The Shattered Star: Chronicles of Andarin
When a falling star fractures the world and shadows gather at the edge of reality, one young villager dreams of darkness and flame. Joined by a rogue mage and a haunted ranger, Eiran embarks on an epic quest spanning haunted forests, besieged cities, and forgotten deserts. As ancient secrets unravel, and allies and enemies blur, Andarin’s last hope lies in forging the impossible—from the shattered pieces of the world, a new dawn...if he survives the night.
Abyssal Dreams
The wind died away, and a silence like velvet darkness pressed down, muffling all but the fevered drum of Eiran’s heart. One moment, he crouched beside Mira beneath the overhanging rock, clinging to consciousness as exhaustion and cold dragged at his limbs. The next, the world was gone.
He floated weightless in a hush more profound than blizzard or tomb. At first, there was only black, roiling as though the sky itself were ink. Then, a thread of pale blue creased the dark: the star-shard’s faint pulse, steady against his chest.
As Eiran reached for it, his hands disappeared, absorbed into the gloom. His breath evaporated. Sound seemed to freeze. The silence pressed and pressed until it became a voice—first a whisper in a language older than memory, then his own, echoing back from the void. “You cannot save them. You who were spared, when better souls burned.”
A prickle ran up his spine. He tried to shout—deny this fate—but his words became falling snow, each syllable sinking into endless black.
Then, with a thunderous rush, the vision unfurled:
He stood at the edge of a world consumed. Where Vael’s ridges should have been, there were only crumbled bones and rivers of shadow winding through fields of ash. Storms of broken stars raked the sky, and the land’s pulse slowed with every beat. The towers of Almdor were toppled, windows yawning with hungry dark. Every road ended in a chasm swirling with devouring night.
Shapes moved through the ruins: villagers, friends, and strangers—all shrouded, stumbling, eyes hollow and mouths caked black. Among them, a child whose smile was Tanelle’s, but whose eyes gleamed void. They reached for him, bone fingers closing around his arms and throat.
He fought them. His efforts were as air against night. The world ignited with a sudden brilliance—a single, blinding star overhead, splitting in an agony of light. Shards rained down, each accompanied by a scream. Eiran tried to gather the pieces as they fell, but for each one he grasped, another slipped through his fingers, burning to cinders before his eyes.
Above it all, a looming figure—hooded, face hidden but terribly familiar—stretched wide arms. Darkness coiled around their silhouette, but in one upraised hand, the star shards flickered, fused into a crown of fire and root.
“Do you see how it ends, star-born? All roads descend to the Abyss. The more you struggle, the further you fall.”
Eiran stumbled, desperate. “No—it can’t—”
But with each denial, the world drowned deeper in shadows. Mira’s voice rang out, sharp and distant: “Wake! You’re not alone. Don’t let it win—”
Eiran squeezed the star-stone to his breast, letting the memory of warmth snap through him: early sunlight on frost, Mira’s hand on his, the courage in Talin’s steady eyes, Narsa’s defiant laughter. “I am not only what I’ve lost,” he whispered—each word a flare in the gathering night. “You cannot have me.”
The darkness recoiled, hesitant, as if surprised by his refusal. For a moment, the vision flickered. His friends’ shapes shifted: Tanelle cradled a burning loaf; Talin blocked the path to the abyss, arrows nocked; Mira’s silhouette burned, sword raised, eyes alive. They beckoned him out of the pit.
Eiran took a single step. The ground firmed underfoot. He took another, and the world lightened, cracks of gold opening in the gloom.
He awoke with a gasp, limbs stiff but unbroken, Mira’s silhouette hunched beside him. The snow had eased; pale dawn leaked through the trees. Eiran lay shaking, the star-stone warm against his heart, a thin ribbon of hope threading the hollow of his gut.
“Hey.” Mira’s voice was tender, eyes rimmed with sleepless anxiety. “Are you here?”
He nodded. “I dreamed… the end of everything. And saw a way through.”
She only squeezed his hand. “We’re not finished, Eiran. Not until the last star shatters.”
Elsewhere, far off among brambles, Narsa stumbled through the storm. Her cloak was torn, hands scraped raw, staff clutched tight for balance. Each step grew heavier—her breath came in ragged gasps, vision swimming at the edges with red and silver.
She pressed on until her legs gave way, body curling into the lee of an uprooted trunk. The blizzard coiled around, numbing touch and thought.
Sleep, or something more ancient, claimed her.
Narsa awoke—or so she thought—on a glass-smooth plain beneath an infinite sky, stars spinning overhead in patterns that made her bones ache to remember. The ground shimmered, rippling blue and violet. All distance was uncertain. A wind, hot as forge-breath and cold as empty houses, licked at her face.
Before her, a staircase of floating light stretched upward into forever. She heard laughter: dozens of voices—her old teachers, sisters from the order, the whispering crowd in council chambers. Each urged her forward, and with each step, the magic grew. Fire curled from her hands, summoned at a thought; roots bent and reshaped at her command.
A silver throne hovered at the top. Upon it sat a younger version of herself, eyes bright, smile hungry—untouched by loss or shame. This Narsa raised her hand, making the stars swirl, and said, “You were always meant to be more. Here there is no fear. Rule the dark. Fix the broken world. All you must do is let the others go.”
The sky flashed, showing scenes: Mira and Eiran buried in snow, Talin falling alone beneath cultist blades, herself crowned in silver-blue fire as the world reshaped beneath her will. For a moment, the vision was intoxicating. If she just reached, just surrendered—a thousand years of mastery would be hers. The darkness would obey. No more sorrow, no more chains.
But in the reflection, Narsa saw something else: her own eyes, gone white as bone, her heart stilled, her friends—gone. The world below grew still, ossified—beautiful, but silent. Alone.
She turned her back on the throne. The spectral guides hissed, dissolving into smoke. Pain flooded her chest—sweet and clean. “I don’t want power without cost,” Narsa said. “I refuse to be a vessel for your—emptiness.”
The ground trembled. Shadows reached for her calves, trying to anchor her. But Narsa lifted her staff, calling real fire—not of conquest, but of defiance. “If I am to stand in the dark, I’ll do so as myself. Weak, wounded, unfinished—but not alone.”
The plain cracked. Star-shards rained down, not to wound but to light the way. The vision buckled—and she tumbled into a wild, howling dark.
Her eyes flew open to snow and thorn. For a second, she couldn’t move, breath coming sharp and wild. From the bramble at her heel, a muzzle nosed through—wolf, or dog, impossibly pale-eyed for the wilderness. It waited, patient but alert. Narsa let it nudge her up, warmth and animal presence making reality return.
She sat, clutching the staff, the memory of temptation burning in her chest—a taste she would never entirely lose.
“There you are,” she whispered to the wolf-thing. “You’re not here to lead me to power, are you?”
It wagged its tail, solemn as only a story’s companion could be.
She leaned against it and, taking strength, forced herself upright. The star-shard Narsa carried in her pack—it felt lighter now, humming with reborn will. She knew what she had denied, and what she had protected: her own soul, battered but truly hers.
All across the battered hills and forest, unseen things noted the change. In candle-lit halls tucked between broken roots and star-pricked vaults, the cult’s prophets woke shrieking from troubled sleep, muttering of the star-marked and the would-be queen who spurned their darkness. Shadows stretched, preparing. And the world, though it had not mended, sensed two sparks flaring all the brighter for their passage through the abyss.