The morning was gray and fractured, like the glass overhead.
Light filtered through the ruined dome of the old archive, slanting in muted streaks across cracked marble and shattered tomes. Orion sat alone near the edge of the collapsed structure, knees drawn to his chest, eyes fixed on nothing. The echo of last night's starlight had vanished, but the ache behind his eye remained—a dull, rhythmic throb that pulsed like memory.
Selene was quiet.
Not absent—he knew that much. But where her voice once brushed his mind like moonlight across calm water, now there was only stillness. A silence too vast to name.
He exhaled, slow and shaky.
The others stirred behind him. Bedrolls rustled. Someone cursed under their breath about the cold.
Serah's voice cut clean through the silence. "You didn't sleep."
Orion didn't turn. "Didn't feel like it."
Serah crouched beside him, arms crossed over her knees, her crimson scarf fluttering slightly in the wind. "You were glowing last night. Not in the normal 'moonboy' way. Something was watching you. Maybe in you."
He said nothing.
"You're not going to talk about it?"
Still nothing.
Serah scoffed. "Figures."
A softer voice approached. "You look like you haven't slept in days," Iris said, crouching beside him.
"That's because I haven't," Orion replied, quietly. "Not really."
Her concern was open on her face, too warm, too close. He couldn't meet her eyes. Couldn't explain the way his shadow felt… wrong. Like it didn't belong to him anymore.
Azrael appeared with the slow quiet of falling dust. He carried an armful of half-burned scrolls from the collapsed shelves.
"There's something strange in these," he murmured, spreading out brittle pages with care. "This one speaks of echo marks. In old star-theory, they were a kind of false imprint. Formed when a soul drew the attention of… something that wasn't sanctioned by the Astralum."
Orion's jaw clenched.
Azrael continued, gaze flicking toward him. "You're sure it was just a dream?"
"No," Orion said. "But I'm sure it doesn't matter."
The conversation withered.
His mark flared suddenly, a pulse under his skin like something bruised and bitten. He winced, covering it with his palm.
Selene didn't speak.
Not even to comfort.
They packed in silence.
Ashes of old banners fluttered near the vault door as House Selira began preparing for descent. The Academy's lower rings called to them now—deeper chambers sealed during the collapse, places older than even the Forgewarren. Iris moved methodically, checking supplies. Azrael scribbled glyphs into his notebook. Serah paced like a caged storm.
"We need to push deeper," she said. "There are parts of this place no one's touched in years. If the Hollow Star's been here before—if it's woken something—we won't find answers in the dust."
"No one said we were looking for the Hollow," Iris replied.
"I'm not looking," Serah snapped. "I'm hunting."
Azrael's head tilted. "The marks are shifting," he murmured, half to himself. "Orion's isn't the only one. The Astralum may be unraveling. Or… someone is unbinding souls from their stars."
Orion glanced over at that. "What does that mean?"
Azrael's eyes met his. "It means the tether isn't fixed. That the stars may not be as permanent as we believed."
A chill slid down Orion's spine.
He nodded numbly when they asked if he was coming. Said the right words. Packed the right gear.
But his mind was elsewhere.
Because he saw it again—just for a breath.
That flicker of gold at the edge of his vision.
That heartbeat.
By midday, he slipped away.
The others didn't notice—he was good at that now.
Orion walked alone toward the shattered west wing of the Academy, where ivy and ruin swallowed stone like time itself had grown teeth. He found the observatory there, cracked open like a broken eye to the sky. Its roof was half-gone, the great glass dome fractured into spidery veils of light and dust. It overlooked a crater—once a training ground, now an echoing hollow filled with ghost wind.
He sat near the edge.
Watched the wind stir bones of forgotten trees. Listened to the breathing silence.
Here, he could feel it better.
The unraveling.
He rested his forehead against the cool iron of the railing, staring down at the crater. Memories bled in—of the Astralum, of light too wide for the sky, of stars whispering in tongues that bruised the soul.
And Selene, silent through it all.
"I thought having a star meant strength," he murmured aloud. "But I'm falling apart… and she's watching it happen."
No answer.
Only the hush of wind and the slow, distant ache of his soul splintering.
Dusk fell slowly, casting long beams through the fractured dome like the fingers of something divine—or curious. Orion sat still as it happened, watching the world change color, gold bleeding into blue, then into night.
That's when it came.
Not the Hollow.
Something else.
Warmth.
Not like Selene's chill serenity—this was sharp, almost searing. It struck behind his ribs like a second heartbeat, sudden and alive.
Orion stiffened.
His fingers curled around the railing. The mark over his eye flared, not silver but gold, just for a breath. His vision swam. The dusk lit up like fire behind a veil.
And then—he felt it.
Not a voice.
Not exactly.
A word, maybe. Or the idea of a word.
Rise.
He gasped, stumbling back from the edge. His chest burned, his breath ragged. The warmth receded as fast as it came—but the Hollow, that ever-creeping pressure, withdrew with it.
Like it had been chased off.
Orion stared down at his trembling hands.
What the hell was that?
He clutched his side. The golden light was gone, but the impression remained—like a sunburn beneath the skin.
And for the first time in days… he wasn't cold.
Night settled in with a soft finality.
Orion lay curled near the cracked glass, sleep teasing the edge of his awareness. He didn't fight it this time.
And in that half-sleep, something shifted.
The air around him grew heavier. The stars above wavered like candleflames in breathless dark.
And then—he was in the dream again.
Or maybe a memory.
Or something deeper.
The space was colorless, vast—a world built of mirrors and void. A reflection stood before him, shaped like him but wrong.
Its eyes were hollow.
Its smile was slight.
"You are breaking," it said. The voice was his own, but warped. "Let me shape what's left."
A hand pressed against the glass.
Not glass. A veil.
Thin enough to break with breath.
Orion tried to speak, but his throat burned.
The Hollow leaned forward. Whispered with hunger.
"You're not enough for her anymore."
The mirror cracked.
Orion lurched awake with a cry, breath ragged, sweat chilling fast on his skin.
His lip was bleeding. A crescent mark—cut by accident?—had been etched into the glass where he'd fallen asleep. He didn't remember doing it.
Selene didn't answer his call.
But…
That warmth still lingered.
Dim. Far. But real.
He wasn't alone in the dark anymore.
But he wasn't sure which light was trying to save him.
Eventually Orion fell back to sleep