The night sky stretched endlessly above the city of Aurelia, its expanse scattered with shimmering stars. Among them, unseen by mortal eyes, Eryx, the God of the Stars, sat atop an ancient temple's crumbling spire. He watched the world below in quiet detachment, as he had for centuries.
Aurelia was a city of scholars and dreamers, poets and philosophers who gazed at the heavens, weaving stories about the gods they would never meet. Eryx had always found it amusing, how humans longed for things beyond their reach. Yet tonight, something felt… different.
A voice, soft yet aching with desperation, rose from the temple courtyard below.
"Please… just one more year."
Eryx turned his gaze downward.
A lone figure stood at the temple's altar, bathed in the silver glow of the moon. He was young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, dressed in a scholar's robes that were frayed at the edges. His hands trembled as they clutched a bundle of parchment—writings, poems, unfinished stories.
The mortal pressed his forehead to the cold stone altar, his breath uneven. "I don't want to die yet. Not before I finish my work." His voice cracked. "Not before I leave something behind."
Eryx frowned. Wishes like these were common. Mortals often begged the gods for love, wealth, time. But there was something about this man's plea that made Eryx hesitate. He could sense the fragility of his soul, like a flame flickering in the wind.
Curious, Eryx drifted lower, unseen, and peered into the mortal's heart.
Orien Hale. A scholar, a writer, a man whose body was failing him. The gods had already written his fate—he would not see another spring.
Eryx should have ignored it. He had watched countless mortals come and go. Their lives were brief, fleeting like shooting stars, and their deaths were mere ripples in the grand design.
Yet something in Orien's voice, in the way he clung to his pages as if they were his very soul, made Eryx pause.
Without thinking, he extended a hand, his fingers brushing against the fabric of fate.
One year.
A whisper of power left his fingertips, invisible threads of the cosmos binding themselves to Orien's soul. It was not resurrection, not true immortality, but a borrowed gift—a single year stolen from eternity. A dangerous act, one that the heavens would not forgive.
Eryx exhaled, already feeling the weight of his defiance. "Foolish," he murmured to himself. "Even gods should not play with time."
Below, Orien gasped. He lifted his hands, staring at them in disbelief. The pain that had been eating away at him for months was… gone. His chest no longer felt tight, his limbs no longer weak.
Tears welled in his eyes. "The gods…" He pressed a trembling hand to his heart. "They heard me."
Eryx watched him in silence, unseen, unknown.
He should have left then. But for the first time in his immortal life, he hesitated.
What would it be like… to walk beside a mortal, even for just a moment?
And before he could stop himself, the god of the stars stepped into the world of men.
— End of Chapter 1