The old observatory loomed above them like a relic of better times — a dome of cracked silver and tarnished brass, resting on a lonely cliff edge. Stars once guided kings from this place. Now, only ghosts watched from the towers.
Erza led the way up the worn stone path, boots crunching on frost-laced leaves. The night was unusually cold. Not natural cold — this was the kind that crept into the bones, like something watching from the dark.
Behind him, the others followed in silence. Selene's eyes swept the treeline. Lyra clutched her staff tighter than usual. Even Raze, usually irreverent, kept a hand on his weapon.
"I don't like this," Caelum muttered, nose buried in a star map. "The constellations are shifting tonight. Leo dimmed twice. That shouldn't happen."
"Dimmed?" Erza asked without stopping.
"Stars don't blink unless something blocks them," Caelum replied grimly. "And nothing natural does that."
Erza felt the familiar hum of power under his skin, like the stirrings of a storm behind his ribs. He pressed his palm to the rusted observatory door, then pushed.
It groaned open.
Inside, dust clung to the air like memory. Mechanical rings and cracked lenses hung from the domed ceiling like frozen chandeliers. Star maps covered in cobwebs still lined the curved walls. In the center stood the great celestial table — carved of obsidian and inlaid with star-metal. This was where Duskfire's kings once read the heavens and recorded fate.
"We'll rest here tonight," Erza said, voice low. "Lyra, set a ward. Selene, perimeter. Caelum, check for the cache."
The group split without complaint, their motions practiced, efficient.
But Erza didn't move. He walked slowly to the celestial table and placed both hands on its cold surface. A memory stirred — himself as a boy, too short to reach the top, watching his brother trace lines between the constellations, laughing.
His brother.
A sudden pulse struck his chest.
He looked up. There — above him in the dome — Leo shimmered, faint and flickering.
Something was wrong.
A gust of wind burst through the open door.
Selene appeared in a blur of shadow. "Erza. Something's coming. From the tunnels beneath the hill."
"Beasts?"
"No," she said, drawing her daggers. "Worse. I don't know what it is, but it's not... right."
Before he could reply, a sound echoed from the depths of the observatory floor — not a roar, not footsteps — but breathing. Slow, unnatural. Too deep for any beast.
Then something spoke.
"So the cub still carries the flame."
Erza's blood turned to ice. That voice did not belong in this world. It seemed to crawl beneath the skin, dragging memories to the surface like claws in the mind.
"Your pride is broken. Your kingdom dust. And still you cling to stars that no longer burn for you."
From the darkness beneath the floor, it rose.
A creature of half-shadow and flickering starlight, wearing a mockery of armor forged from broken constellations. Its face was hidden behind a mask of jagged voidsteel, but its presence screamed of something ancient and wrong.
Lyra stumbled back, her barrier failing in a blink.
"What... what is that?" Raze muttered, axe already drawn.
Erza stepped forward, fire flaring in his eyes. "One of the Nightborn."
Caelum gasped. "But that's a myth—"
"No," Erza said coldly. "It's what took our kingdom."
The Nightborn tilted its head, voice dripping mockery. > "You remember. Good. Now remember this — the stars you follow were devoured long ago. And your light will be next."
It lunged.
Erza met it head-on.
Their clash lit up the entire observatory. Solar fire met voidsteel in a blast of heat and shadow. Every swing from Erza's fists struck with the roar of a lion's heart, while the Nightborn countered with blade swipes that sliced through reality, leaving space briefly torn and wrong.
Raze tackled the beast from behind, only to be thrown across the room. Lyra tried to shield them, but her wards shattered under the pressure. Caelum scrambled to align the ancient celestial gears, muttering calculations that might trap the thing in starlight.
Then — in a burst of clarity — Erza remembered.
The table.
The observatory wasn't just for watching the stars. It was for binding them.
He leapt to the center, slamming his palm down, invoking the Leo sigil. "Hear me, guardian of fire! Burn through the veil!"
A column of solar light erupted from above.
The Nightborn screamed as the Leo flame struck its mask, cracking it. Beneath the shadow, for a split second, Erza saw a face — human, twisted with sorrow — before the thing vanished in a burst of dark stardust.
Silence returned.
The others slowly rose, coughing, battered.
"What... what was that thing?" Lyra whispered.
"An echo," Erza said, breathing hard. "A shadow of what's coming. We're not fighting soldiers anymore."
Caelum finally spoke, voice shaking. "The Nightborn... If they're real, then this isn't just a war for a kingdom."
"No," Erza said, staring at the dimming stars.
"It's a war for the sky itself