Page 34 of She Who Devours the Stars

I let go of Dax and stepped forward, out of the shadow of the ruins and into the center of the blast radius. The debris shifted underfoot, like the city was trying to reassemble itself around me. I felt the world stretching, trying to decide if it wanted to reject me or crown me.

Vireleth hung above, patient and predatory, and best of all? Mine.

I raised my left hand, watched the light crawl across my skin.

For a moment, I thought I saw her look back.

“Come and get me,” I said.

And the mythship smiled.

The city was silent, waiting for its new story to begin.

And I, for once, was ready to write it.

Thread Modulation: Fern Meldin

Axis Alignment: Apartment Ruins, Pelago-9

Gravity was supposed to be a constant, but no one told that to the ruins of Glimmer Zone.

I stood where the kitchen used to be, the floor under my bare feet cracked and buckled, but, for the moment, holding together. Debris hovered in the air, spinning slowly, each chunk caught in its own little private orbit. Some pieces, like globs of insulation, rebar filigree, and a complete set of family cutlery, cycled around me in perfect circles, as if the world was rehearsing Newtonian physics for a talent show and wanted to impress the judge. Which, apparently, was me.

I should’ve been scared. Or hurt. Or, at the very least, embarrassed by the number of ramen packets exposed by the blast. But I wasn’t. I was humming. Not metaphorically, the blue-white light that pooled in my veins during the fall still flowed, brighter than ever. Every cell in my body buzzed like it was hosting an afterparty for trauma.

I flexed my hands, watched the light spill from my palms, and then it fractured against the floating cutlery. I exhaled, and frost bloomed from my lips.

Dax was like all mythic event survivors: dilated pupils, manic grin, shaking hands. He rubbed at his head. His eyes found me and scanned for damage.

“You good?” he croaked, then spat dust.

I nodded. Words were hard. Too many variables were still updating.

He tried to stand, but the space above him bent, making every motion slower than it should’ve been. “You’re doing that, right?” he said, voice light, as if he acknowledged the impossible out loud, it would revert to normal.

I shrugged. “It’s new.”

He grinned. “Looks good on you.”

The joke didn’t land, but I appreciated the effort.

The rest of the block was unrecognizable. What used to be forty meters of stacked habs and storefronts was now a bowl-shaped void, edged in layers of broken glass and twisted neon. Fires burned in controlled patterns, never spreading, as if afraid of crossing some invisible perimeter. Beyond the bowl, the city stretched away, unscarred and oblivious, its grid of lights carrying on like nothing had happened.

Above, Vireleth hovered.

If you’ve never seen a mythship, you’ll have to settle for metaphor: imagine the largest thing you can, then multiply it by the number of regrets you’ve ever had. Then, multiply that by the square root of everything you wished you’d done differently. Vireleth was that, but shaped like the promise of a new religion.

Her hull was a contradiction. From one angle, it looked like an obsidian cathedral, buttresses and all, flickering with heat and memory. From another, it was a lattice of bones and light, both impossibly delicate and utterly unbreakable. The mythshipdidn’t just reflect the city; she projected it, casting ghost images of Glimmer Zone in every direction, a hologram overlaid on the wreckage.

Every so often, Vireleth changed her mind about what she wanted to look like, and the sky bent to accommodate her mood.

She dwarfed all three of Pelago-9’s suns.

Not individually. All three.

Which felt excessive, but sure.

The human brain wasn’t made to perceive something that casts shadows across light itself, but mine gave it a shot anyway. I blinked, and every afterimage told a new story: the mythship as a vengeful god, as a guardian, as a monster. All of them were true. None of them were complete.