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.
The Unseen Hand
Low fog rolled between the winter-stripped trees, swallowing dawn as if the sun itself were weary. The day carried the hush of a world holding its breath—no birdsong, only the far-off ache of wind through buried groves. The snow had thinned in its flurry, but the cold pressed all the sharper for it, nipping ears and fingers with the teeth of old regrets.
Eiran walked through the dull white, Mira close at his flank, eyes raw and sleepless. Narsa, still limping from magical exertion and exposure, trailed gravely behind. To their number, after days of flight, several loyalists from Farhold clustered—faces drawn, weapons ready, their faith in the quest measured now by tightness at the jaw and the squint of sleepless eyes. There were six: two women, four men. Eiran trusted three for sure. Two were brothers—Kale and Soren—who kept mostly to themselves; the third, a woman of middle years named Corrin, once a town scribe, seemed to trust whatever Mira chose to trust. Yet, since the blizzard and siege, no one fully relaxed; every voice was weighed, every glance parsed.
They advanced toward a woodland saddle, eyes fixed east, picking a way between drifts and tangled undergrowth. No one spoke of Talin; no one spoke of the countless tracks lost in the snow. Pain enough walked with them.
It was Mira who raised the first alarm.
A shadow moved out of season among the pines up ahead—barely more than a flicker, a disturbance as the breeze filtered past a jag of slate. But Mira, always the cusp between caution and command, hissed, "Hold!"
The party pressed flat to the earth. Eiran’s heart beat wild as a bird’s caged. He clutched the star stone under his cloak.
From the left, Soren hissed a warning, “I see movement—three, maybe four.”
Kale, nearest Mira, kept his ax low. Corrin’s whispers trembled: “No patrol should be this far north. Not unless—”
But Narsa, eyes blazing with new suspicion, spat a word—raw, guttural—and scanned the air for magic. Blue sparks fanned out, then scattered abruptly. "There’s sorcery, but not a spell I know."
A metallic crack—then a shout on their flank. From the hollow behind, shapes appeared: men, robed and masked. The black star burned on their brow, not ink but invocation. Each held weapons drawn, eyes rimmed with hate or something more inhuman.
The loyalists whirled, weapons raised. Mira drew steel. "Form up!"
But before a formation could take shape, confusion erupted. Soren lunged away from the group, shrieking an alarm. "They’re here, inside!"
Out of the whitened underbrush, Kalle—his own ax still sheathed—hurled a satchel directly into the party’s center. It landed among their feet, skidding to a halt. For one half-second, all froze. Then Mira, sharp-eyed and quick, screamed, "Away!"
The satchel burst. Blue fire fountained up—no heat, but instant numbness.
Eiran gasped as the world spun sideways. His limbs went slack; his vision blurred. Through the swirl, he saw Kalle draw a wicked curved blade, brandished high. The loyalist’s smile was wrong—too wide, too knowing. "For the true star!" he yelled. Around him, cultists surged, emboldened.
Eiran fought the enchantment—his thoughts sluggish as syrup. The star-stone throbbed hot at his breast, and he latched onto it, yanking reality back by force of pain. Mira, only half-collapsed, managed to lunge and knock him aside as a sword-side blow swept the air, meant for his neck.
“Get up!” she shouted, voice choked, but resolute. Her hands left streaks in the snow as she tried to shield him.
Everywhere, chaos. Magic flared—cultists hurled black fire at the scattered defenders. Corrin raised her staff, parrying a blow but falling to her knees as Kalle sneered, "You think memory can beat hunger?"
Narsa shrieked—a sound torn partway between anger and betrayal—pouring a volley of raw, surging magic into the breach. The snow vaporized where her fury landed, forcing the cultists to scatter. In the breath of confusion, she staggered toward Eiran and Mira, extending her staff. "We break for the ridge—now!"
“Corrin—?” Eiran rasped, already moving. Mira, sword flashing, cut through a cultist’s thigh and ducked a thrown spear. Soren, the other brother, vanished into the trees; later, Eiran would wonder if he ran for help or fled in terror.
But Corrin—bless her stubborn courage—pushed herself upright, staff spinning. “Go! The world needs more than one broken oath-keeper. I’ll buy a moment.”
Eiran seized Mira’s arm, yanking her after Narsa. Behind, blue and black fire tangled, throwing leaping shadows across white snow. Kalle and his cult guards howled pursuit: "Get the star-marked one! Leave the rest!"
The woods became a stomach—swallowing all light, choking vision. Eiran stumbled, boots catching on root and stone. Mira bit out orders: "East, past the fallen cedar—don’t look back! Don’t let them circle us!"
A sudden, sick crack—Narsa faltered, clutching her side. Blue sparks guttered at her fingertips, but she clenched her jaw, refusing to fall. "Keep going!"
Then Eiran’s luck broke.
A net—moon-threaded and humming with dark runes—slammed down, pinning him fast. Kalle, face wild, exultant, thundered: "Prophecy ends in the snow, little star!"
Mira spun, howling with rage, but cultists blocked her, blade to her throat. "Lay down—now! Or he dies here."
Time slowed. The pain flared in Eiran’s chest, vision narrowing—his mind roil with river-light, starfire, and the primal terror of the hunted. The net’s runes stung his skin, leeching away strength, hope, self.
Now you see, a voice whispered deep inside, how easily fate can turn.
Then—
Narsa, stumbling in from the left, one eye swollen, staff shivering with overuse, screamed a rough invocation. The snow ripped upward, spitting shards of ice and blue lightning. Ken, cult blade poised at Mira’s back, screamed as magic tore his hand, the limb going numb. Mira used the moment, rolling beneath the sword and coming up, weapon in both hands.
Eiran, in the net, focused on the star-stone. Pain compressed his chest until all that remained was intent. "Not again," he muttered. "Not finished yet." With the last flicker of will, he pressed his hand against a rune and saw blue fire surge from within him. The net burst into greasy smoke, the warmth snapping arteries of light through the snow.
He forced himself to his feet, reeling. Kalle lunged, face purple with hate. Eiran dodged left, not fast enough—the blade cut across his shoulder. He felt the warmth of blood, but staggered, stayed upright. Mira was suddenly there beside him, sword and resolve blazing.
For an instant, all threads met—loyalist, traitor, sorceress, the cold heart of prophecy—knotted in terror and defiance.
“You’ll never win,” Mira spat, voice iron. “Not here. Not with him.”
Kalle’s eyes flickered—fear, awe, even tears. “You don’t know what waits, Asandi. You don’t know whose hand guides this.”
A distant horn howled. Cult reinforcements, advancing through the wood.
Narsa shrieked, "We have to split else we’re taken together! If you trust me, head east—Eiran and Mira. I’ll break the runes, buy as long as I have in me."
Mira wrenched Eiran toward her, pushing him through the crashed underbrush. Behind, Narsa swelled her magic, the forest itself shuddering with each invocation. Kalle and the cultists pursued, the ground quaking with every vengeful step.
Eiran stumbled, head spinning, blood running hot and sticky down his arm. Mira, jaw set, all tenderness burned to edge, half-dragged, half-pushed him on. Each footfall was a fight for distance, for hope. Branches lashed. The world dissolved to panic, pain, and the knowledge there was no turning back.
Heartbeats later, a last, blinding surge of Narsa’s power exploded in the wood—blue fire racing up every tree, shattering lines of pursuit. Screams bowed the air, the ground convulsed, and—abruptly, impossibly—the three companions were alone, breath ragged in the wounded silence.
They collapsed in a gully of tangled fur and stone, the woods still echoing with dying shrieks and distant horns. Eiran pressed a shaking hand to his shredded shoulder; Mira ripped a bandage from her cloak, binding him with hands that betrayed their own trembling.
Narsa dropped beside them, face gray, almost spectral. “Corrin—gone. Kalle… forsworn. More will follow, now that they know your face. We have days, if luck holds. Hours, if not.”
Eiran stared into the bruised sky, feeling the weight of the star stone through pain and ice. Trust, so hard-won, felt like a brittle shell, yet for all its breaking, it shielded a core that would not yield—not yet.
Mira’s fingers pressed his wrist, then Narsa’s. “No more secrets. If we die, we die together. Or not at all.”
Their promise held, thin as dawn. Even as the cult gathered in the trees and the traitor’s laughter faded among the pines, something sharper formed beneath their wounds—a resolve that, amid every fracture, was itself a shard of hope.
The unseen hand had moved. But the hearts it tried to crush, in breaking, only became more determined.