Jurgis blinked, turning from the now empty space where a moment ago a monstrous shadow had loomed. “Well, that’s that, I suppose,” he murmured, a faint sigh escaping him. He looked at Zoritsa, whose face was a canvas of horror. “Are you alright, Zoritsa? You look a bit pale. We should steep some chamomile.” Before Zoritsa could even process his casual tone, a tremor ran through the stone floor beneath their feet. Not a ground-shaking impact, but an unfamiliar vibration that rattled the loose gravel in the mortar joints. A low, keening sound, like a thousand grinding stones, began to emanate from high above. “No,” Zoritsa breathed, her voice a thin thread. Her head snapped back, her gaze tearing away from Jurgis to the vaulted ceiling of the archive, now miraculously intact after the demon’s abrupt disappearance. “It’s too soon. He sensed it.” The keening grew into a bellow. The sky outside, visible through the shattered remnants of the archive’s grand observatory dome, began to tear. Not clouds parting, but the deep azure itself, like a vast, ancient parchment ripped from end to end. Through the rent, not stars, but a churning, hungry darkness spilled forth, a cosmic bruise spreading across the daylight. It pulsed with an unholy non-light, drawing in the visible spectrum around it, making the world grow dim and grey, as if all joy and vibrancy were being siphoned away. Students’ screams, thin and panicked, echoed from across the campus. Towers, once proud and adorned with intricate carvings, began to list, their magically reinforced stone dissolving into motes of ash that were instantly sucked into the expanding rift in the heavens. The very air grew cold, not with the chill of winter, but with the barren emptiness of deep space. Zoritsa staggered, her hand flying to her chest, where the communication crystal normally resided, now replaced by a raw, aching guilt. This was her fault. The Star-Eater was here, drawn by the raw force Jurgis had unleashed and by her frantic confession. He had come to claim his prize, and in doing so, devour the continent. “Jurgis, you have to run,” she choked out, pushing him roughly. “Now! You’re the only one who can escape this. Go! Go as far as you can!” She began to channel what little magic she had left, a thin, straining shield forming around them. The spell felt like a whisper against a gale, a fragile membrane against the crushing emptiness descending from above. She knew it wouldn’t hold, not against this. It might buy him a handful of heartbeats. Jurgis, however, didn’t budge. He looked up at the rent sky, then back at Zoritsa, a puzzled frown on his face. “Run where, Zoritsa? My memorial garden is here. And you are here.” He reached out, taking her trembling hand in his. His grip was steady, warm, and steadying amidst the encroaching void. “I made a promise to myself. I won’t lose someone I care for again.” Before either of them could say more, a cacophony erupted from the main campus courtyard. A familiar, overly dramatic wail sliced through the panicked cries of the students. “My Sovereign! My radiant, casually unbothered Liege!” Duke Volos’s form, usually a theatrical swirl of gloom, was now a frantic blur. He materialized atop the Arch-Rector’s tower, his voice amplified by some dark, resonant magic. “The Silent Star wishes to preserve! Not to unmake! Not to devour! This… *thing*… offends his quiet sensibilities!” Below him, in the courtyard, a shocking sight unfolded. The remaining Radvila siblings, their faces stark with terror but their gazes blazing with reckless devotion, stood shoulder to shoulder with the academy’s few remaining wardens. Even the disgraced Radvila patriarch, his pact-demon gone, now clutched a family heirloom—a glowing, arcane shield—his features twisted in a defiant scowl. They were few, their magic dwarfed by the encroaching doom, but they stood their ground. “For the Silent Star!” Volos shrieked, his own shadow magic weaving into a vast, defensive curtain that shimmered with despair, a strange counterpoint to the hopeful light of the Radvila shield. “He wishes peace! He wishes… *gardens*! Hold the line, you pathetic mortals! Show this cosmic blight the folly of disturbing my Sovereign's quiet hours!” The joined sorcery of the faculty, fueled by Volos's hysterical antics and the Radvilas' panicked resolve, erected a shimmering, multi-hued barrier around the main academy grounds. It was a valiant, utterly futile effort, a flickering candle against the vastness of the Star-Eater’s hunger, but it bought Jurgis and Zoritsa a moment, a sliver of time, as the world's destruction seemed to slow, diverted by the stubborn, screaming defiance. Jurgis watched the desperate stand, a stillness settling over him. He felt the pull of the Star-Eater, a cold, empty ache that resonated with the profound void Lija’s death had left within him. This entity didn’t want to fight; it wanted to consume. It wanted the source of his boundless, chaotic power, which he now understood was inextricably linked to his grief. He turned to Zoritsa, who was staring at the rallying defense with wide, frozen eyes. “There’s another way,” Jurgis said, his voice quiet but firm, cutting through the distant roars of the consuming rift. “It’s not about fighting it.” Zoritsa looked at him, her knuckles pressing white against her skirt. “What are you saying, Jurgis? There is no bargaining with the Star-Eater. It only takes.” “Maybe,” Jurgis replied, his gaze fixed on the churning darkness above. “But I have something it truly desires, something it can’t simply take without a cost. Every thought I keep of Lija. The reason I am… this.” He squeezed her hand, his thumb tracing patterns on her palm. “My grief is its fuel, isn’t it? The reason I have this power.” He took a deep breath, the cold emptiness in the air filling his lungs. “I’ll offer it a pact. My memories of Lija, every single one of them, the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, all of it. In exchange, you are free, and this world… this realm… it gets to keep its sky. It gets to have its quiet afternoon teas.” Zoritsa gasped, her fingers digging into his forearm. “No! Jurgis, you can’t! To surrender her, you hollow out your own chest! It’s the very core of who you are, the last piece of Lija you have left!” Jurgis gave her a small, melancholic smile. “Lija wouldn’t want me to live in eternal sorrow, Zoritsa. She would want me to live, truly live. And to protect the people I care about.” He looked back at the sky, his voice now ringing with a quiet, immovable weight that cut through the cosmic wail. “Star-Eater! I offer you a true feast! My grief, my sorrow, the very root of my power! Take my memories of Lija, every single one, in exchange for Zoritsa’s life, and the preservation of Vaidima! Do you accept this pact?” The churning darkness above paused. The grinding wail softened, replaced by a deep, resonant hum that vibrated in Jurgis’s very bones. Then, from the heart of the rift, tendrils of inky, starless light, thin as spider silk but radiating an ancient hunger, began to descend towards Jurgis’s head.

Crown of Stars