Burning Starlight Supplemental 1: Tales of Empire
Chapter 1: Unexpected Fragility
Vylaas knelt on the soft earth, his hands trembling as he carefully wound a strip of fabric around the bird’s wounded wing. The creature shuddered under his touch, its dark eyes wide with fear, but it did not try to escape. A flash of silky white feathers caught the sunlight streaming through the latticework of the palace gardens as its small chest heaved, rising and falling like the rhythm of sorrow. Vylaas clenched his jaw, willing himself to be steady.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the rustle of wind through the high hedges. His delicate fingers worked the bandage into place, pulling it just tight enough to hold, but not so tight that it would hurt. “I promise.”
Promises. Vylaas was good at making them—to himself, to others, to the fragile creatures of the world that often ended up in his care. He’d found this bird near the outer courtyard wall, its broken wing a casualty of some distant, careless violence—perhaps a stone cast by a servant boy, or the aftermath of a passing falcon’s hunt. The gardens were littered with such remnants, the fragile beauty of life scattered amidst the neatly trimmed lawns and polished walkways that mirrored the angular perfection of the palace beyond.
The bird chirped feebly, its sound like glass fracturing underfoot. Vylaas’s stomach twisted. He stroked its uninjured wing with his thumb, a hesitant, awkward gesture of comfort, knowing full well that survival was far from guaranteed. The garden hummed with the indifferent pulse of life: the soft buzz of insects, the distant splash of water in the fountain, the faint, steely clang of weapons training far off in the parade grounds. It all blurred together into an overwhelming white noise, but the bird’s pain cut through it like a knife.
“Vylaas.”
The voice startled him. His hand froze mid-motion, a flush of heat racing to his face. He didn’t need to look up; he knew the voice of his elder brother Kaelen as well as he knew his own.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Kaelen said, stepping closer. His shadow fell over Vylaas and the bird, long and regal in the golden afternoon light. “You’ve been sneaking off to this spot a lot lately.”
Kaelen always walked as if the ground bent to his will, shoulders squared, back straight, the sun catching on his luminous hair—a cascade of gold so effortlessly perfect it made the boy seem carved from sunlight itself. Only sixteen, yet he radiated confidence like a banner unfurling in the breeze. It was in the precise tilt of his jaw, the subtle knowing smile that tugged at his lips, the way his polished boots barely scuffed the earth beneath them. Everything Kaelen did spoke to his inevitable destiny: warrior, protector, heir of iron-clad legacies. The perfect Tylwith prince.
Vylaas, by contrast, felt like a smudge alongside him.
“What is that?” Kaelen's words carried the faintest edge of teasing curiosity, the same tone one might reserve for a peculiar insect. He crouched, long legs folding with practiced grace, and leaned over to peer at the bird. His sword clanked softly against the ornamental metal of his vambrace, glinting in the sun as it stretched across his thigh.
“It’s hurt,” Vylaas said defensively, still not looking up. He cupped his hands around the bird instinctively, shielding it from Kaelen’s measuring gaze. “It needs time to heal.”
Kaelen’s smile turned into something sharp-edged and brittle. He reached out with a gloved hand and tugged the edge of the makeshift bandage, inspecting it as though sizing up its imperfections. “You know it won’t survive the night, don’t you?” His tone wasn’t cruel exactly. Just blunt. Too blunt.
Vylaas flinched, but he didn’t let go. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Kaelen replied, straightening. “You can’t save everything, Vylaas. That’s not how the world works.”
Vylaas’s head snapped up at that, his wide eyes locking onto his brother’s face. A flicker of resentment flashed in his chest, but it faded as soon as Kaelen smiled again, a different smile this time. Softer. Affectionate in the way only Kaelen could manage—impossible to argue against, for whatever bitterness lie beneath it, Kaelen still loved him. He always had.
“I don’t want to save everything,” Vylaas lied. His fingers curled tighter around the bird’s trembling body. “Just this one.”
For a moment, Kaelen simply watched him. His eyes, like polished amber, gleamed with something Vylaas couldn’t decipher. They roved over his little brother from head to toe—taking in the still-brown hair that insisted on falling into his face, the slight trembling from shoulders tense with poorly disguised effort, the dirt-stained fingers so utterly undone by a patch of fragile feathers.
“You’re too soft,” Kaelen said at last. But there was no coldness in the words. Instead, his voice carried a weight that Vylaas recognized far too well: the gravity of expectations. “I don't want to see that get you killed one day.”
“I’m not you,” Vylaas muttered, looking back down at the bird. His voice lacked venom, only quiet resignation.
Kaelen chuckled, rising effortlessly to his feet. For an instant, he looked impossibly tall—lean and sharp-edged like the towers of the palace behind them, casting long shadows that seemed to stretch beyond their years. The sun embroidered him in gold, playing tricks on the edges of his silhouette. Proud, and impossibly unreachable.
“I know.” Kaelen’s voice had softened again, but there was something unrelenting beneath it, the same unbending steel their father carried. He reached down and ruffled Vylaas’s hair, his laughter rolling like a polished marble bouncing off stone. “Not everyone is cut out to stand on the front lines. Just don’t get yourself trampled in your race to find...whatever it is soft people like you are looking for.”
Their father’s boots scraped against gravel behind them before Vylaas could answer. A cough. Quiet authority tempered by the weight of command. Vylaas didn’t need to turn to feel the way the air shifted, the atmosphere of the garden bowing to the gravity their father carried with him.
When in the presence of a King, such things were more than metaphor.
The Emperor might have been the one to grant Theron dominion over the Kingdom, but here in the garden, the steady power of the King's aura spoke louder than any decree. Everything from the smallest blade of grass to the mightiest oak knew its place, and bowed before their King's presence like servants before their master.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Kaelen,” spoke the King—deep, measured, like the strike of a ceremonial gong. “We convene soon with the Chimera team. Your bond is nearly ready for you. Come, the council waits.”
“Yes, Father,” Kaelen said, straightening instinctively; his boots clicked together as his hand brushed the dirt from his tunic in a swift, self-conscious gesture.
Vylaas chanced a glance at their father then, his shadowed face stern but proud as he looked Kaelen up and down, measuring his eldest with all the scrutiny of a blacksmith testing steel. There was expectation in that gaze—it burned bright and heavy, and Vylaas knew exactly where it was aimed. Kaelen. Always Kaelen.
Without another word, their father turned and began the somber march back toward the palace. How the King must love his heir, to have gone in search of him by foot. Vylaas had only ever been summoned by his father twice, and both times it had been the family's steward who had sought him out.
Kaelen hesitated. He looked toward Vylaas, the bird, the patchy sunlight filtering through the leaves.
“Come back inside soon,” he said at last. His tone dipped into something softer, almost wistful. “You shouldn’t miss the ceremony. It’s... important.”
Then he was gone, his retreating form carrying golden light back toward the towering spires of the palace.
Vylaas stayed behind, his hands still cradling the fragile bird. It shivered once, a tremor almost imperceptible, and finally stilled. A quiet exhale slipped through Vylaas’s lips.
And the ambient noise of the garden seemed deafening once more.
The ballroom had been transformed. Once a space for opulent dances and glittering gatherings, it now bristled with the hum of arcane power. Chandeliers of gold and crystal hung above, their light refracting in a thousand directions, catching on the gilt-edged carvings of the vaulted ceiling. Every detail of the room whispered wealth, from the polished marble floors to the tapestries that had been rolled back to make way for this—this ritual.
Vylaas stood on the second-floor gallery, hands gripping the balustrade as he peered down at the spectacle below. He hadn’t wanted to come. Yet here he was, pulled by some unseen tether, watching a scene that felt like it belonged to someone else’s life.
The ritual circle sprawled across the floor, drawn with painstaking precision in shimmering silver and gold. Runes curled and twisted in perfect symmetry, their sharp angles and flowing curves merging into something hypnotic. Candles ringed the design at precise intervals, their flames steady despite no breeze. It wasn’t just a drawing; it pulsed faintly, as if alive, its energy sinking into the marble beneath it. Priests and scholars moved along its edges like shadows in white robes, murmuring incantations that Vylaas couldn’t quite catch from his perch.
And at its center stood Kaelen.
He wore ceremonial armor polished to a mirror finish. It caught every flicker of candlelight and cast shards of brilliance across the room. His head was bowed as one of the priests adjusted something—a band around his arm, gleaming with runes of its own. Kaelen didn’t flinch, didn’t move. He might as well have been carved from stone.
Vylaas’s fingers tightened against the cold railing. He knew he didn’t belong here. The air in this place pressed too heavily against his chest, too saturated with importance and ritual he couldn’t comprehend. Every word murmured below felt like it was in a language meant only for Kaelen and others like him—the chosen warriors destined for glory and sacrifice.
The nobles lining the walls on the ground floor looked on in silence, their faces schooled into expressions of reverence. Gold-threaded gowns swept across the floor; men stood rigid in tailored jackets trimmed with fur and velvet. They were watching history unfold—or so they believed—and Vylaas could feel their collective awe thickening the air even from where he stood above them.
Drones flitted to and fro, capturing the scene from every conceivable angle, ensuring that Kaelen's glory would be cataloged for all time. Vylaas wondered if he would appear in the footage, or if he was destined to be edited out of the archival footage like the servants who roamed between the gathered nobility.
He glanced down at himself—plain tunic smudged with dirt from earlier in the gardens—and took half a step back from the railing, retreating into shadow where he wouldn’t be noticed.
Kaelen didn’t look up—not at Vylaas or anyone else—and Vylaas wondered if his brother even felt all those eyes on him or if he'd trained himself not to care.
Vylaas turned away from it all for a moment, eyes landing on one of those chandeliers above instead. Each crystal caught light differently, but together they created something blindingly beautiful—so carefully arranged it was impossible not to notice how every piece relied on another to shine.
If only people worked like that chandelier did...
The third round of eldritch chanting began below, and after a quarter hour, Vylaas was beginning to grow bored of the spectacle. The air split open with a sound like grinding stone, and the ballroom erupted in chaos. Light poured from the ritual circle, jagged and unrelenting, illuminating the once-pristine marble with searing lines of gold and white. Vylaas flinched as a crackling energy surged outward, raising the fine hairs on his arms. The runes etched into the floor writhed, their shapes unraveling like they had a mind of their own.
I'm glad I stayed, he thought, this part seems pretty cool.
Kaelen stood at the epicenter, his face twisted in concentration—or pain, Vylaas couldn’t tell. Around him, his peers mirrored his stance, their hands outstretched toward one another as arcs of raw energy snapped between them. The crystalline monster cores embedded in their ceremonial armor glowed fiercely, too bright to look at directly. A hum filled the room, growing louder with every passing second.
Vylaas’s hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the observation railing. The vibrations rattled through the metal, up his arms, into his chest. He wanted to look away, but his eyes refused to leave Kaelen. His brother’s shoulders strained under the weight of something unseen, veins standing out against his skin as he fought to hold whatever force they’d unleashed in check.
And then it happened.
Kaelen screamed—a sound so raw it cut through the competing noises like a blade—and doubled over as if struck. The light around him pulsed violently before collapsing inward, folding into itself in an instant that left only silence and smoke behind.
Vylaas stumbled back from the railing, his heart hammering against his ribs. His vision blurred as tears he hadn’t realized were forming spilled over. Below, figures darted into motion: priests shouting orders, drones spinning erratically before stabilizing to record every second of what had gone wrong.
Through the haze of smoke and flickering lights, Vylaas caught one last glimpse of Kaelen—collapsed on the floor where moments ago he had stood tall. His armor was scorched black along its edges, and tendrils of smoke rose from the ground beneath him. Medical personnel swarmed him like ants over a fallen tree branch.
Someone grabbed Vylaas by the arm—firm but not unkind—and began pulling him away from the scene. He didn’t fight them; his legs moved on instinct alone as he let himself be led toward an exit at the edge of the gallery. His head turned involuntarily for one final look over his shoulder.
Kaelen was surrounded now, hidden behind a wall of bodies clad in white robes and armored uniforms. The ritual circle lay in ruins around him, its intricate design scorched and broken beyond recognition.
Vylaas’s stomach twisted as he was ushered through a doorway into quieter halls beyond. He didn’t understand what had gone wrong—didn’t know anything about cultivation cores or energy resonance or ritual failure—but he knew one thing with terrifying clarity: Kaelen was no longer invincible.
And now to shout out a friend of mine. You might immediately see why his story interested me. :p
