Jurgis gently nudged the large, scaly beast that had plastered itself to his boot. “There, there, little fellow. No need to look so glum. A brief nap might do you good.” He glanced down at the sobbing man at his feet, still clutching his shin. “Are you certain you don’t require a compress, friend? You seem quite overwhelmed.” Zoritsa, her lungs aching, forced air in. The azure orb in Jurgis’s hand pulsed softly, an almost imperceptible hum that only she could truly feel. It was a fragment of the Aetheric Core, a sliver of the world’s primal magic, now a plaything. If Jurgis truly understood its power, if he even *focused* on it—the repercussions were unthinkable. This wasn’t a mere magical artifact; it was a cosmic fulcrum, capable of dismantling reality itself with a casual thought. She had to get it away from him. Her mission depended on his stability, not his accidental omnipotence. “Jurgis,” her voice was a strained whisper, “the stone. Please, set it down.” Jurgis blinked, turning the orb over in his palm. “This? It’s just a pretty rock I found by the river. Thought it might look nice in the garden.” He offered it to Zoritsa with a small, hopeful smile. “Do you like it?” Her hand twitched, a sudden, desperate urge to snatch it away warring with the icy understanding that any sudden move might trigger something truly catastrophic. The assassin, still sniffling, chose that moment to push himself to his knees. “Oh, Silent Star, your magnanimity knows no bounds! To offer such a celestial relic to a mortal, even one as radiant as Archmage Zoritsa, truly you are the harbinger of a new dawn!” Volos, who had been attempting to burrow into the earth, scrambled upright. “Indeed, Master! Though, if I may be so bold, perhaps the Archmage’s hands are not quite… worthy of such a divine implement? Might I suggest a ceremonial velvet cushion, embroidered with threads of moonlight and the tears of vanquished foes?” He shot a baleful glare at Zoritsa, his tiny red eyes glinting with possessive fury. Jurgis, though, ignored them all. His gaze lingered on Zoritsa’s pale face, the subtle tremor in her hands. The memory of Lija’s star-dusted letter, the sudden violent flash of a truth he hadn’t understood before, now clicked into place with a chilling certainty. There was a secret here, one that linked Lija’s death to this world, to Zoritsa. He felt a deep, unsettling suspicion settle in his heart, a cold counterpoint to the grief that usually consumed him. “Archmage Zoritsa,” Jurgis said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual gentle lilt. “I believe I’ve seen enough of the Zeleny Forest for one day. I have some… research to conduct. Would you care to join me at the Great Repository?” Zoritsa’s composure, usually unshakeable, fractured. The abrupt shift in Jurgis’s demeanor was unnerving. The casual offer of the core fragment, followed by a direct, unblinking challenge. She knew. Or, at least, he suspected. The game had changed. “Of course, Jurgis,” she managed, her voice steadier than she felt. “Lead the way.” Leaving the still prostrate creatures and the utterly bewildered assassin, Jurgis walked with purpose towards the Vytis repository. Volos, sensing the shift in his master’s mood, abandoned his theatrics and stalked beside him, a dark, protective wisp. The Great Repository was a labyrinth of towering shelves and dried calfskin, smelling of tallow and cedar. Sentient tomes, bound in leathers of every conceivable creature, stirred on their shelves, their spines humming with latent knowledge. Jurgis strode directly to the restricted section, an area usually locked behind complex warding spells. He didn’t notice the wards part like mist before him, nor the startled gasps of the few scholars present. “We need to find information,” Jurgis murmured, running a hand over a leather-bound volume that pulsed with a faint, blue light. “On… transitions. Transfers of being. Stellar phenomena linked to, well, people.” Volos, eager to impress, expanded slightly, his smoky form stretching towards a particularly ornery-looking grimoire. “Fear not, my Lord! Duke Volos, servant to the Silent Star, shall extract all necessary intel!” He extended a shadowy tendril, poking the grimoire’s cover. “Speak, foul collection of calfskin! Yield your secrets, or suffer the indignity of being… *reorganized*!” The grimoire, a compendium of forgotten curses, shivered violently, its pages flipping open to a random entry before slamming shut with a frustrated thud. Other books along the shelf rattled in protest. Jurgis, meanwhile, was oblivious, his eyes scanning titles, his mouth set in a firm, bloodless crease. His fingers brushed against a narrow, unassuming volume, bound in a dull, grey hide. There was no title on its spine, only a faint, almost invisible symbol – a broken star. He pulled it from the shelf. It felt strangely cool to the touch. He opened it, the brittle pages whispering a forgotten language. It wasn’t a formal magical text, but a collection of apocryphal legends and chilling whispers from cultures long vanished. One passage, scrawled in an elegant, spidery hand, arrested him. It spoke of the ‘Star-Eater,’ an entity that consumed worlds and souls, trading fragments of its own power for the essence of others. It detailed the ‘Harvest of the Core,’ a process by which chosen vessels, ‘Stellarian Heralds,’ were prepared to receive and refine the raw power of a displaced cosmic being. And then, the critical detail: *“These Heralds bear a unique signature, a faint, resonant hum in their very essence, a harmonic echo of the Star-Eater’s own being. It is an imprint, cold and bright, like frozen starlight.”* Jurgis’s gaze snapped up from the page. He knew that hum. He’d felt it before, a strange, appealing warmth in Zoritsa’s presence, one he’d mistaken for budding affection. He focused, pushing past his own grief-induced emotional fog, and reached for the faintest echo of that sensation within his own newly awakened senses. It was there, unmistakably, woven into the fabric of Zoritsa’s magic. Just as the realization solidified into a terrifying certainty, a soft cough broke the silence. Zoritsa stood a few feet away, having followed him discreetly. Her eyes were fixed on the book in his hands, then on his face, reading the dawning horror there. She knew he knew. “Jurgis,” she began, her voice carefully modulated, “what are you reading?” He slowly closed the book, his fingers white-knuckled on the grey cover. He looked at her, truly looked, and saw the faint, shimmering resonance around her, a signature that now screamed 'Star-Eater's Herald'. “The star-dusted letter, Zoritsa,” he said, his voice a low growl she’d never heard from him. “Lija’s desk. Before the accident. What was it? What did it contain? And what is this… *signature*… I feel from you?” Zoritsa flinched, her carefully constructed facade finally cracking. Her mouth worked, either to offer an excuse or spin a falsehood, but before she could utter a single syllable, the air buckled with a foul, guttural blast. A sickening crunch echoed through the campus, followed by a chorus of terrified screams. The protective runes lining the stone arches shrieked, then snapped into blue sparks. A massive tremor ripped through the ground, sending books tumbling from shelves, and ancient stone groaning under an unbearable strain. The ceiling above them began to split, dust and chunks of masonry raining down. The demonic energy was unmistakable, a corrupting, festering force utterly alien to Volos’s playful despair. It was raw, unadulterated malevolence, fueled by a rage Jurgis recognized as uniquely Radvilan. With a final, deafening roar, the ceiling directly above them exploded inward. A gargantuan form, wreathed in tendrils of obsidian shadow and crackling with dark lightning, smashed through the gaping hole, its eyes burning with infernal malice. It was a creature of pure destruction, a monstrous demon loyal to the Radvilas, and it was reaching for Jurgis.

A Truth in the Archives