It was... Lute. She couldn’t hear anything, but he was behind the tree all along, just mere steps from where she was sitting at their usual spot. The moonlight was faint on him like some sort of ethereal aura, and his white hair looked even more unreal. The streak of red in his black eyes was somehow brighter than usual, and if she didn’t know she would have mistaken him for a wandering ghost.

She felt like running away, but it was Lute. His eyes seemed to fix her in place, waiting for her answer, and so she muttered.

— I... am just... watching the moon...

Lute looked at her. She didn’t know what the look meant. Did he see through her weak attempt at hiding how shaken up she was? Did he secretly laugh at her for harboring such thoughts towards her own friend? She had always thought she understood him, but it finally dawned on her that it might have been her wishful thinking this whole time - he was unreadable, just like everyone said he was. Even though she knew there was something, something hard to describe, between the two of them, she could not deny that in this instance, she could not tell what he was thinking at all.

Perhaps he was mirroring her own lack of understanding towards her own feelings. Perhaps there really was something different about him tonight. The night before the Divinity Ritual.

Lute glanced at the side, the light movement not even moving a single strand of hair on his shoulder. Then he turned back and smiled at her, at which something in her shook; she seldom saw Lute smile in front of her, and when it happened it was like this tiny smile that he was almost afraid of showing. Not this kind of overly gentle, crescent-eyed smile that seemed like he was not smiling at all. It was all the more stranger as his eyes glinted under the moonlight, looking like razor blades.

He walked towards her. His steps were light; she could barely hear the sounds of grass shuffling as if a wind simply passed through them. Somehow she could not find it in her to move, her palms clutching each other a bit tighter. Her breaths slowed, almost like she was afraid to make any noises, and her shoulders were painfully set into place as she did not dare to break eye contact with him.

It was as if something bad was going to happen if she did.

He was in front of her almost in a split second, and his head lowered right next to her cheek. He had never been this close to her before, so close she could even make out his eyelashes, his tall nose bridge, his thin and pale lips. His lips were moving, and she almost missed what he was saying amidst her own heartbeats:

— ...back to your room, and don’t come out until morning prayer.

He was whispering, and his voice sounded cold - or perhaps she was simply underdressed for the chilly evening. But there was insistence in his eyes, and she even felt like he was trying to block her sight from something. No, it was more like he was trying to...

— Asri.

She snapped out of it, and quickly replied:

— O-okay, I’m going.

She turned her back to him, and walked back to the corridor. She could still feel him looking at her, or maybe it was the nerves getting to her. But she did not dare to turn and check.

———

Asri went feeling shaken up by one thing, and returned feeling even more shaken up. She still didn’t feel right talking to Elrin, but what happened with Lute was truly spooky. It was like... he was not the Lute she knew.

It also made her think about Elrin. There was a lot she didn’t know about her friend and roommate, but it had never bothered her since the Priestess told everyone that their past was to be left behind. She had also never put too much thoughts into the rumors surrounding Elrin - part of her was condemning the other candidates, Miru included, to come up with such malicious rumors about a fellow candidate. She had never, perhaps even dared to have, considered that a fraction of those rumors were true. That her roommate, her friend, truly had such a past.

She loved her family. She was born without one, yearned for one, and so loved the one she was given with all of her heart and being. She was not beyond being jealous of others who were born into such joy, but she had always kept the orphanage director’s teaching to heart: only good children deserve a family. So she strived with all her heart, and adopted she was. She loved her new parents, her mother her father, her family.

She would do anything for them. She would do anything to not be left alone. She would do anything if it meant they were happy. So she took the Head Priestess’ hand and became a candidate. Her family would be happy, happier without an extra mouth to feed, happier without her who was not their real child, happier with the remuneration from the Temple.

Because of this, she could not stand the thought of someone killing their own family.

How was it possible? Circumstances? What circumstances so dire that one could kill their own closest kin? What circumstances so harrow that one could not just die for their most loved ones?

Elrin never spoke a single word against it...

Asri’s feet stopped in front of their door to her own room. She was finally back. The night silence was heavy around her, and she was deadly afraid of turning the knob in front of her. All she needed to do was ask... but she was afraid of the answer. She was afraid of hating her one of her closest friends in this place. She was afraid of the stranger living with her inside this room. The stranger that killed their own mother.

There was a rustling of the leaves behind her, and she was reminded of the encounter with Lute. She quickly twisted the knob and launched herself into the room, heading straight to her bed.

Her head in the pillow, she could make out the yellow light of the candle on the table next to hers. Elrin was studying, almost unperturbed by the shutting door.

It was okay. She would get her answer. Until then, Elrin would remain Elrin, the friend she knew and loved.

———

They said, when it rains it pours.

The final test was an arduous and tense business, but it was finally over. Seeing everyone with their books and stationery, Asri felt her heart calm down - everything was normal and familiar to her. Her lost courage slowly returning, she decided to ask Elrin about it once lunch was over. But Elrin somehow disappeared after lunch, and Asri spent the free period looking around for her friend.

Elrin being anywhere but the library and her own room was strange enough, but she found Elrin at a remote isolated corner of the Temple. Furthermore, before she could call out she saw another unexpected person. It was Lute.

What was unexpected was not the fact that he was there, but rather him talking to Elrin.

She never recalled the two of them having ever talked, but there they were having a conversation which she could use no word other than ‘secretive’. She wanted to know, and just barely held herself back when Lute quickly left. Elrin alone stood there, as if debating something with herself.

Asri never heard anything, but she did not want to be found so she shuffled away. Even she herself did not know why she did not want to be found. The two people talking were her friends; what was she feeling guilty for?

And after that whole fiasco, the sight of her two friends talking secretly together still not leaving her mind for hours after it happened, she found out that she was the Chosen Star. Talk about being relentless.

The priestesses simply shook their heads amidst inquiring gazes, and brought Asri to the Head Priestess’ room where she was told what would happen for the ritual that night.

She could see neither heads nor tails of her friends, and the unbelievable fact that she was chosen simply shook her up just like she was the night before. She was escorted back to her room, and fell down into her bed. It was like, it was all a dream and she was simply in a long, unending dream...

And she must have fallen asleep. Because when she was barely conscious again, she was in a dark space. She couldn’t see her hands, her feet, her torso... nothing at all, but the fact didn’t bother her. She was simply existing, her gaze somehow encompassing the entire space that she was encompassed within. But it was nothing but a deep darkness.

———

The darkness was wide and far, she could tell. There was something primal, something fearful, that filled up this space, and she did not know where did “she” end and that other thing began. She could make out screams, muted yells, cries painted with resentment as dark as the night sky. She understood - the darkness was one of hatred.

At the same time, it was as fervent as the worship of deities. Just as the thought came to her, as if fulfilling her wish, she could her people chanting. She could not make out the words, but they were chanting something. Their distinct voices, high and low, overlapping in unison, like the unstoppable march of soldiers. She had no hands of her own, but she reached out nevertheless. Anything, if it meant she could escape this darkness...!

A scene opened up in front of her. Candles dotting the low chamber. The hushed whispers of people in black garbs shivering along with their shadows cast on the run-down brick walls around them. A coffin with intricate pattern, the object of their fervent gazes. Two dark shadows, one short one tall, stood next to the coffin whose carvings looked as if they were deviously glowing.

Upon closer look, she saw that the shorter shadow was actually crouching on the ground, the edges of its robes spreading around it like they were surrendering to the other silhouette. The taller shadow was not that tall, but something about its imposing figure made it seem natural that a chamber full of people should be bowing down to it.

The tall figure walked towards the coffin, and her attention was brought to it. She could not see inside the opened coffin from where she was, but suddenly she was right above it. And laid within... was a young man with white hair...

— Asri! Wake up!!

A voice shook her to the very core, and suddenly she was Asri, just Asri, lying on her rough bed, looking a bit bewilderedly at her friend, Elrin, who was staring down at her next to the bed. The voice had been Elrin’s, and she had simply having a strange dream.

A dream? What was it about again?

Didn’t she have a weird dream just another day, about...

— What are you thinking about, Asri?

Elrin’s voice cut her off, and she stared at Asri, feeling unable to move all of a sudden. But Elrin looked just the same as usual, even sporting a rare smile. Her mind was frazzled, and she simply answered to that familiar, gentle smile.

— I had a bad dream... but I don’t remember what it was...

Elrin smiled a bit more at this. She felt weird... did Elrin use to smile this often?

Her head felt like it was spinning, her breath seemed like they were draining from her. She must have lied down for too long. So she put her hands next to her torso and push herself up...

...and was promptly pushed back down into the bed.

On top of her was Elrin, whose hands were gripping her elbows and pinning them to the bed. The candle’s light was flickering behind them, casting shadow on Elrin’s face as it was inches away from Asri’s own. She could see the mole under Elrin’s left eye so clearly at this distance, blue-grey hair framing her friend’s face like licking fire.

Speechless, she almost missed her friend’s next words as they were whispered right next to her ears.

— Are you running away again?