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.
Shadows in the Court
Stone gutters ran with rain and secrets. Thunder rolled amid the towers, never quite drowning the ruckus that had gripped Almdor since the council chamber’s sanctity was shattered. Guards scoured halls, servants whispered of old curses. Eiran, Mira, and Narsa seemed to move through a world at once too alert and too blind—watched by all, trusted by none.
In the hush of Emarin’s private library, Mira pressed her knuckle to her mouth, watching water streak the glass. Narsa traced star-pattern sigils on the table, her hands restless. Eiran held the star stone in his lap, gaze fixed on its glimmering cracks, the scent of blood and smoke still haunting his thoughts.
“It can’t end here,” Mira said at last, voice sharp as wet flint. “They saw that mark burned in the woman’s flesh and still retreat behind ceremony.”
Narsa’s eyes flicked up. “They fear sorcery, not truth. And fear is a door darkness walks through.”
Emarin returned, cloak dripping, her lined face paler than before. “The council is in uproar. They will question you all by dawn—likely with more swords and fewer words. I can only shelter you a little longer.”
Eiran finally spoke, the names of the dead councilor’s blood and the cult’s black star tangled in his tongue. “Someone brought the cult here. They’ll strike again. We can’t wait for Astryn.”
Mira’s jaw set. “We need answers—and allies. The mark, the words she screamed… they’re clues, if we follow them.”
Narsa nodded, tucking a copper of her wild hair behind one ear. “I felt… something in the chamber. A pull. The black star isn’t just a sign, it’s a signal.”
“I know a place,” Emarin said, lowering her voice. “The city’s old chapel larders—ruined for ages, but sometimes I glimpse flickers by night. I suspect you’ll find more there than prayers.”
They slipped out as the cathedral bells tolled ninth hour, cloaked and hooded, vanishing amid scurrying servants and rain-streaked banners. The library’s back alley twisted through garden courtyards and down to the shadow-soaked district where Almdor’s foundations showed: old stone, choked moss, runes eroded almost to fairy dust.
The ancient larder’s wooden doors had been wrenched clean off. Inside, candle stubs flickered in the gloom. Mira crouched beside a moss-mottled bench, running fingers over something sticky and cold. She drew back her hand, showing a smear of oily black. “Same as on the assassin’s palm,” she murmured.
Narsa knelt, eyes wide as she picked up a scrap of lambskin parchment, inked in a spidery script:
They gather where sun cannot find them.
Beneath the court gardens
The Eater awaits.
Eiran felt the air pulse around them, a subtle tremor he could not name. “The Eater?”
“An old title,” Narsa whispered. “Lore says the void beyond the stars… hungers. It was worshipped, once, in the Nameless Days.”
They pressed onward. Mira led with measured urgency—past shuttered bakeries, through fishmongers’ alleys that stank of old scales, up moonwashed staircases where beggars huddled in the lee of wind. Eyes followed them from beneath every hood.
At the edge of the palace grounds, an arcaded walk wound beneath carved lions and crumbling effigies. Here, the air carried a keener chill. The marble at Mira’s feet was streaked with sigils—hastily daubed with tar: a six-pointed star, split and guttering, looped in a spiral of black.
From the gloom emerged two figures—city guards or men wearing their sigils as disguise. “Gates are closed, strangers,” one barked. “Council business. Move along.”
Narsa’s voice, flat with disdain, carried past Mira’s shoulder. “We seek the one with the black star. She tried to kill the lords—"
A flash of steel. The second guard’s hand flicked beneath his cloak. In that instant, Mira kicked aside the first—Eiran stumbled back, clutching the star stone—and Narsa’s staff spun forward in a blur. A bright, tearing sound—like silk ripped through storm—filled the air as she channeled power through old glyphs woven in her mind. The space between the guards shivered, bent. One man dropped, gasping as shadow crept from his nostrils and mouth, through his veins. The other fled into the maze of hedges, trailing a wild, hungry keening.
Narsa staggered. Her lips were pale, pulsing with aftershocks of power. Mira caught her as she nearly fell. “You shouldn’t have—”
“Did… what was needed,” Narsa croaked, shaking free. She pointed to bootprints cut deep into the sodden loam, vanishing below a statue’s plinth—a stone hawk, eyes blankly watching.
The trio pressed into the earth—a cracked flagstone lifted to reveal a spiral stair winding into blackness. Torchlight wavered far below. Eiran’s throat dried; the air stank of candlewax, of ancient mold, and something fouler.
They padded downward, passing alcoves where broken relics and gnawed bones marked vile devotion. Whispered chanting floated up—sharp, unified, an old language tinged with horror and awe.
At the foot: a broad vault formed of black granite blocks. A dais at its center, crowned by a void-shaped obsidian idol and surrounded by kneeling cultists, cloaked and masked. Standing before them, intoning above the chant, was Lady Iskan herself—her councilor’s robe shrouded now in midnight silk, hands raised, eyes reflecting a lightless depth.
Mira hissed. “She’s with them.”
Narsa shook her head. “She’s surrounded. Look—her hands tremble.”
As they watched, a pair of masked figures rushed forward, seizing Lady Iskan, binding her wrists with cords blackened by strange sigils. She cried out—caught between dignity and terror—as the cultists’ voices crescendoed.
“Stars above, what do we do?” Eiran whispered.
Mira drew her blade. “We break their circle. If we can get her free—”
But they were too late. Another cultist—face tattooed with star fractures—hurled powder at the idol’s base. Black flame erupted, shadows spilling in a spiral towards Iskan. The captive noblewoman flailed, then was hauled into a side corridor by two attendants—vanishing as the shadows lashed the stone where she’d knelt.
Narsa clutched her staff, pulling power up from the lowest roots in the marble with a guttural word—shattering one cultist’s mask. Pale blue fire erupted along the floor, hurling bodies aside. The idol howled, a sound not made by any mouth. Eiran braced himself, gripping the star stone as its heat surged, daring to think—not yet lost
Mira’s blade danced between shadows, freeing a path for Eiran and Narsa. They gave chase after the kidnappers, boots ringing on stone, lungs burning. The old corridor corkscrewed upward to a garden under the tragic light of rain and moon. Ahead, the cultists vanished—disappearing through a hidden gate into Almdor’s endless maze.
All they found was the ragged councilor’s sash, torn and scattered among the plinths—black star stitched in thread. Eiran’s hands shook. “She’s gone. They’ll kill her. Or worse.”
Narsa collapsed to her knees, spent past reason, gasping. “They take her… for a purpose. The Eater’s wants. The cracks in the world… widen.”
Mira steadied her, voice like a sword’s edge. “We failed to save Iskan, but we know now: the cult festers everywhere, waiting, worshipping a darkness not meant to be named. And next they’ll move on Astryn, I’d wager my oath.”
Thunder cracked over the city, banners bleeding rain. Eiran stood, feeling the weight of the star stone and the burdens of prophecy pulse in his chest—fear and hope warring, the first faint trace of resolve shimmering dimly in his eyes.
“We follow. With every breath left.”
He turned his gaze north, past the looming towers, toward a horizon growing ever more strange. The night offered no reassurance, only the clamor of secrets, the ache of failure, and the bitter promise: that hunted, hated, unbroken—they would not stop while the world itself had stars to shatter.