The manor's east wing was always cold.
Alex Morningstar pressed his forehead against the frost-kissed windowpane, his breath fogging the glass as he stared at the sprawling gardens below. Dawn bled through the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and golds, but the light never seemed to reach his room. Not truly. His chambers were a tomb of shadows—dust motes floating in the thin sliver of sunlight that dared creep past the heavy velvet curtains, the air stale with the scent of ink, parchment, and the faint metallic tang of untouched sword oil.
A knock. Three sharp raps.
He didn't turn. He knew the rhythm.
"Alex," came his father's voice, muffled but warm, like embers trying to ignite damp wood. "It's your birthday. Let me see you."
Alex's fingers curled into the fabric of his sleeves, nails biting crescents into his palms. Eighteen. The word slithered through his mind, cold and mocking. Eighteen, and he'd yet to manifest a spark of magic, let alone lift a blade without his arms trembling. Eighteen, and the name Morningstar hung around his neck like a millstone, dragging him deeper into the abyss of his family's legacy.
"I brought honey cakes," Arthur Morningstar said, softer now. "Charlotte helped bake them. She… misses you."
Alex's throat tightened. Liar. Charlotte was twelve, all sunshine and laughter, her world a blur of riding lessons and botany books. She hadn't knocked on his door in months. None of them had. Not since the last time Lyric had cornered him in the hall, his twin brother's voice dripping with disdain: "You're embarrassing us. Just… stop existing, will you?"
The memory coiled in Alex's chest, sharp and venomous. He sank onto the edge of his bed, the mattress groaning under his weight. The room seemed to shrink around him—the mahogany desk cluttered with unread treatises on combat theory, the empty bookshelf where trophies should have been, the cracked mirror he'd draped with a sheet last winter. He couldn't bear to see his own face anymore. Pale. Fragile. Ordinary.
Two Floors Below
Lisa Morningstar sipped her jasmine tea, her posture flawless, her gaze fixed on the courtyard where Lyric and Luna sparred. Steel clashed against steel, sparks dancing in the morning air as Lyric's blade met his sister's spear. At sixteen, they moved like liquid grace—Lyric a storm of controlled fury, Luna a tempest of precision. Rank 3 Knights and Mages didn't stumble. They didn't falter.
"They've outdone themselves," Lisa said, her voice cool, melodic. "The headmaster wrote again. Luna's thesis on astral resonance is being published in the Arcana Quarterly."
Arthur stood by the hearth, his broad shoulders tense. The Sword Paragon's scars—a latticework of silvered lines across his knuckles—glistened in the firelight. "And Alex?"
The teacup froze halfway to Lisa's lips. "Must we?"
"He's our son."
Knight Ranks
Novice → 2. Squire → 3. Blade Warden → 4. Vanguard → 5. Sentinel → 6. Paragon → 7. Champion → 8. Sovereign → 9. Monarch → 10. Eclipseblade (secret, lost to time)
Wizard Ranks
Apprentice → 2. Arcanist → 3. Spellweaver → 4. Archmage → 5. Luminary → 6. Astral Sage → 7. Celestial Harbinger → 8. Voidcaller → 9. Arcane Monarch → 10. Nocturne Archon (secret, forbidden)
"He's a ghost." She set the cup down with a clink. "A ghost who haunts my halls, my legacy. Do you know what they're calling him in the capital? The Broken Star. A mockery of everything we've built."
Arthur's jaw tightened. "He's struggling."
"He's weak." The word hung in the air, sharp as a blade. "Weakness killed millions before Aetherion fell. Weakness is a luxury this family cannot afford."
The twins' laughter drifted through the open window, bright and effortless. Lisa's expression softened, just for a moment. "Lyric will surpass you by twenty. Luna… she might even breach Rank 6 before graduation. They are our legacy now. Let the boy fade."
The Knock
Alex counted the cracks in the ceiling. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. The knock came again.
"Please, son." Arthur's voice frayed at the edges. "Just… let me in."
Why? Alex wanted to scream. So you can pity me? So you can pretend I'm not a stain on your glorious name?
But the words died in his throat. Instead, he slid to the floor, his back against the door, knees pulled to his chest. The wood vibrated with his father's proximity.
"I'm not giving up on you," Arthur murmured. "Never."
Five years. Five years since Alex had last opened this door. Five years of silence, of meals left untouched on the threshold, of birthdays spent alone with the echo of his father's voice.
Something broke.
"Stop." Alex's voice was raw, alien to his own ears. "Just… stop. I'm not worth it."
A beat of silence. Then:
"You think this is about worth?" Arthur's hand pressed against the door, as if he could reach through it. "When Aetherion's shadow devoured the skies, when cities turned to ash… your mother and I fought not because we were strong, Alex. We fought because we were terrified. Because we had something to lose."
Alex's vision blurred. "You won."
"We survived. There's a difference." Arthur's breath hitched. "You don't have to be a hero. You just have to be here."
The sob tore out of Alex before he could stifle it. Ugly. Guttural. Years of shame, of sleepless nights, of his mother's icy glances and Luna's sneers, Lyric's contempt, Roy's awkward avoidance—it all flooded out, a dam shattered by four words. You just have to be here.
He didn't hear his father leave. Didn't notice the honey cakes growing cold on the tray. When the tears finally dried, he crawled into bed, the weight of eighteen years pressing down like a burial shroud.
The Dream
When sleep claimed him, it did not come as a gentle reprieve. It seized him in its relentless grip, dragging him—layer by scorching layer, through chilling depths, and past murmurs that crackled like static—until his feet met a surface as unyielding as fate.
White.
Endless, aching white—a barren expanse stretching into infinity, a world without horizon or shadow. The ground, smooth and pale as timeworn bone, extended in all directions. Alex stood alone, his breath suspended in an air that defied warmth and chill alike. Alone. The word echoed silently, a verdict in a realm devoid of life.
Then, a shiver—a prickle at his nape. A pressure, like unseen eyes etching into his very spine.
He turned.
Before him, a razor-thin fissure split the world—a transparent barrier, flawless as diamond, humming with an energy unseen. Beyond it lay a void: an all-consuming blackness, so deep that it threatened to erase even the notion of light. And there, at the precipice of that abyss, stood a man.
He seemed to be in his twenties—tall, lithe, a figure both graceful and perilous, like a blade hidden in velvet. His skin, the pallor of moonlight. His hair, dark as the void itself, cascaded in untamed waves, framing a face carved with harsh beauty—high cheekbones and a jawline as sharp as a dagger, his lips twisted in a smile that held no warmth.
But it was his eyes that froze time.
Emerald. Not the gentle green of budding leaves, but a fierce, luminous green—a storm's eye, with pupils narrowed into slits like a predator's. They burned through the darkness, twin beacons of an ancient, inscrutable power. Cloaked in a long coat fashioned from obsidian scales that shifted like living shadows, and a tunic of crimson so dark it seemed to bleed into the void, the man exuded an aura of both menace and magnetism. At his hip hung a sword of legendary design—its edge a promise of both salvation and ruination.
For a heartbeat, they simply stared. The man's gaze pressed upon Alex like molten force, peeling back layers of guarded secrecy as though they were fragile parchment.
Then the man raised a hand and pressed his palm against the shimmering barrier. It rippled like liquid light, yet it remained whole.
"Do you know what it is to drown in silence, Alex Morningstar?"
His voice, low and melodic, carried a fractured sorrow—a chord struck too fiercely, a note lingering beyond its time. It resonated deep within Alex, not merely heard, but felt in the very marrow of his bones.
Alex's legs betrayed him, rooted to the spot. "Who… what are you?" he managed, voice quivering between terror and awe.
The stranger's smile widened, revealing teeth as sharp and unforgiving as shattered glass. "A question for a question," he replied, his tone both mocking and melancholy. "Tell me, when the world has carved you into a ghost, do you haunt others… or are you doomed to haunt yourself?"
The words struck Alex like a violent storm. His chest constricted. "I—I don't…"
"You do," the man pressed, leaning in until his breath fogged the barrier. "Every locked door, every unanswered plea—you bury yourself alive in this tomb of your making." With a slow, sweeping gesture, he encompassed the desolate white expanse and the yawning void beyond. "But which is the true deception? The blinding light? Or the devouring dark?"
Alex's fists clenched in silent fury. "Why are you here? What do you want?"
Straightening, the man's enigmatic smile faded into a mask of inscrutable emotion. For the first time, Alex saw it—a fleeting glimpse of raw, unspoken pain flickering in those piercing emerald eyes.
"I want," the man murmured softly, as if weighing the very essence of existence, "to ask you the only question that matters."
"When the crushing weight of existence threatens to shatter you… will you allow it to reduce you to mere shadows? Or will you rise, broken and bloodied, to forge a self anew?"
Compelled by instinct, Alex reached out—seeking meaning, salvation, or perhaps a connection he could not name. And in that desperate moment, the world shattered around him.
Awakening
Alex jolted upright, a silent scream lodged in his throat. Sunlight cascaded through the window, harsh and accusing. His sheets, drenched in the residue of dreams, clung to him as his hands trembled violently.
Yet it wasn't fear that surged within him.
It was rage.
Hot, wild, and consuming, rage burned through his veins like acid—a searing reminder of the man's words, the fathomless void, and the spark of recognition ignited by those emerald eyes. Rage at the relentless pull of his own haunted soul.
He staggered to the mirror, ripping away the dust-covered sheet. The reflection that stared back was gaunt and etched with the scars of countless sleepless nights, yet for the first time, his face flushed with a vivid, defiant color—a manifestation of raw, unbridled aliveness.
"Who… was that?" he whispered to his own gaze, a question heavy with despair and the fierce promise of rebirth.
The mirror offered no answer, only the silent truth of his fractured existence. In that shattering moment of awakening, Alex understood that his journey was far from over. Every heartbeat, every surge of pain and passion, was a call to rise from the depths of his own despair—to become something greater than the ghost he had been.
And with that, a new chapter of his destiny began.