Chapter 1 — The Song Beneath the Eclipse

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“They said I was born beneath a dying sun —
but no one told me that the darkness would sing my name.”

The wind howled through the spires of the Salastian Palace as if the empire itself remembered fear. The moon hung half-shrouded by cloud, its pale light fractured across the marble floors of the grand hall. Between the flicker of torches and the taste of ash in the air, a young girl stood barefoot amid the remnants of what had been a celebration.

Her silver-gold hair — the hue of dawn breaking over frost — clung to her cheeks, streaked with soot. Around her, the banners of the royal crest smoldered where flame had kissed silk. She looked not at the destruction, but at the great mirror that towered before the throne.

And in its cracked reflection, she saw another face staring back — not hers, but something ancient, eyes like eclipsed stars.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The voice that answered was not spoken aloud.
It bloomed inside her mind like a forgotten melody.

—You are the song I left unfinished.

Then, silence.

The palace doors burst open. Knights flooded in — their armor clanging, their swords drawn. “Your Highness! Princess Seraphine!” cried Captain Lioren, dropping to one knee. “Stay back! The corridor isn’t safe!”

But the girl — sixteen years old, barely grown yet crowned by moonlight — only turned once, her gaze distant.

“I’ve seen this before,” she murmured. “In my dreams.”

And then the world fell away into memory.

❈ Sixteen Years Earlier

It was raining when the first cry echoed through the halls of the Imperial Wing. The storm had raged for hours, hammering the glass domes and sweeping the courtyards clean of petals from the winter gardens. And when the cry came, thunder answered — as though the heavens themselves declared witness.

Elisana Laurel De Claire, Empress of Salastian, wept and laughed all at once as the midwife placed the small, wailing bundle into her arms. “She’s perfect,” she whispered, tracing her daughter’s tiny fingers. “Marcus… she’s perfect.”

Marcus Alastair Von Salastian stood beside her, the Emperor’s crown set aside on a nearby table, forgotten. He was smiling — truly smiling — for the first time in years. “Seraphine,” he said softly. “The name of dawn and twilight. Our sun and moon.”

Outside, the rain ceased. A beam of light broke through the parting clouds — not gold, but silver, shimmering like a second moon had risen in the storm’s wake. The court priests would later call it an omen. The child of light and shadow, born beneath an eclipse.

But that night, they were only parents.

❈ The Years of Light

Time, in the palace, passed like music — slow, deliberate, and full of hidden notes.

Seraphine grew beneath the twin gazes of moon and sun — her mother’s calm wisdom, her father’s unrelenting warmth. She learned to walk along the reflecting pools where Elisana once sought solace. She laughed through the corridors that once echoed with her parents’ arguments. And she brought color back to the empire’s heart.

At five, she conjured her first spark of magic — not flame nor frost, but a shimmer of light that sang when it danced. The court magisters were confounded. “Not of the known schools,” one muttered. “It is harmony itself.”

At nine, she saw the first vision — a sea of stars falling into darkness. When she told her mother, Elisana brushed her hair and said gently, “Not all dreams are meant to frighten us. Some are warnings, others are calls.”

At twelve, she overheard the priests whispering in the solar chapel. “The eclipse returns every century. It marks the rise of an heir who will decide the balance of night and day.”
The words followed her for years, like a song half-remembered.

But the court adored her. The empire flourished. The child born beneath the storm had become its jewel — the Princess of Dusk and Dawn.

Yet in the quiet of her chamber, Seraphine sometimes saw her reflection waver — as if another silhouette stood behind her, watching.

❈ The Twilight of Certainty

When Seraphine turned fifteen, the first crack in the empire’s peace appeared.

Reports arrived of villages on the western borders losing light for days — the sun dimming, torches failing, crops wilting overnight. Some said the air itself grew heavy, thick with shadows that whispered prayers in forgotten tongues.

Her father sent knights. Her mother sent healers. But both returned with only confusion and fear.

That winter, during the Festival of Unity, Seraphine stood before the grand mirror in the throne hall — the same mirror that once reflected her parents’ coronation. She watched the court’s laughter ripple across the polished floor, and for a moment she saw it again — that second face.

Eyes like eclipsed stars. Lips forming her name.

Seraphine.

The crystal chandeliers above her trembled, their light dimming for the briefest heartbeat.

Then all returned to normal.

She told no one.

❈ Now — Beneath the Eclipse

The memory dissolved like mist, and the hall’s silence returned.

“Your Highness, we must leave!” Captain Lioren insisted, his gauntlet closing around her arm. The knights surrounded her, forming a circle of steel. Beyond the shattered doors, the sound of clashing steel echoed down the corridors. Smoke drifted from the upper wings.

“Where are my parents?” Seraphine asked quietly.

“The Emperor and Empress are safe — they were moved to the east courtyard. But we must move you now!”

Seraphine looked once more at the mirror. The crack that had run through its center now glowed faintly, like a vein of molten silver. She lifted her hand to it — the surface rippled, humming.

A voice whispered again, soft as breath.

—They think you are the dawn, little one. But you were born of dusk.

The torches flared, extinguished, then reignited all at once — burning blue.

The knights gasped. “Protect the Princess!”

But Seraphine did not move. Her pulse slowed. Her eyes glowed faintly, the same hue as moonlight on water.

“I remember now,” she whispered. “This is where the song begins.”