The emptiness no longer felt like a part of him; rather, it was him.
Standing knee-deep in the glass sea, Ethan observed how the waking world's reflections shifted across its surface.
Mara's face.
Jarek's slow transformation.
The marked children's recovery.
But something was wrong.
What was there was not reflected in the water.
It was a reflection of the possibilities.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
Not Mara's. Not the Duskheir's.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
…..
Her name was Veyra.
Standing next to him in the glass sea, she had robes made of what appeared to be shadow and starlight, and her body was neither spectral nor solid.
Her face was divided diagonally by a jagged scar; one side was human, and the other was something else.
Ethan took a step back.
"Who—?"
"The first failure," she said bitterly. "The Duskheir before the Duskheirs."
Her words caused the sea to tremble.
Veyra bent down and ran her fingers across the glass.
The pictures changed.
An older hunger.
A star not yet numbered.
A ceremony of fusion rather than severing.
"They called us the Dawnheirs once," she whispered. "Before the hunger corrupted the name."
Ethan's void-form thumped.
"You tried to merge with the Star."
Veyra's scarred face twisted.
"We were successful"
…..
The first marked child's scar began to light.
As the others slept, Mara felt the slight vibration beneath the boy's skin and pressed her palm to his chest.
Not a melody, a chant.
Ancient words.
Familiar words.
"Veyra of the Shattered Dawn," she breathed.
Jarek's thorn pounded in answer.
…..
The glass sea parted, revealing a memory not his own.
Veyra is standing in front of an altar made of living light rather than stone.
Her hands were joined by those of twelve others.
A man, rather than a star, is the thirteenth figure, offering them a cup of liquid shadow.
"We drank," Veyra said. "And became the first vessels."
Ethan stumbled as his vision changed.
A glimpse of the man's face appeared.
Jarek's face.
But not Jarek.
…..
The carving was discovered by chance by Mara.
A mural showing thirteen figures kneeling before a robed man is concealed behind a wall that has collapsed beneath the coastal cave's ruins.
The style was unmistakable.
Ravenscroft.
However, the date engraved below was thousands of years before the family's history was written down.
Looking over her shoulder was the first marked child.
"That's him," the boy whispered. "The Thirsty King."
"The Star was never the enemy," Veyra stated, her voice trailing off. "It served as a weapon. His weapon."
Ethan's empty hands shook.
"Who?"
The glass sea let out a cry
and shattered.
…..
Jarek's thorn burst into light.
Not emerald.
Not a gold one.
But in black.
The same black as the cup in the mural.
The same shade of black as Veyra's scar.
Mara reached for him, when the chant of the first marked child intensified, as the walls of the coastal cave bled, and in the remains of the glass sea, Ethan saw with horror as the reflections changed, revealing a future already in motion rather than the present.
A familiar thorn being lifted by a man wearing Ravenscroft robes.
Not to sever.
But to drink.
…..
Something stirred far below the ruins, in a tomb not supposed to be discovered.
Not a star.
Not one of the Duskheirs.
The first hunger.
And it remembered its name.