Page 75 of She Who Devours the Stars (The Astral Mess #1)

Thread Modulation: Fern Trivane Axis Alignment: Fey Ruins

It was the hunger that led us, but it was Zevelune who kept the pace—never quite out of reach, always close enough that if I really wanted to bite her, I could.

The Ruins deepened. Every step forward was an invitation for the world to disassemble itself a little more.

The petrified trees blurred, then sharpened again as if some drunk god was refocusing the lens at random.

The ground lost its conviction about whether it wanted to be stone, glass, or the kind of mud that stuck to your soul.

I followed, because it was either that or admit I had no control left.

About twenty meters in, the world broke harder.

The first sign was the wind, which reversed directions three times in a second.

The next was the sun—no, not the sun, but the idea of sun, pasted onto a sky that was now split into angular facets like a crystal that hated itself.

The taste in the air went from ozone and rot to artificial vanilla, then to the old solvent stink of my childhood, before cycling back with an undernote of Zevelune’s perfume.

“Nice weather,” I muttered, voice sounding a little too much like someone else’s.

Zevelune glanced over her shoulder, lips pursed. “It matches the company.”

I wanted to laugh, but the Ruins weren’t giving me room. They pulsed, like a migraine, or a mythic pressure drop, and every time I blinked, I saw the Eventide quad, charred and glassed and perfect, overlaying the stone forest like an AR glitch.

The world ran out of patience.

With no transition, I was in my old living room on Pelago-9, knees bruised from the tile, Mom screaming something about ruined boots, Dad holding a shattered compad and looking at me like I’d just confessed to arson (which, technically, I had).

The room smelled like burnt hair and desperation.

I looked down and realized I was still in my current body—too tall, too scarred, too hungry—but the voice that came out of my mouth when I tried to apologize was Lioren’s: low, precise, with the cadence of someone who knew the outcome before the sentence started.

“I’ll fix it,” I heard myself say, and Mom blinked like she hadn’t expected that answer.

I tried to stand, but the world reeled. The scene reset. This time, the kitchen was on fire, the table snapped in half, and Mom was gone—just Dad, staring down at me with a disappointment so dense it could have been weaponized.

“You can’t fix everything,” he said, only it wasn’t Dad, it was Zevelune, perched in the corner like she’d always lived there. Her eyes were gold this time, and she bared her teeth in what passed for a smile. “Sometimes you break it worse. Sometimes that’s the point.”

The air buzzed, and I was back in the Ruins, heart jackhammering, legs shaky. Zevelune was still walking, but now she watched me from the edge of her eye, tracking every microspasm.

“First drift?” she asked, casual as a cat.

I wiped my mouth. My hand came away slick with blood I hadn’t tasted. “Not even my first this week.”

The Ruins got the hint and stepped up their game.

We pushed deeper, and the logic of the place started to fail.

The petrified trees were still there, but some had been replaced with pylons from the Eventide quad, their tops twisted into impossible fractals.

A few steps later, the ground was replaced with the greasy concrete of the Taco Miracle’s back alley, but the sky was still the purple from the Ruins, and the air vibrated with a mythic hum so loud it pressed against my eardrums.

I tried to focus on my own breathing. The trick worked until I realized I wasn’t breathing in time with my body anymore.

My lungs moved, but my heartbeat lagged.

My hands clenched, then unclenched, and I caught myself flexing my fingers the way Lioren did in every holo I’d ever been forced to watch.

It didn’t stop. The more I tried to center myself, the more I slipped sideways into the Lioren drift. Speech patterns, sure, but also the way I stood, the way I squinted into the broken horizon, even the way I looked at Zevelune, measuring her for threat or maybe for dinner.

She noticed. Of course she did.

“Lioren always hated this part,” Zevelune said, voice soft, almost indulgent. “He was never good at losing control.”

I didn’t dignify that with a reply. Instead, I kept moving, one foot in front of the other, even when the path switched from forest to hex-tile gym mats, to a maintenance catwalk, to something that might have once been a road but now just looped around and bit itself on the tail.

After a while, my sense of time collapsed. Maybe it was thirty seconds. Maybe it was three years. I only knew I’d been walking forever, and the world never stopped rearranging itself to fuck with me.

Then I saw it: a chunk of myth-stone, cracked in half, with a piece of paper sticking out like the tongue of a dead animal. It shouldn’t have been there, and yet I knew, absolutely, that it had always been waiting for me.

I reached for it, fingers trembling.

Zevelune watched, silent, her eyes now black and infinite.

I tugged the paper free. It was old—ancient, probably, though the handwriting was crisp, bold, and so self-assured it made me want to punch the author in the face.

I knew the script. Everyone did. It was Lioren’s.

I read aloud because I couldn’t not:

“If you can’t overcome me… you don’t deserve to not-be me.”

I stared at the words for a long time, the arrogance of them so pure it bordered on spiritual. Lioren, even in death or mythic recursion, was the kind of narcissist who left journal entries for future versions of himself to feel inadequate about.

Zevelune laughed, low and full of something close to pride.

“Did you ever meet someone you didn’t want to replace?” she said.

The paper cut into my palm, and I didn’t let go.

I kept walking, because the alternative was to stand still and let the Ruins finish the job. Each step was an argument against entropy. Each step, the world tried to steal a little more of me, until I started to enjoy the fight.

The Ruins learned.

Now they conjured Eventide at dusk, the sky smeared orange, the dorm windows full of ghosts.

I saw myself, maybe a hundred versions, each frozen in a moment I half-remembered: me with Gallo, me with Dyris, me alone on the roof smoking what I’d sworn was my last cigarette.

Sometimes the other Ferns looked up, caught my gaze, and shook their heads in pity.

In one overlay, I saw myself kissing Dyris, but the face that turned to her afterward wasn’t mine—it was Lioren’s, with the same star-hungry eyes, the same wolfish grin.

I watched as Lioren-Me pulled Dyris close, whispered something in her ear, then let her go so slowly.

It was the kind of pain that left no room for breathing, watching my past life court my wife like she’d always been his, and seeing her remember it.

Zevelune interrupted, stepping in between me and my own memory. “You know, darling, if you want to kiss her again, you’ll have to survive this.”

“Keep moving,” I growled, but the Lioren cadence was getting louder, swallowing my own.

We moved on. The Ruins let up for a second, the path widening into a clearing ringed with the petrified trunks.

In the center, a pedestal, maybe once an altar, now just another dead thing waiting to be noticed.

I approached, cautious, expecting a trap.

There was nothing on the pedestal, but my mythprint pulsed hard, blue-white flaring along my knuckles and wrists.

I looked down.

There was another note. This one was shorter.

It said: “You can’t win by refusing to play.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fuck off, Lioren.”

Zevelune’s laughter echoed through the clearing.

I needed to ground myself, remind my body it was still mine.

I pressed my hand to my stomach, expecting the soft squish of someone who lived on tacos and pizza, but instead I found abs, hard, ridged, absurd.

I traced them with a finger, baffled. I couldn’t help but imagine Dyris worshipping my stomach like it had answers.

“Aw, fuck,” I muttered, then poked at my biceps, which were also suspiciously present. “When did I turn into a gym rat?”

Zevelune smirked. “You’re adapting.”

“Not on purpose,” I snapped, but I didn’t stop poking at myself.

The mythprint on my arms was bright now, the lines so tight they buzzed against my skin. I flexed, watched the light ripple, and for a second, I thought I saw another hand flexing in perfect sync, larger, older, but definitely mine.

I blinked, and the illusion was gone.

The Ruins thinned, the path narrowing again, the air going cold. Zevelune was in front of me, leading but not rushing, as if savoring the last few minutes before everything broke.

My feet felt heavy. The paper in my hand was gone, but the words had sunk in, carved into the back of my eyes.

I stumbled, caught myself, and realized my own shadow had lagged behind. I turned, expecting to see nothing.

Instead, my shadow was standing five steps back, hands in pockets, head tilted in precisely the way Lioren did in the old holos.

It smiled at me, wide and knowing.

I froze.

Zevelune stopped, glanced back, and said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

My shadow stepped forward, slow and deliberate, then stopped just out of arm’s reach. It was taller than me, broader, but it moved with my rhythm, my history. It raised a hand in greeting, then let it fall.

I couldn’t breathe.

The world bent in, all the air gone sweet and sharp.

“Is this the part where you try to kill me?” I asked, not sure who I was talking to.

The shadow shrugged, grinned, and said in my voice, but not mine, That depends. Are you going to give me a reason?”

I laughed, or maybe I sobbed. It was hard to tell.

The shadow turned, walked five paces ahead, then turned back to face me, arms wide.

Zevelune smiled, stepped aside. “After you.”