#dreamerverse

"BRYCIAN." The name escaped Atlas Moonlight's lips in a hoarse, breathless whisper—sharp as a blade drawn in the dark. His amethyst eyes snapped open, wild and searching, the shadows of sleep retreating in a rush of cold awareness. His chest heaved with every breath, heart pounding beneath skin slick with sweat. As he shot upright in bed, muscles coiled and trembling like drawn wires, a faint glow pulsed over his sternum: a fine-lined sunburst nested into a crescent moon. The tattoo throbbed softly, almost alive, echoing the remnants of the dream—or the warning—it had just etched into his bones.

Sunlight filtered in through the narrow slit of a window above his bed, spilling across the stone walls of his quarters. The beams of light traced along the hard lines of his bare chest and the chiseled ridges of his arms, highlighting the sheen of sweat clinging to his skin. The light was soft, almost delicate—but it offered no comfort.

It was the same dream.

Again.

The field of moonflowers. Endless and silver, stretching beyond the horizon, swaying in a breeze that whispered but never touched. The petals shimmered like stardust under a sky too vast, too quiet. The air was thick with stillness, a kind of sacred hush that pressed in around him every time he returned.

And then he would appear—Brycian.

Always at a distance. Always turned slightly away, as if Atlas had arrived too late to catch the fullness of his gaze. The edges of his presence were soft, like a memory remembered in fragments. His smile—fragile and fleeting—held something that shattered Atlas a little more each time. And those eyes... eclipse-gold—molten gold irises ringed with shadow. Vast. Knowing. Endless.

Atlas always reached for him. And Brycian always slipped away.

Gone. Like smoke in the wind.

A sharp breath tore through Atlas's lungs. He scrubbed a trembling hand down his face, his fingers dragging through the sweat-mussed strands of his dark brown hair. The tremor betrayed what his expression never would—the storm that raged quietly beneath the surface. He clenched his jaw, trying to shove the dream back into the shadows, but it refused to go. It never did.

This wasn't just a dream. Not anymore. Not after so many nights. It had become something else. A message. A memory. Or perhaps... a curse.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the cold stone floor biting against the soles of his feet. Reaching toward the nightstand carved from sunstone, he found the object that had become his sanctuary—his journal. A worn, leather-bound tome, the color of midnight, soft from years of use. Its surface was etched with delicate Lunarian glyphs—ancient symbols of remembrance, concealment, and spiritual anchoring.

This was where he kept the parts of himself he never allowed others to see. The truths too fragile to speak aloud. The ghosts he hadn't yet faced.

He opened it slowly, turning past pages filled with tactical diagrams, coded messages, and entries scrawled in the messy rush of wartime confessions. Finally, he found a clean page. The quiet that settled around him now was different. Thicker. Expectant. Like the dream had followed him here, waiting to be named.

Atlas picked up his ink pen, its tip hovering for a heartbeat before he began to write. His usually precise hand wavered at first, but the words came anyway—inevitable.

I saw him again tonight. Brycian. The field of moonflowers is the same—always the same. But I...I feel different each time. As if something inside me is unraveling. Or remembering.

He paused. The ink gleamed on the page beneath the blinding light of the endless sun. His hand trembled again, and he gritted his teeth before pushing forward.

There's something in his eyes. Something I can't shake. Not fear. Not sorrow. Something deeper. Like he knows me. Like he's waiting for me to remember.

The final line came slowly, tugged from somewhere deep, buried beneath years of silence.

why does it feel like a memory instead of a dream?

He set the pen down, watching the ink glisten and settle. The question lingered in the air, unanswered—echoing between the stone walls and the beating of his heart.

And as he sat there in the stillness, eyes glassy and unfocused before he rose from his bed with the weight of the dream still lingering like a phantom pressed against his back.

The cool air of his quarters whispered across his bare skin, urging him into motion. The sunlight of Solis Prime bled through the curtain edges, gold across the stone floor. Morning had come, though it felt more like the continuation of a restless night.

He stepped toward the obsidian wardrobe and pulled open its doors with a practiced hand, revealing his Lunarian attire—formal and battle-ready, sharp as the man who wore it.

He dressed in silence.

His uniform was a striking ensemble of matte black and vivid, angular purple paneling that slashed across his chest, arms, and legs like the marks of some ancient celestial code. Over his heart was the symbol of his heritage: a stylized crescent moon, polished to a dull silver gleam, inset with tiny etchings that shimmered faintly under the shifting light. The same symbol sat at the center of the silver belt cinched around his waist, a mirror to the one above—elegant, unmistakable.

He tugged on his gloves—black with purple accents tracing the knuckles and the backs of the hands. The fingers were exposed, a traditional Lunarian style, made for both precision and connection to energy conduits during battle. They flexed snugly into place as he adjusted the fit, methodical and focused.

At last, he swept on his cloak—a long, flowing garment with a high, structured collar and a hood that draped down his back like a veil of shadow. The fabric moved with a weightless grace, silent in its passing, as if stitched from woven

Atlas paused at the threshold of his room, casting one last glance across his quarters—sparse, disciplined, cold. He exhaled through his nose, collected, composed. The door hissed open with a smooth, mechanical glide.

He took two steps into the corridor before—

"Good morning, Moonlight."

Atlas halted. The voice was unmistakable—low, dry, and laced with smirking familiarity.

Leaning against the wall with casual arrogance stood Ryn, his oldest friend and most formidable thorn. Arms crossed, one leg kicked up behind him against the wall, Ryn looked every inch the Lunarian warrior he was: tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in layered black combat armor carved with silver-veined runes of strategy and command. His shoulder guards were sharp, his gauntlets dented from past skirmishes, and yet his stance suggested he had not a care in the world.

Amethyst-violet eyes sparkled with mirth. "You look like you just woke up from a particularly romantic nightmare. Something... floral, perhaps?"

Atlas blinked slowly, his expression unreadable save for the faint twitch at the corner of his jaw. "Ryn."

Flat. Cold. Precisely what Ryn was aiming for.

"Always a pleasure," Ryn replied, uncrossing his arms and pushing off the wall with a fluid, almost theatrical ease. "You're tense. Let me guess—the moonflowers again? And our elusive heartthrob with the galaxy eyes?"

Atlas exhaled through his nose, sharp and slow. "You have too much time on your hands."

"And you don't have enough humor in yours," Ryn said with mock offense. "You know, balance and all that. Lunarian values."

They began walking side by side, moving through the corridor like twin shadows—one rigid, one fluid. The air between them was easy, despite the constant poking. Ryn had a gift for scraping at Atlas's walls without ever truly threatening them.

"You've been dreaming about him again," Ryn said, not asking—stating.

Atlas didn't answer, but his silence was loud enough.

Ryn's smile softened, just barely. "You know... you could talk to someone. Someone who doesn't spend all their time antagonizing you."

Atlas turned his head slightly. "Then I'll keep it to myself."

Ryn barked a laugh. "Fair enough."

For a moment, there was quiet. The corridor opened into a hall of glass where distant moons shimmered outside, stars scattered like spilled diamonds across the void.

Then Ryn's voice dropped a note, more serious beneath the sarcasm. "Whatever this is, Atlas... we'll figure it out. Like we always do."

Atlas looked straight ahead, his posture relaxing by a margin. He gave a small nod. "I know."

Ryn smirked, his sharp wit returning like a drawn dagger. "Good. Now hurry up, the council's waiting—and I'm already late because I was busy being dramatic in the hallway."

Atlas side-eyed him. "You live for theatrics.”

"Absolutely," Ryn grinned. "Someone has to keep this place from turning into a temple of silence and brooding."

"Then you're doing a terrible job."

"And yet," Ryn said, lifting a hand with a flourish, "you haven't stabbed me yet. So clearly, I'm doing something right."

Atlas didn't answer. But the ghost of a smile tugged at the edge of his lips.

Together, they continued down the hall—one cloaked in moonlit shadows, the other in silver-edged mischief—ready to face whatever the day would bring.

ATLAS AND RYN moved with purpose through the stone corridors of the Rebellion stronghold, the walls around them lit by the soft glow of blue flamed torches hung among the rock. Every step echoed with quiet urgency, their dark boots striking the polished floor with rhythmic precision. This part of the stronghold, reserved for war councils and strategic summits, bore the weight of generations—walls etched with the names of fallen warriors and faded banners that had once flown proudly over Lunarian cities now reduced to ruin.

They approached the Council Hall's grand entrance—a pair of towering obsidian doors inlaid with lavender purple. As the doors hissed open, the sight within was nothing short of commanding.

At the head of the circular chamber stood Artemis Verya.

Leader of the Lunar Rebellion.

General. Icon. Survivor.

She was the kind of presence that bent a room toward her without needing to speak a word. But it was her eyes that stilled Atlas as he and Ryn entered.

A piercing violet—bright, unflinching, and as commanding as the voice that often followed them. They burned with clarity, the kind that could silence a room or ignite an army. Her expression was fierce, etched with the lines of hard-earned leadership, of sleepless nights and impossible decisions. There was no softness in her stance—only conviction. Strength. A leader who didn't direct from safety or strategy tables, but from the bloodied front lines.

She turned her gaze toward the two as they entered, and the air seemed to shift. The conversation in the chamber fell quiet, the other rebel officers instinctively moving aside as Artemis locked eyes with Atlas, then Ryn.

"Moonlight. Ryn," she said, her voice a low command wrapped in velvet steel. "You're just in time."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, not in judgment—but in calculated assessment. Always reading the room. Always preparing.

Atlas bowed his head in greeting. Ryn offered a short nod and a smirk, already feeling the tension crackling like energy in the air.

The war council was about to begin. And with Artemis Verya at its head, there would be no wasted words, no half-measures. Only action. Only resolve.

And if the fire in her eyes was any indication... it would be a day of reckoning.

The council chamber was steeped in a heavy hush as the meeting began, broken only by the soft hum of energy conduits running beneath the floor—faint pulses of lunar light that lit the room from below in gentle blues and silvers. The council's circular table glowed faintly at its edges, illuminating the etched Lunarian glyphs carved into its obsidian surface. Around it sat the Rebellion's sector leaders—commanders, tacticians, and warriors who had fought, bled, and lost in the name of Lunaria's freedom.

Artemis stood at the head of the table, her imposing figure radiating silent authority. With a single motion of her gloved hand, she activated the central projection disc. A detailed holographic map bloomed to life above the table, displaying the divided territories: war-torn cities, refugee strongholds, pockets of allied cells hidden in the outer rings, and—most notably—Solarian-controlled sectors marked in blazing gold.

The meeting began with reports.

One by one, the sector leaders stood and delivered their updates. Each voice, though calm, carried the weight of sleepless nights and hardened resolve.

General Nyra from the Eastern Front recounted a raid on a Solarian outpost that resulted in the liberation of several captured Lunarian civilians. The mission had been a success, though casualties on their side reminded them of the thin line they walked every time they struck.

Commander Veth, representing the Northern Skirmish Line, had less hopeful news. His team had been ambushed en route to a hidden supply cache. A Solarian scout squad had anticipated their movement, resulting in a brutal firefight that cost them half a unit and forced them to abandon vital resources.

Another leader, Talen from the Outer Colonies, reported a victory—small, but meaningful. A covert operation to sabotage a Solarian power relay had crippled communications in a mining sector, buying the Rebellion a few precious days of silence from enemy surveillance. But even his success came with a caveat: more drones. More eyes. More pressure.

As the voices continued, a pattern emerged—flashes of triumph buried in a mountain of hardship. It was undeniable: King Helios's forces were tightening their grip. His soldiers were better equipped, bolstered by a growing arsenal of solar-forged weaponry and reinforced by advanced technology the Lunarians could only dream of replicating. The contrast in resources was vast, and it was beginning to show in the battlefields.

Despite their fierce resolve, the Rebellion was outgunned, outnumbered, and slowly being cornered.

Whispers began to spread across the room—words of concern, uncertainty, the kind that could easily fracture morale if left unchecked.

Then Artemis moved.

She stepped forward, slow and deliberate, allowing her presence to settle like a storm brewing on the horizon. The violet of her eyes sharpened as she looked around the table, her voice cutting clean through the murmurs like a blade of polished steel.

"Yes," she began, "Helios's forces are strong. He commands fleets forged from our destroyed cities, weapons crafted with stolen magic, and soldiers who follow him out of fear—not loyalty. That is the truth. We will not deny it."

Her eyes swept across each face, pinning them in place.

"But let me remind you—so are we."

The room stilled. Her words hung in the air like thunder just before the strike.

"Every breath we take in defiance is strength. Every life we protect, every system we sabotage, every Solarian patrol we force into retreat—that is strength. We may not have his machines, his sunfire weapons, or his golden walls. But what we do have—what he will never have—is purpose."

She walked slowly around the table now, each step deliberate, the long folds of her cloak whispering behind her.

"We fight not to dominate, not to enslave, not to burn the world for the sake of power. We fight to reclaim our home. We fight for the ones who can't. We fight because we must."

Her voice dropped to a quiet, powerful tone. "I know it's hard. I know you're tired. But if any of you are thinking of giving up... look around this room. Look into the faces of those still standing beside you."

She paused, letting the silence speak.

"This Rebellion isn't just a military effort. It's the heartbeat of a people who refuse to vanish. As long as that heartbeat continues, Helios has not won."

She turned back to the table, her eyes landing on Atlas for a beat longer than the others, then to Ryn.

"Remember why you're here. And remember who we are."

The chamber remained silent for a long moment after her words, the weight of them anchoring in every corner of the room. Then, slowly, the heads of the sector leaders began to nod—first in agreement, then in renewed determination.

They might be outmatched.

But they were not broken.

And under Artemis Verya's command, they would not be.

When the final glyphs on the council table dimmed and the shimmering holographic map receded into darkness, Artemis raised her hand, signaling the end of the meeting.

"The council is adjourned," she declared firmly, her voice still resonating with quiet strength.

Chairs scraped gently against the polished obsidian floor as the sector leaders began to disperse, murmuring amongst themselves in subdued tones. Atlas turned away from the council table, his expression composed as always, his cloak swaying behind him with every purposeful step.

Ryn was at his side instantly, practically bouncing with the smug energy of someone who had waited far too long for the chance to be inappropriate.

"So," Ryn began, adjusting the gauntlet on his wrist with exaggerated nonchalance. "Now that all the doom and gloom is over—seriously, when was the last time you got laid?"

Atlas didn't look at him. "Not now."

"That long, huh?"

Atlas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as they strode down the corridor. "Ryn."

"Come on," Ryn pressed with a wicked smirk. "You're brooding more than usual. You've got that I've been dreaming of an emotionally unavailable space prince look in your eye. I'm just saying—maybe you need a distraction that doesn't involve tactical maps or prophetic dreams."

"I'm going to kill you," Atlas muttered flatly”

"Oh please, I'd haunt you. And I'd still be asking you about your nonexistent sex life."

Before Atlas could formulate a proper retort—or a shove into the nearest wall—a commanding voice rang out behind them.

"Atlas. Ryn."

The two stopped mid-stride.

Artemis's voice cut through the air like moonlight through fog—calm, measured, and yet entirely impossible to ignore. The way she said their names was precise, not harsh, but threaded with unmistakable purpose.

Atlas turned first, cloak fluttering at his heels as he faced her. Ryn followed, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow with faux innocence, though a hint of curiosity danced in his eyes.

Artemis stood near the council table still, her long hair catching the ambient lunar glow, her violet eyes focused sharply on them. Her expression was unreadable, somewhere between grave and contemplative.

"I need a word with both of you," she said, not as a request—but as an order wrapped in velvet.

Ryn leaned slightly toward Atlas and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "See? This is what happens when you don't have sex. The universe steps in."

Atlas elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Shut up." Then he turned back to Artemis, nodding once. "Of course, Commander."

The teasing left Ryn's face as they approached her, replaced by something quieter, more alert. The way Artemis was watching them... it wasn't casual.

𝗕𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗛 the merciless blaze of Ignion, Solaria’s midday sun, Atlas and Ryn pressed forward with disciplined caution through the brutal outskirts surrounding the citadel. The land itself seemed hostile to life, as though the planet had long ago chosen violence over mercy. Beneath their boots, the ground was a treacherous spread of cracked stone and splintered earth, sun-bleached and sharp enough to slice through flesh if one misstep was made.

Jagged formations of rock rose from the scorched terrain in cruel, broken angles, like the ribs of some ancient beast left to rot beneath endless daylight. Heat rolled off the land in relentless waves, rippling through the air so fiercely that the horizon warped and shimmered, making distance difficult to judge and solid ground appear fluid and uncertain.

Towering above the crags and ravines, the Solarian Citadel loomed in the distance like a monument to conquest itself. Its colossal walls, forged from radiant solar-metal, caught Ignion’s fire and hurled it back across the wasteland in blinding sheets of gold and white. The structure was breathtaking in the same way a sharpened blade was breathtaking—beautiful, cold, and made to dominate. It did not simply stand over the land. It ruled it. Somewhere within that massive stronghold was the Oracle they had been sent to find, assuming Helios had not already silenced her. And hidden somewhere beyond the dunes, cliffs, and ravaged terrain, the Sun King’s forces stalked the land like hounds—hunting rebels, traitors, and anything reckless enough to breathe defiance beneath his sky.

Atlas and Ryn kept to the most concealed paths they could find, slipping through narrow passes and deep-cut ravines where shadows still clung stubbornly to the stone. Those thin ribbons of darkness were precious in a world ruled by suns. They moved in calculated bursts, never staying exposed for long, pausing only when the faint mechanical hum of Solarian surveillance drones drifted overhead. Each time the sound passed above them, both men instinctively flattened deeper into the cover of rock and shadow, waiting for the patrol patterns to shift before moving again. In the far distance, heavy ground units marched in immaculate formation across elevated ridges and fortress paths, their armor lit with soft, pulsing solar runes. Even from this far away, their synchronized steps carried a chilling sense of order—of imperial certainty, of an empire so convinced of its power that it moved with the arrogance of inevitability.

Ryn led the way.

As always, he wore danger with infuriating ease.

Even under the punishing glare of Ignion, with dust and ash clinging to every surface, he looked almost absurdly composed. His black armor, once polished to a mirrored sheen, was now dulled by grit from the wasteland, but it did little to diminish the lethal grace in the way he moved. His shoulders remained loose, his pace unhurried, his posture relaxed enough to seem careless to anyone who didn’t know him. But Atlas knew better. Ryn was never careless. Beneath the swagger was a predator’s readiness—every muscle loose because it knew exactly how quickly it could strike. One hand rested near the twin blades crossed at his back, fingertips brushing their hilts in idle familiarity, as though they were extensions of his own body rather than weapons forged for war. He looked entirely too comfortable for a man crossing one of the deadliest stretches of hostile territory in the galaxy.

“I’m just saying,” Ryn drawled as he glanced back over his shoulder, a grin pulling at his mouth with reckless amusement, “if you actually let someone take you to bed once in a while, maybe—just maybe—you’d stop radiating this sexy, tortured ghost energy you’ve been dragging around since the Second Lunar Campaign.”

Atlas walked several paces behind him, quieter in every sense. Where Ryn moved like a living dare, Atlas moved like sharpened intent. A dark cloak draped over his frame, shielding him from the worst of Ignion’s cruel blaze, its fabric threaded with subtle Lunarian designs to absorb light rather than reflect it. The cloak turned him into a moving shadow against the stone whenever he slipped beneath cover. His eyes never stopped scanning—tracking heat distortion, distant motion, the shifting edges of terrain where danger might hide. His focus was absolute, his expression hard and unreadable, carved from restraint and habit. His jaw remained tight, his silence more pointed than any response.

He did not answer.

Ryn made a show of clicking his tongue. “Of course. Ignoring me. Again.” He sighed with full theatrical offense. “One day, I’m going to write a book called The Tragic Silence of Atlas Moonlight: Brooding in Seventeen Languages. I’ll dedicate it to all the people you never emotionally processed.”

Atlas did not so much as blink in acknowledgment.

The wind dragged hot dust between the rocks. Somewhere above them, metal wings hummed faintly in the distance. They advanced another dozen careful steps, boots scraping stone, cloaks brushing against the jagged walls of the ravine.

Then Atlas stopped.

Not gradually. Not hesitantly.

One second he was moving, the next he had gone completely still.

The shift was immediate and absolute—the kind that came from instinct honed far beyond ordinary training. Atlas’ body tightened with sudden precision, every line of him alert. His hand shot out and seized Ryn by the shoulder hard enough to arrest him mid-stride.

“Okay, aggressive—” Ryn started, half-turning with a look of annoyance—

—but Atlas gave him no chance to finish.

With one brutal yank, he dragged Ryn sideways and hauled him down behind a pair of massive boulders just as a low mechanical whine sliced through the heat-heavy air above them. The movement was fast, practiced, and forceful enough to knock the breath from Ryn’s lungs. Pebbles scattered beneath their boots as they dropped into cover, bodies pressed low against sun-warmed stone.

Before Ryn could protest louder, Atlas clamped a hand firmly over his mouth.

“There’s a patrol,” Atlas whispered, his voice low and urgent, barely more than breath. “Up ahead.”

Ryn was, infuriatingly, still trying to talk.

The sound came out as a muffled string of offended vibrations beneath Atlas’s palm, his narrowed eyes practically sparking with indignation. Atlas ignored him. He had no patience for it now—not with the air still carrying that mechanical hum, not with danger threading its way closer. Instead, he angled his head slightly toward the edge of the boulders and listened.

He counted silently.

One drone passed overhead, then another sweeping wider along the ridge.

No.

Three.

And beneath them—boots.

A ground unit.

Close.

Too close.

Atlas’s hand slid from Ryn’s mouth as his other hand instinctively moved toward one of the blades strapped at his side. His fingers curled around the hilt with reflexive familiarity, the weapon half-drawn in his mind before it ever left the sheath. Every part of him prepared for impact—for the split-second shift from stealth to violence. The mission was supposed to be quiet. Infiltration. Observation. Discovery. But Atlas had lived too long in war to trust a mission to remain what it was supposed to be. Not on Solaria. Not under Ignion. Not this close to Helios’s reach.

He held himself perfectly still, waiting.

The patrol’s whine drifted across the rocks, circled once, then slowly began to fade. The ground unit marched past somewhere beyond their cover, close enough that Atlas could feel the faint vibration of their steps through the stone. He didn’t move until the sound had thinned into the distance and the air settled once more into its oppressive, shimmering silence.

Only then did he remove his hand completely and lean back the smallest fraction, exhaling through his nose.

Ryn immediately swatted at Atlas’s wrist with quiet irritation. “You could’ve just said that,” he muttered under his breath. “You didn’t have to silence me like we’re in some dramatic holo-serial.”

Atlas turned his head and fixed him with a flat, unimpressed look. “You wouldn’t have stopped talking.”

Ryn opened his mouth, clearly prepared with an argument, then paused. His expression shifted. The offense gave way to reluctant amusement, and a smirk tugged back at his mouth.

“Fair,” he admitted.

There was no skepticism in it. No challenge. No doubt.

Ryn never questioned Atlas when it came to danger. He had learned long ago—through blood, close calls, and battles they were both lucky to survive—that when Atlas sensed something, it was already too late to pretend otherwise. Whether it was instinct, training, trauma, or that strange edge Atlas carried like a second skin, Ryn had stopped trying to explain it years ago.

Atlas did not merely notice danger.

He knew it before it arrived.

𝗥𝗬𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 Atlas finally reached the sun-bleached outskirts of the Solarian Citadel just as its towering golden spires began to rise in full view beyond the village, gleaming beneath the relentless blaze of Ignion like sharpened lances aimed at the heavens. Even from a distance, Helios's stronghold radiated power and cruelty in equal measure, its polished walls catching the midday light and throwing it back across the wasteland in blinding waves. But here—far beyond the immaculate terraces, the jeweled towers, and the molten glamour of the palace—the land told an uglier truth.

The earth was cracked open in long, thirsty veins, the dust baked pale and brittle beneath the suns. The buildings that clung to this edge of civilization looked as though they had been assembled from whatever scraps desperation could salvage—crooked stone walls patched with rusted metal sheets, old solar paneling repurposed into roofs, salvaged beams and mismatched doors held together by bolts, wire, and sheer necessity. Nothing here had been built for beauty. It had been built to endure.

This was not the Solaria Helios displayed to diplomats and loyalists. This was the forgotten stretch of his empire—the village of the lowborn, the underfed, the exiled, and the overlooked. The people who lived here existed close enough to see the Citadel every day, yet far enough to know they would never belong within its shining heart.

The palace loomed over them like a gilded mountain, a monument to divine arrogance, but its shadow offered no comfort. It only made the poverty around it feel crueler.

Even here, no one was beyond Helios's reach.

The village remained firmly under Solarian control, and the oppression settled over it like a second atmosphere. At each key intersection stood armed Solarian troops, their golden armor so highly polished it was almost painful to look at beneath the sun. Their helmets concealed every trace of humanity, turning them into faceless instruments of order.

Pulse rifles rested easily in their hands, barrels angled low but ready, while their body language held the kind of arrogance that came from never having to fear consequences. Their patrols moved lazily, but there was practice in that laziness—discipline beneath boredom, violence beneath stillness. They watched the villagers with cold, detached indifference, as though one wrong glance or raised voice would be enough to justify blood on the ground.

And still, life persisted.

Atlas and Ryn lowered their heads, tugged their hoods farther over their faces, and slipped into the movement of the crowd with measured ease. Their cloaks were worn enough with dust to pass for travelers or market drifters, and in a place like this, anonymity was often the only shield people had left. They moved shoulder to shoulder through the outer stretch of the open-air market, neither too fast nor too slow, careful not to draw attention with hesitation. Around them, the village breathed in a fragile, cautious rhythm.

Vendors called out over small displays of meager goods—bundles of dried herbs, cracked tools, sun-hardened fruits, scraps of cloth, chipped cups, preserved roots. Their voices carried the sharpness of people who could not afford softness. Barterers haggled over prices with strained irritation, every coin and trade chip clearly mattering more than pride.

Children darted between legs and stalls with the easy agility of those raised in crowded spaces, their bare feet or worn shoes kicking up dust as they moved. A woman with tired eyes dragged a crate of salvaged metal toward a repair stand.

An old man sat beneath a slanted canopy mending torn cloaks by hand, his needle steady despite the tremor in his fingers. Somewhere nearby, oil crackled in a shallow pan over a heat unit, releasing the scent of spice and charred grain into the air. It was not peace. It was survival dressed in routine.

The whole square buzzed with a nervous kind of life, a fragile hum held together beneath the weight of oppression. Conversations stayed low. Laughter, when it appeared, was quick and cautious. Nobody lingered too close to soldiers. Nobody looked too long toward the Citadel.

"We're exposed here," Ryn muttered under his breath, his tone light enough to seem casual but his eyes missing nothing. He scanned every polished surface, every rooftop edge, every alley mouth that might hide a watcher. "One wrong step and we'll have half a squadron of Helios's lapdogs breathing down our necks."

"We won't take a wrong step," Atlas replied coolly.

He didn't even look at Ryn when he said it. His lavender eyes had already fixed on something near the far edge of the square.

There, set apart from the clustered stalls and patched homes, stood a large domed tent unlike anything else in the village. Its fabric shimmered faintly even beneath the dust, woven with Solarian thread but embroidered in symbols far older than the empire itself—spirals of prophecy, celestial knots, eye-like glyphs denoting foresight and fate. To most villagers it might have looked like nothing more than an elaborate ceremonial shelter. But to those who knew the old legends, the markings were unmistakable.

That was it.

The Oracle's tent.

Atlas's gaze sharpened.

But the target came with complications.

Two Solarian soldiers stood guard at the entrance, one on each side of the tent's veiled opening. They were not slouching marketplace patrols or bored village enforcers trying to pass the hours. These men were alert. Focused. Their golden armor gleamed like molten metal beneath the sun, and though their pulse rifles remained lowered, their stance said more than enough. Feet planted. Shoulders squared. Helmets tilted with sharp awareness toward the movement around them. They were not there for appearances. They were there to stop anyone who got too close.

"Direct assault?" Ryn offered quietly, lifting a brow with a hint of amusement that made it obvious he was joking—or mostly joking.

Atlas gave him a sharp, unimpressed glance. "Subtlety. For once."

Ryn's mouth twitched.

For a moment, neither of them moved. The market continued around them, noisy and alive, while the guards remained fixed at their post. Then Ryn's expression shifted. The sarcasm in his face gave way to something brighter—mischief sharpening into strategy. He tilted his chin toward a pair of scrappy children weaving through the crowd nearby, no older than ten at most. Their clothes were patched, faded almost colorless by sun and hard use, and both moved with the wiry speed of kids who had learned early how to stay one step ahead of hunger and authority.

Ryn nudged Atlas lightly. "Give me two Solarian coins and ten seconds," he murmured. "I'll turn them into chaos incarnate."

Atlas exhaled slowly through his nose, already annoyed on principle, but his hand slipped inside the inner lining of his cloak anyway. From a concealed pocket he retrieved two Solarian currency chips—small, valuable, and far more meaningful in a place like this than they would have been inside the Citadel walls.

"We don't have time for your side quests," Atlas said as he pressed the chips into Ryn's hand.

Ryn flashed a grin. "This is the quest."

Without another word, he crouched near a weathered post and beckoned the children over with a conspiratorial little wave. They hesitated at first, clearly suspicious—eyes flicking to his hood, to Atlas's taller shadow behind him, and most importantly to the glint of the chips in Ryn's palm. Hunger and caution battled visibly across their faces. Curiosity won first. Then desperation sealed it.

They edged closer.

Ryn spoke to them in hushed tones, fast and smooth, his voice dipping into the cadence of someone who had done this kind of thing before. He pointed toward a market stall not far from the guards—a cluttered stand stacked high with ceramic spice jars, dried peppers, and small sealed containers. Then he gestured toward the northern edge of the square and said something else that made both children's eyes widen with wicked understanding. When he held up the chips, their hesitation vanished completely.

A second later, they were off.

The first child barreled toward the spice stall with perfect chaos, crashing shoulder-first into the stacked display and letting out a loud, theatrical yelp. Ceramic jars toppled in a chain reaction, smashing against the hard ground in a violent burst of clay, powdered spice, and startled curses. The air filled instantly with the sharp scent of crushed pepper and exotic herbs.

At the same time, the second child burst into the square shouting at the top of his lungs, voice cracking with manufactured panic. "Fight! There's a fight by the north wall! They're killing each other!"

Heads turned immediately.

The stall owner shouted in outrage. Nearby vendors began yelling over one another. A woman gasped and dragged her basket out of the way. Two men dropped what they were arguing over and craned their necks toward the supposed fight. Children scattered. The crowd lurched and shifted with sudden disorder, curiosity and alarm rippling through the market like wind through dry grass. Dust rose into the air. Attention fractured in every direction at once.

Even the guards reacted.

Both Solarian soldiers snapped their helmets toward the disturbance, posture tightening as instinct briefly outran discipline. One took half a step forward, trying to assess whether the chaos near the north wall required intervention. The other turned just enough that his focus broke from the tent entrance.

That was all Atlas needed.

Without hesitation, he and Ryn moved.

They slipped from the edge of the crowd in one smooth motion, cloaks blending with the swell of shifting bodies as they crossed the square with swift, controlled purpose. Neither ran. Running would have drawn the eye. Instead they moved like men who belonged to the confusion, using the villagers' startled motion as cover. Atlas reached the tent first, fingers brushing the heavy embroidered veil at the entrance. Ryn was right behind him.

In one quick, seamless motion, they slid through the opening and disappeared inside just as the noise outside swelled to a fresh peak.

The market's chaos dulled instantly behind them.

Inside the Oracle's sanctuary, the atmosphere changed so completely it was almost like crossing into another world.

The air was dim, cool, and strangely still, carrying none of the blistering violence of the square outside. The light that filtered through the layered fabric of the tent was muted and amber-soft, casting everything in a mysterious golden haze. Shadows gathered in the folds of hanging cloth and pooled in the corners, alive with suggestion rather than threat. The scent in the air was unfamiliar and ancient—herbs, ash, old incense, and something faintly metallic beneath it all, as though the room itself had been steeped in ritual for centuries.

Silence settled around them with almost deliberate weight.

The deeper Atlas and Ryn moved into the Oracle's tent, the more the world outside seemed to fall away.

The heat of the village dulled first, then the noise. The shouting of merchants, the clatter of broken pottery, the barked orders of Solarian guards—all of it faded beneath the thick hush hanging inside the sanctuary. It was not ordinary silence. It was the kind that seemed to breathe. Watchful. Ancient. Waiting.

Both men advanced slowly across the layered rugs and worn woven mats spread over the ground, their boots making almost no sound. Their hands hovered near their concealed weapons out of long-trained instinct rather than immediate fear. Habit. Survival. War had taught them that mystery could be just as lethal as open violence. Atlas's fingers brushed near the hidden hilt beneath his cloak, while Ryn's hand lingered close to the inside seam of his coat where one of his blades rested. Neither of them said a word.

Then their eyes found her.

And both men stopped.

She sat at the very center of the tent upon a low, circular dais, elevated only slightly above the rest of the floor yet commanding the entire room as though the space had been built around her. Layers of threadbare cushions and intricately woven throws were piled beneath and around her, their once-rich fabrics faded by time into muted shades of dusk and ash. For a strange suspended moment, she did not look like a person waiting for them.

She looked like a relic.

Like something time itself had wrapped in cloth and left behind.

The Oracle.

Her presence was not grand in the way kings and generals were grand. There was no armor, no polished symbol of power, no weapon laid openly at her side. And yet the stillness around her carried more weight than any throne room Atlas had ever entered. She was old—undeniably, impossibly old. The years were written all over her, layered onto her body the way dust settled over forgotten ruins.

Her robes had once been regal. That much was obvious even through their decay. Beneath the dim amber glow of the hanging lamps, Atlas could make out the remnants of ceremonial silks, embroidered panels, and hand-stitched patterns so intricate they must have belonged to an age before Helios, before the war had consumed everything. But time had been merciless. The robes had weathered into patchwork drapery in faded purples, deep russets, bruised indigo, and worn gold. Their hems were frayed and curled like charred paper, and loose strands of thread clung to her sleeves and lap like silver cobwebs. Every layer she wore looked as though it had endured decades of prophecy, exile, and survival.

Her frailty was unmistakable.

Her frame was narrow beneath the weight of the robes, almost fragile enough to vanish into them. Her hands, folded over the head of an obsidian-tipped cane resting in her lap, were thin and knotted, fingers bent and delicate like the roots of an ancient tree forced to grow through stone. The skin there was nearly translucent, stretched fine over bone and vein. And yet despite all of that weakness, she sat upright with perfect, eerie poise. Her spine remained straight. Her chin was slightly lifted. Nothing about her posture suggested age had diminished her authority. If anything, it had sharpened it into something stranger and more absolute.

Her face was a map of time.

Deep lines carved down her cheeks and around her mouth, folding into one another in a testament to hardship, vision, grief, and endurance. Wrinkles gathered heavily at her brow, etched so deeply they looked almost like script written by years rather than flesh. Her skin was pale beneath the tent's low light, thin as parchment and almost luminous, revealing faint blue veins beneath its surface. Every mark on her face told a story Atlas knew he would never fully understand. It was the face of someone who had lived long enough to outlast kingdoms.

But it was her eyes that stopped the air in his lungs.

Clouded with cataracts and pale as moonstone, they should have seemed weak. Blind, perhaps. But instead they glowed faintly from somewhere deep within, lit by a strange inner radiance that made Atlas's skin tighten with instinctive awareness. Those eyes did not merely look at the room. They pierced it. They seemed to look through cloth, flesh, silence, memory—through the visible world and into something deeper beneath it. There was a terrible clarity in them, a sense that she was seeing not only who stood before her now, but who they had been, who they would become, and all the roads in between.

Her expression was unreadable.

Not cold. Not warm. Not welcoming in any ordinary sense.

Timeless.

As though she had already watched this exact moment unfold a thousand different ways and was simply waiting to see which version of it would survive.

Then she spoke.

"Welcome," she rasped.

Her voice was soft, but it carried through the room with startling resonance, threading itself into the air like smoke and prophecy. It was the kind of voice that sounded old enough to belong to the walls themselves.

"Atlas and Ryn," she said, her pale gaze resting on them with unnerving certainty. "I've been expecting you."

Ryn stiffened immediately.

His eyes narrowed, and he leaned just slightly toward Atlas, speaking in a whisper that was not remotely subtle. "She said my name," he muttered, equal parts alarmed and offended by the audacity of it. "She knows our names."

Atlas did not bother looking at him.

He was too busy studying her.

The use of their names should have been unsettling enough on its own. It certainly confirmed one thing: this woman was no fraud. There was no reasonable way she could have known who they were, not here, not dressed like this, not without introduction. But that was not the detail that held Atlas's attention most tightly.

It was her aura.

He could feel it.

Not with his eyes. Not even with logic. It was something older than observation, something instinctive that moved beneath thought. Beneath the scent of old herbs and prophecy, beneath the wear of time and the mystery surrounding her, there was something achingly familiar in her presence. The rhythm of it. The texture. The pull of it.

She was not Solarian.

She was one of them.

Atlas's gaze sharpened. "You're Lunarian," he said.

For the first time, the Oracle smiled.

It was small. Thin. But unmistakable.

"That intuition of yours," she murmured, "is truly remarkable. Being gifted with knowing does have its perks."

Atlas's expression shifted for the briefest moment. Not enough for most to catch—but enough. Surprise flickered there, subtle and sharp.

Gifted with knowing.

He did not like the sound of that.

Beside him, Ryn frowned, his curiosity overriding his caution. "She's one of us," he said, gesturing lightly as though the conclusion itself was a miracle. "But you're sitting in the open, right under Helios's nose. How have you not been caught?"

The Oracle's smile deepened, touched with something almost amused. "I'll tell you one day."

It was not an answer.

And somehow that made it more believable.

Then she lifted one hand from her cane and gestured toward the rugs laid before the dais.

"Sit," she said. "Please. We are pressed for time."

This time, neither Atlas nor Ryn argued.

She was right. The guards outside could recover from the distraction at any moment, and if the square was searched thoroughly enough, this sanctuary would not remain untouched for long. Atlas lowered himself first, movements controlled and cautious, settling onto one of the woven rugs directly before the dais. Ryn followed a moment later, less graceful but no less alert, crossing his legs with a restless sort of readiness that suggested he could be back on his feet in a second if needed.

The tent seemed to tighten around them.

Atlas did not waste time.

"What's the prophecy about King Helios?" he asked.

The Oracle's smile did not disappear, but it changed. It became quieter. Sharper. As if she had been waiting for him to ask precisely that question.

"It is not about King Helios directly," she said.

The answer made Atlas's brow furrow, while beside him Ryn shifted with visible impatience.

The Oracle drew a slow breath and began.

"The war between Solaria and Lunaria," she said, her voice low and solemn, "has shaped the bones of this world. Centuries of sunlight and moonlight. Of blood spilled beneath burning skies and shattered moons. Of kingdoms broken by pride and grief. You know this history. You were both born from its ashes."

Ryn let out a dry huff and folded his arms across his chest. "I hate to point out the obvious," he said, "but we all know the history. Countless scrolls. Bloodlines lost. Helios's rise. The Moon Kingdom's fall. Nothing new there."

Before he could continue, Atlas swung his hand sideways and smacked him on the back of the head with quick, practiced precision.

Ryn recoiled instantly, rubbing the spot with a scowl. "Ow."

Atlas didn't even look at him. "Let her speak."

The Oracle's lips twitched, amusement flickering over her ancient features, but her gaze remained fixed on Atlas. When she leaned forward ever so slightly, her cloudy eyes seemed to sharpen further, as if peeling past his composure and studying the truths buried beneath it.

"What most do not know," she continued, her voice softening, "is that this war was never meant to end in blood. It was meant to end in union. In peace."

Atlas's brow tightened. "What do you mean?"

The Oracle rested her hands lightly atop her cane once more and exhaled through her nose, as though preparing to unearth something long buried.

"Twenty-two years ago," she said, her voice taking on the cadence of memory, "there was a shift. Barely a breath in the life of this war, and yet enough to alter everything. A moment when fate itself bent. A moment when Solaria's King Phoebus and Lunaria's Queen Luna nearly forged a bond that could have changed the destiny of both planets."

Ryn straightened abruptly, blinking in open confusion. "Wait—Queen Luna?" he said. "She was married to King Luan. Everyone knows that."

The Oracle hummed softly, unbothered. "Marriage," she said, "has never stopped love."

Ryn stared at her for half a second, then raised his brows high. "Queen Luna and the Sun King were getting busy?" he asked, scandalized in a way that might have been funny under any other circumstances. "How did we not know that?"

"This happened before we were born," Atlas said flatly, though even he could not keep the tension from his voice.

The Oracle inclined her head in agreement. "Luna found herself drawn to the one man she should have hated," she said. "Phoebus—Solaria's golden sovereign. Once a warrior. Then a king. But always a seeker of something more than conquest."

Atlas's voice lowered. "And that love started the war."

The Oracle's gaze shifted toward him again, deep with old sorrow and old certainty.

"It was not arranged," she said. "Nor coerced. It was chosen. Forbidden. Divine."

The words settled heavily in the air.

"The gods," she continued, and for the first time something like reverence entered her voice, "the Sun God, Solarius Prime, and the Moon Goddess, Lunara—those who have watched over their fractured children since the beginning—intervened. Not with wrath. Not with fire. Not with punishment. With hope."

Her eyes darkened.

"They sowed the seeds of change in the hearts of Phoebus and Luna."

A hush fell over the tent.

Then, quieter now, more deliberate, she said, "For from their love, a child was meant to be born."

Atlas leaned forward before he realized he was doing it.

"A child?" he repeated, his heartbeat kicking hard against his ribs.

The Oracle's voice deepened with purpose, each word landing like a stone dropped into still water.

"The heir of both Sun and Moon," she said. "A child forged in light and darkness. In radiance and shadow. A living union of realms divided by hatred. He was destined to do what armies could not. To heal what war had broken. To awaken with a power beyond anything this universe has ever known. Marked by the legacy of the Sun King and the Moon Queen, he will rise to mend ancient wounds, to restore balance, and to remake what was shattered long ago."

Even Ryn had gone silent.

The sarcasm had fallen out of him entirely, swallowed by the gravity of her words.

"But..." he said at last, frowning. "That never happened. There was no child. Queen Luna disappeared—presumably dead. Phoebus died. Helios took the throne."

The Oracle's mouth thinned.

"That," she said quietly, "is what they would have you believe."

The room seemed to tighten around the sentence.

"The child did come into this world," she said. "Hidden. Protected. A final act of defiance against the storm."

Silence swallowed them whole for a beat.

Then the Oracle's tone hardened.

"Helios's reign is a desecration," she said. "A mockery of what Solaria once was meant to be. His hunger has poisoned this planet. Poisoned the galaxy around it. He turned sunlight into domination and power into rot. And now the gods stir once more. They send visions. They press against the veil. They seek to alter fate again."

Then she turned her gaze fully upon Atlas.

Not in passing.

Not accidentally.

Directly.

Piercingly.

Knowing.

Atlas went still.

Every muscle in him tightened with a kind of silence that was louder than speech. He did not answer. He did not shift. He did not ask how she knew. But he didn't have to. Something in his face—buried deep, almost imperceptible—betrayed him.

The Oracle saw it.

She nodded once, solemn and certain.

"The time is near," she said. "The heir rises. And you must be ready."

Ryn looked sharply between them.

"Do you know where this heir is?" he asked.

The Oracle did not answer him.

She only kept looking at Atlas.

And Atlas said nothing.

Not a word to confirm or deny. Not even a flicker of acknowledgement crossed his mouth. But his eyes gave him away all the same. There, beneath the violet of them, was the smallest ripple. A fracture in the stillness. A tremor of thought. Recognition. Fear. Something deeper he could not name.

Ryn caught it instantly.

His gaze darted from Atlas to the Oracle and back again, suspicion tightening across his face.

"Okay," he said slowly, the weight of the moment settling hard into his voice. "You two are being suspiciously ominous right now, and I need you both to know that it is making me extremely nervous."

"Search the stalls! Check every tent!"

The command split through the air like a blade.

Outside the Oracle's sanctuary, the sound of Solarian soldiers surging through the village came all at once—boots striking hard against packed dirt, metal armor clashing with each hurried step, voices barking over one another with growing urgency. What had moments ago been distant noise and fractured confusion was now much closer, sharpened into something immediate and dangerous. The market beyond the tent had shifted from disorder into active search. Villagers were being pushed aside. Canvas flaps were being ripped open. Crates overturned. Questions shouted. Threats implied. The heavy rhythm of armed men moving through narrow streets sent a pulse of tension through the stillness of the tent.

Too close.

Far too close.

The atmosphere inside the sanctuary changed in an instant. The thick quiet that had once felt ancient and reverent now tightened into something brittle, the sort of silence that comes just before impact. Even the dim golden lamplight seemed to tremble against the tent walls as shadows moved across the fabric outside—broad, distorted silhouettes of armed soldiers closing in.

Ryn reacted first.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, rising with the smooth, lethal speed of someone who had lived too long by reflex to need thought. His hand immediately went to the inside of his cloak, fingers brushing one of his concealed blades before shifting to lift the edge of the tent flap just enough to peer out. His sharp eyes scanned the village in quick, precise sweeps—alleyways, rooftops, patrol angles, escape routes, the shifting bodies of frightened civilians caught in the search pattern.

"Time to move," he muttered, his usual humor stripped down into pure practicality. There was no smugness in his voice now, no teasing edge. Only urgency.

Atlas stood more slowly, but there was nothing hesitant about him.

He rose with controlled precision, every line of his body taut and ready, the tension in him held so tightly it looked almost calm. One hand reached for the edge of his cloak, fingers already pulling the dark fabric higher, preparing to draw the hood back over his face before they slipped out into the chaos. His expression gave nothing away, but inside him the Oracle's words were still echoing, reverberating louder than the approaching boots.

The heir rises.

Your heart already knows the truth.

Trust him.

The words had lodged somewhere beneath his ribs like a splinter of light, impossible to ignore, impossible to pull free.

He turned to leave.

But before he could take a full step, the Oracle moved.

Her thin, knotted fingers shot out and wrapped around his wrist with startling strength.

Atlas froze.

For all her apparent frailty, her grip was firm—unyielding in a way that felt almost unnatural. Her hand was cold against his skin, colder than stone, colder than the shaded caverns of Lunaria, but the moment she touched him, a strange current passed through him. Not pain. Not exactly. More like recognition. Something old and buried shifting beneath the surface.

He looked down at her.

The Oracle remained seated upon her dais, her pale, clouded eyes fixed on him with unnerving intensity. In the dim amber glow of the tent, her face seemed even older somehow, every line and shadow deepened by the urgency gathering around them. Yet her voice, when she spoke, was warm—soft and low, carrying the cadence of something ancient whispered through ages.

"Let your dreams guide you," she murmured.

Outside, another voice shouted. Closer now.

"Check behind the market stalls!"

The Oracle's grip did not loosen.

"They are not visions of madness," she continued, her gaze never wavering from his. "They are memory. They are fate."

Atlas stood utterly still, caught in the gravity of her words.

Something inside him tightened painfully. That hollow ache in his chest—the one that had haunted him every night since the dreams began, the one he kept trying to bury beneath battle plans, discipline, and war—rose sharp and undeniable. The field of moonflowers flashed behind his eyes. The distant figure turning just out of reach. Eclipse-gold eyes. Light braided with shadow. A name breathed in the dark.

Brycian.

No.

Not just Brycian.

Something else. Something closer. Something truer.

The Oracle's fingers curled more firmly around his wrist, as though she could feel the fracture in his thoughts.

"Do not run from what you are," she whispered. "Your heart already knows the truth."

Outside the tent, boots thundered past. Canvas snapped somewhere nearby as another shelter was torn open. Villagers protested in frightened, strained voices before being shouted into silence.

"Do not let fear blind you," the Oracle said. "Trust it."

Her eyes sharpened somehow, pale and glowing in the dim.

"Trust him."

That last word struck harder than the rest.

Atlas stared at her, and for the briefest second the violet in his irises seemed to flicker, the strange inner light there brightening in response to something he could neither control nor understand. The ache inside him deepened, no longer just pain but longing—an old, unfinished thing stretched thin across distance, time, and memory.

He did not know what frightened him more: the prophecy, the truth she was pushing him toward, or the fact that some part of him had already begun to believe her.

Another shout rose outside.

"This one next!"

Ryn turned sharply from the flap, urgency flashing across his face. "Atlas."

That single word broke the moment.

Atlas exhaled once, slow and measured, and gently—almost reverently—pulled his wrist free from the Oracle's grasp. He did not speak. There was nothing he could say that would not sound like surrender, denial, or both. Instead, he gave the smallest nod, a silent acknowledgment that passed between them like an oath neither had the time to name.

Then he stepped back.

Without another word, he turned and slipped toward the rear opening of the tent, his cloak sweeping behind him in a dark trail like a wisp of moving shadow. The dim light caught briefly along the folds of black fabric before he vanished through the back flap into the narrow alley beyond.

Ryn followed a second later, though not before throwing one last glance over his shoulder at the Oracle.

Even now, with soldiers closing in and prophecy hanging in the air like smoke, he could not entirely help himself.

"Creepy old women and cryptic warnings," he muttered under his breath as he ducked out after Atlas. "Yep. Classic mission."

Then he was gone too.

The rear flap fell shut behind them, and with it, the tent seemed to exhale.

Silence returned—not complete, for the shouts and pounding boots still echoed distantly beyond the fabric walls—but quieter now, softened again into that strange sacred stillness that belonged only to the Oracle's sanctuary. Dust motes drifted through the lamplight. The incense still curled lazily through the air. The dais remained at the center of it all, ancient and unchanged, as though the room itself had already accepted that this moment had passed into memory.

The Oracle stayed where she was.

Her pale, moonstone eyes lingered on the place where Atlas had stood only moments before, as though she could still see the shape of him there—the hesitation, the awakening, the beginning of something he did not yet understand. For the first time since the two Lunarian warriors had entered her sanctuary, the severity of her face eased.

A small, knowing smile touched her mouth.

Not triumphant.

Not relieved.

Simply certain.

Her fingers settled once more atop the obsidian head of her cane as she lifted her gaze toward the dim curve of the tent ceiling, as though listening to movements far beyond the village, far beyond Solaria itself.

"The stars begin to move," she whispered into the hush.

Her voice was scarcely more than breath, but the words seemed to settle into the room like prophecy reborn.

𝐒𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐰𝐧 𝐒𝐮𝐧

The first and purest sun. It heralds the day with golden brilliance and breathes life into the land.

Time of Influence: Morning

Symbolism: Life, wisdom, rebirth

Eye Color: Yellow

Skin Tone: Olive

Astrological Birth Significance: Those born under Solis are seen as leaders, sages, or healers.

Worship: The Morning Choir greets Solis with offerings of song and solar-infused incense.

𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧 — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐧

The second and fiercest sun. It sears the skies at midday and feeds the engines of war.

Time of Influence: Afternoon

Symbolism: Strength, ambition, conquest

Eye Color: Bronze

Skin Tone: Brown

Astrological Birth Significance: Those born under Ignion are warriors, commanders, and innovators.

Worship: The Noon Rites are held in the Hall of Flames, where fire dancers offer tribute.

𝐕𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐧 — 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐧 / 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫

Forged in secret by King Helios during the Great War, Vireon is an artificial celestial body powered by siphoning energy from Solis and Ignion.

Time of Influence: Night (though it emits cold daylight)

Symbolism: Eternity, dominance, deception

Eye Color: Gold

Skin Tone: Tan

Astrological Birth Significance: Those born under Vireon are rare—enigmas, visionaries, or cursed prophets.

Worship: Forbidden in Lunarian texts, Vireon is worshipped in the Temple of Radiant Silence, a hidden chamber beneath the Citadel.

𝐄𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 – 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

The suns operate in asynchronous orbit, ensuring that at least one is always present in the sky. True night does not exist in Solaria—only different shades of light. Some call this the “Trinity Veil.”

However, this triadic solar harmony is unnatural.

When all three suns align, the energy grid of Solaria is pushed to its peak, creating immense solar storms and potentially triggering celestial anomalies (e.g., earthquakes, time fissures, energy blooms).

The Slow Decay: Since Vireon’s creation, Solaria is dying. The land cracks, resources evaporate faster, and solar radiation mutates both nature and people.