They came to the Cairn of First Night on the night of the second moon.
Star and Elandor rode at the head of a small, grim company: Duchess Calera, Lila (now wearing scout leathers instead of a maid's dress), a dozen of the king's best, and Advisor Thorne, mask gleaming like a second moon. The standing stones rose out of the mist like the ribs of some dead god, green fire flickering between them.
The woman with silver hair waited in the center, barefoot, smiling like a mother welcoming children home.
But she was not alone.
A man stepped from the shadows beside her.
Tall. Older than mountains, younger than dawn. Skin pale as moonlight on bone, hair the color of spilled ink that moved even when the wind did not. Eyes like twin voids that had forgotten how to hold light. He wore robes of deep indigo stitched with constellations that slowly shifted when no one was looking directly at them.
He carried no weapon.
He did not need one.
The woman (Maevor's twin, the Dreaming Queen) inclined her head.
"May I present my brother-in-arms," she said, voice soft as grave soil. "Cassian of the Hollow Sky. The man who sold the stars to forge the Shadow Crown."
Cassian smiled, and the temperature dropped ten degrees.
"I prefer architect," he said. His voice was beautiful the way a blade is beautiful: clean, cold, and designed to cut. "I pulled a star from the heavens, melted it in dragonfire, and gave Maevor a crown that could bind the realm's fate to a single bloodline. In return he promised me one thing."
He looked straight at Star.
"The next star-born soul."
Star's birthmark flared white-hot under his shirt. He tasted iron.
Elandor stepped half in front of him, sword half-drawn. "You'll have to go through me first."
Cassian's void eyes shifted to the king, amused.
"Oh, I intend to go through both of you," he said pleasantly. "One to wear the crown. One to fuel it. Love makes the binding sweeter. I have waited centuries for a pair foolish enough to mingle their blood and challenge fate. Thank you for the gift."
The Dreaming Queen laughed, a sound like ice cracking.
"Cassian and I have different tastes," she continued. "I want the kingdom broken into seven screaming pieces so I may rule the ruins. He wants the stars themselves to bow. The crown will give us both."
Cassian lifted one pale hand. The constellations on his sleeves writhed, leapt off the cloth, and became real: pinpricks of cold light that hung in the air like frozen fireflies.
"Seven moons remain," he said. "Each moon I will take one memory from the star-born. By the seventh, he will not remember his own name, much less the man he claims to love. Then he will beg to wear the crown, and the king will beg to let him."
He flicked a finger.
A single star-point shot forward, faster than sight, and buried itself in Star's chest right over his birthmark.
Star gasped. Memory ripped away: the taste of his mother's bread, the warmth of Daisy the cow against his cheek, the first time Elandor ever smiled at him in the forest. Gone. A hollow space where they used to live.
He staggered. Elandor caught him, roaring Cassian's name like a war cry.
Cassian only smiled wider.
"One down," he said. "Six left. I'll see you next moon, little star."
Then the green fire flared, the standing stones screamed, and the two ancient sorcerers were simply gone, leaving only the echo of laughter and the smell of burnt ozone.
Elandor held Star as he shook, tears on his cheeks that he didn't understand.
"I lost something," Star whispered, terrified. "I can't remember what."
Elandor's arms tightened until they hurt.
"Then I'll remember for both of us," he swore against Star's hair. "Every moon, every memory he steals, I will tell you again who you are. Who we are. Until there is nothing left he can take."
Far away, in the dark between stars, Cassian turned to the Dreaming Queen.
"They will fight harder now," he said, almost fondly.
"Good," she answered. "The sweeter the despair when they lose."
Six moons.
Six memories.
One crown.
One love that would either break the world or remake it.
The game had only just begun.