The Palace of the Sun was always too bright.

The light didn't just fall—it struck, unrelenting and hot, slicing through air thick with gold-dusted incense and divine expectation. It carved the shadows into sharp teeth, glinting off golden walls and silver floors until they reflected every angle he despised, refracted, and cruel.

Aelorian hated it.

He hated the way the heat scalded his lungs, too delicate for the fire-blessed air of the temple. Hated the stink of sacred oils, thick and cloying, layered over his skin like a second, unasked-for soul. Hated the collar clasped tight around his throat—sun-wrought, ceremonial, unbearably heavy—as if the very gods had decided his bones should learn obedience the hard way.

But he looked stunning. Of course he did. He had no other choice.

His hair—pitch black, rare among his kind—fell like a veil of starless midnight, darker than the space between galaxies and bound in ribbons kissed with sunfire and moonstone. His skin gleamed like moonlight through frostglass, too pale, too perfect, chest marked with celestial sigils that shimmered faintly with every breath he dared to take. The robes were stitched from threads of fire itself, thousands of years old, and worth more than entire provinces. His mother had worn them, and her mother before. His silver eyes were lined in gold and fury.

He walked like a god, even as he felt like a prisoner.

And the altar awaited him.

The Sun-Priest stood at its gilded edge, smiling with all the warmth of a cold blade. His name was Seredane Auralux Vethrion of the First Flame, though none dared speak it aloud. Not unless they wished to wake screaming—choking on fire, their dreams scorched hollow from the inside out.

He was unnecessarily tall, towering over anyone who dared approach him. A figure wreathed in sacred terror, robed in layers of living gold that flickered and hissed with tongues of sunfire. His eyes were twin furnaces—lit not with light, but with the kind of burning that left no ashes behind. The kind that devoured from within.

Every step Aelorian took toward him felt like death. Like surrendering his ribs to the pyre. His celestial markings pulsed faintly beneath the thin silk of his ceremonial robes—sigils of moon and starlight struggling to survive in a place built for flame.

He didn't bow. He didn’t flinch.

And as Aelorian approached, slowly--beautifully, each step matching the rhythm of the harp playing in the corner--Seredane reached for him with one pale, fire-veined hand and whispered, "My beautiful bride."

The words coiled like smoke around Aelorian's throat, tightening like a vice.

Seredane tilted his head, gazing down at him with nauseating intensity. Unholy reverence. 

"Tonight, you will burn for me," he whispered, "I will kiss the stars from your skin, peel the names of your ancestors from your elven tongue, and make your screams part of the hymns. You were born for this altar. You were born for me."

Aelorian's spine went stiff. Rage and fear warred in his chest like twin wolves going at each other. His elegant fingers twitched at his sides, desperate to relinquish a horrified scream and claw at the collar around his neck. But he only smiled beneath his star-embroidered veil--slow, sly, wicked. 

"Then I hope you enjoy the ashes, my excellence," he murmured, voice silk-smoothed and shaking, rage glimmering like a diamond about to crack.

And Seredane smiled. Not with cruelty. Not with surprise. But with the slow blooming satisfaction of a god who had heard every protest, every scream, and prayer, and still reached down with burning hands to take what he wanted. "Oh, my beautiful little moonbeam," he whispered, stepping closer. The sacred fires behind him pulsed like a heartbeat, "There is nothing you could give me that I would not take."

Then he touched him.

Just the slightest touch. Fingers, glowing faintly gold, lifted to gently move aside Aelorian's veil. The contact singed the fabric black, seared through it like a brand. Divine heat, soft and slow and horrifying in its intimacy, echoed heat across his cheek. Not enough to burn just yet. But enough to promise. 

Aelorian couldn't scream. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe, not yet.

Seredane leaned down, lips brushing just above his ear. His voice dropped to something ruinous. "You will glow for me, little star. I'll make sure of it. I'll make a pyre of your resistance and light the heavens with your screams when you finally surrender."

Aelorian flinched just once.

That was all it took.

Then he turned and ran.

Gasps rang through the temple like bells. One. Two. Three. Shock blooming like fire across the crowd. Sacred flames guttered in his wake as his veil tore against jagged gold and glass, trailing like smoke behind him. His slippers skidded across the polished floor—too smooth, too slick—but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

Someone shouted his name. Someone else screamed, “Blasphemy!” A whizened priest lunged and missed, fingers grazing nothing but fire-kissed silk. Another threw a warding rune, but it sizzled uselessly against the hem of his robes before sputtering out. The Sun-Priest’s voice rose like thunder, like prophecy: “Seal the gates!”

But they were too slow.

Because Aelorian knew this place.

Knew the hidden arches and prayer doors long forgotten. Knew where the sun didn’t reach, and the shadows whispered secrets only he had ever listened to. Knew the cracks in the palace’s golden shell—because he’d been born into its marrow.

He ducked beneath a lattice of golden thorns, slid behind an incense brazier taller than he was, and vanished into the corridor beyond. Robes billowed behind him, scorched veil flying like a comet’s tail. He was barefoot now, running hard enough to choke, every breath a furnace.

And God's help them—he was laughing.

Laughing like a heretic. Like a thing unholy and beautiful, a vision in disarray, light-struck and breathless and finally, finally free. His laughter echoed through the halls like prophecy rewritten, and then it, too, was gone into the darkness.

The Sun may have claimed him.

But the Moon had always been watching.

For a breathless moment, the temple held its silence like a wound.

The sacred flames hissed and dimmed. Smoke curled along the altar. The veil still smoldered where it had fallen—half-burned, kissed by godfire, desecrated by flight.

And Seredane Auralux Vethrion of the First Flame did not move.

He stood at the altar, hand still outstretched, fingers twitching slightly where they had touched silk and not skin, promise and not surrender. His smile was gone. His eyes, lit with ancient, ruinous fire, no longer glowed. They blazed.

“Find him,” he said softly.

No one moved.

The priests–those robed sycophants, those trembling worms—stood frozen like statues, waiting for him to calm. For mercy. For direction.

But there would be no mercy.

There would be no calm.

“FIND HIM!” Seredane roared, voice cracking like thunder, like sky split by wrath. “Bring me my bride or burn with him!”

The flames in the temple exploded.

Columns trembled. Gold ran molten down the walls. The glass mosaics wept, cracking with heat, depicting saints who now screamed silently in their frames. The great sun-disc above the altar spun once, violently, before crashing to the floor in a shattering of divine metal and sacred ash.

“Seal every gate,” Seredane growled, stalking down the steps like a lion made of fury. “Search the tunnels. The servants' halls. The crypts. The tombs. Do not let that elf leave these walls.”

“But… my lord,” one of the lower priests stammered, “he—he knows the palace. The shadows. We—we trained him to—”

“To obey,” Seredane snarled, wheeling on the fool. His aura flared hot and horrible, and the priest dropped to his knees, smoking at the edges. “We trained him to belong to me.”

A pause. A breath. The divine fire around him pulsed once, steady and sick with longing.

Seredane’s voice dropped to a whisper—more dangerous than a scream.“Aelorian Moonbeam Ithrienel is mine. Mine to anoint. Mine to consecrate. Mine to break.” He turned his gaze upward, toward the cracked dome of the temple where stars now winked in through the smoke. His voice coiled like incense through the ruin.

“Run, little moonbeam. Run far, and run fast. Burn bright in the dark... while you still can.”

And behind him, the temple began to burn.