse. Our Ember will fail. Their Shadow will fail. Everyone will be powerless. And The Eclipsed will conquer everything."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.
"The High Council has authorized a retrieval mission. A small team will enter the Twilight Pass, locate the Crystal, and return it before The Eclipsed can use it." His eyes swept across the ranks. "We have also received word that the Night-Realm is dispatching their own team. Shadow-Weavers. They will reach the Pass by nightfall."
More murmurs. Lyra's hand tightened on her sword.
"You will not engage them unless engaged first," Theron said sharply. "The Crystal is the priority. Let them hunt shadows. We hunt the light."
He looked down at a scroll in his hand.
"The retrieval team: Knight-Commander Vex. Knight Aris. Knight Vale." Corin's name. Lyra felt a flicker of something—surprise?—and crushed it. "And Knight Valtoris."
Lyra's heart stopped.
She was going into the Twilight Pass.
She was going to the place where her brother died.
She was going to face Shadow-Weavers.
Theron met her eyes across the ranks. His expression was unreadable, but she understood. This was a test. The hardest one yet.
Don't feel. Don't crack. Don't fail.
She straightened her spine and stared straight ahead.
"Knights," Theron barked. "You leave within the hour. Gear up. Say your goodbyes—not that any of you have anyone to say them to. Dismissed."
The ranks broke apart. Knights scattered toward the armory, the stables, the barracks.
Lyra stood frozen for one breath. Two.
Then she turned and walked toward her quarters, her footsteps steady, her face empty, her heart a locked room with the key thrown away.
Behind her, the sun burned eternal over Solaris.
She did not look back.