Beyond Worlds, Beneath the Star God

The wind outside Emberhold had changed.

Gone was the dry heat, the whisper of ash and soot that had become so familiar. Now, there was moisture in the air. Thick. Cold. Wrong.

Mist rolled in from the northern valleys—unnatural, laced with a pale violet hue that shimmered even in darkness. The fire-rivers dimmed. Torches along the outposts sputtered.

And those who wandered too close to the fog... never returned awake.

---

Signs of the Witch

It began with whispers.

A farmer's wife claimed her husband no longer slept—only stared at the ceiling, muttering numbers in an ancient tongue. A child was found walking in a perfect spiral until his feet bled. A patrolman dreamed of drowning in fire, and never woke up.

Within two days, thirteen villagers were comatose.

On the third day, they began to speak—in the same voice.

> "Bring the Spark."

> "She waits in the mist."

---

Council of Fire

Inside the Pyrean Spire's council chamber, a crisis meeting was called.

Ignarok stood silent, arms crossed, his presence like a caged inferno. Beside him sat the high priestesses, Elandor, Rein, and Kun.

Lyra paced.

"This isn't natural fog," she said. "It resists heat. It kills light."

Elandor nodded. "There's only one entity we know who can bend fire and thought."

Kun finished the sentence.

> "Seryna. The Dream Witch."

Ignarok's fists crackled. "One of the Nine. Nethershade's mental blade."

"She doesn't fight," Elandor added grimly. "She unravels."

---

The Call of the Fog

That night, Kun felt it.

A pulling.

It wasn't physical. It wasn't even emotional. It was like... part of his fire was leaking, evaporating into something that called it by name.

He walked alone to the edge of Emberhold's shieldwall, where the flame-turrets had dimmed. Rein had wanted to come, but Kun refused. This wasn't a battle for blades.

It was one of will.

The mist thickened around him.

And then...

She spoke.

---

The Witch Appears

The fog coalesced into a shape.

First smoke. Then silk. Then a woman—tall, slender, dressed in rippling layers of midnight blue, her face half-concealed by a mask shaped like a sleeping moon.

Hair like drifting ink.

Eyes of opalescent fog.

"Fireboy," she whispered, voice like honeyed static. "How far you've come. And how fast you burn."

Kun clenched his fists. "You're one of the Nine."

Seryna tilted her head.

"I'm the one who watched your spark flicker from the moment you landed. You shine so brightly… and yet you are still trapped in dreams not your own."

---

Dreamtrap

Suddenly, the ground fell.

Not physically—but perceptually.

The world around Kun fractured. One moment, he was on the plains outside Emberhold. The next, he stood inside his childhood bedroom—on Earth. The Earth he left long ago. The air smelled of ozone and plastic and old books.

His mother sat at the table, smiling. His father looked up from a newspaper. They were alive. Untouched by space. By fire.

"Welcome home, Kun," his mother said softly.

For a moment... his knees weakened.

And then—

He punched the wall.

The illusion cracked.

"I don't dream lies," Kun hissed.

Seryna appeared beside the kitchen lamp, sipping tea from an invisible cup.

"Oh but you do, little Spark. You dream of being a hero. You dream of saving them. That's the cruelest lie of all."

---

Combat of Wills

The illusion shifted.

Now they stood on a burning version of Emberhold—its towers crumbling, rivers turned to lava. Lyra screamed in the distance. Rein's sword lay broken. Elandor dissolved into ash.

Seryna circled Kun, her voice inside his mind.

> "You're too late." "Your fire won't save them." "They'll burn because you weren't strong enough."

The words slithered inside his skull.

And still... he stood.

"I've already burned once," he growled. "I died in a star. I died in the dark. But fire doesn't end."

He raised his palm.

And for the first time in this realm, his flame answered.

---

The Starfire Dreamblade

A sword formed—not of steel, but of condensed memory-fire.

Every dream he had survived.

Every fear he had conquered.

Every face he had protected.

The blade hummed with impossible energy—pale gold, ringed with ancient equations, coded in languages long forgotten by Earth.

Kun swung.

Seryna tried to retreat, but the edge nicked her silk form.

She gasped—not from pain, but shock.

"Impossible," she hissed. "This is my domain."

"Not anymore," Kun said. "I carry fire that dreams back."

---

Mist Retreats

The dream shattered like glass.

Kun awoke kneeling at the mist's edge.

The fog began to recoil, slowly, as if afraid. Within minutes, it retreated entirely—pulling away from the outposts, the villagers, the farmlands.

The comatose woke.

Their eyes returned to normal.

The whispering ceased.

Seryna was gone.

But the mark on Kun's palm remained: a crescent moon burned into his skin, still pulsing.

---

Aftermath

Elandor examined the sigil with narrowed eyes.

"She touched your mind. That mark… is not hers."

Kun raised a brow. "Then whose?"

Lyra stepped beside him. "I think… it's the next lock."