The pitch-black night opened her eye. The hush of heaven tore like a curtain. Specks of white starlight pooled into a vast pupil, blank and cold, gazing down.
The Little White Dragon lifted her head, heart thudding like a drum in fog, then looked up. That eye above the vault wasn’t a trick of stars. The night itself had an eye, with fine white brows trembling in the wind like frost-lit grass.
The White Dragon had to swallow a shattering truth—The Star Canvas above her was alive.
Panic broke first. Then her legs gave out, and she sat hard on the ground. If the night was a living thing, what else had she mistaken for dead matter? The earth under her claws, steady as an ancient beast’s back. The rivers she’d leapt, coiling like silver snakes. The sunlight speckling her cheek, warm as a hand. Were they alive too, only beyond her senses till now?
Pain stormed her skull, then action. The Little White Dragon clutched her head, as if two vast palms pressed down to pry her mind apart. A cold cramp cinched her gut, a wave about to break. Instinct told her to heave up dinner like a fish coughing river-pebbles.
She opened her mouth—and a sapphire gem fell onto the ground, blue as deep water, brighter than crystal. Dizzy, Lilith stared at it through drifted haze. Her right hand rose on its own, moth to flame, reaching for the blue light.
A hand seized her slim wrist at the last instant, firm as an anchor in a gale, and yanked her out of the spin.
Asterios touched her brow with a cool fingertip. He murmured a spell like wind over glass. Ice pricked her temples; the fake whorl of dizziness thinned like mist at dawn. Only then did the Little White Dragon blink wide and focus on the Silver Dragon beside her.
“Is this what the Star Canvas truly looks like?” she asked, voice wool-soft.
“Not exactly. I don’t know what you saw,” Asterios said, tone steady as winter stars. “Judging by your reaction, the Star Canvas dropped at least three veils. But even so, that’s not her true face. No one has seen it. Even I still face two veils.”
The words stacked too fast. Confusion bubbled first; then she cut in, palms on her head. “Hold on, teacher. What’s a veil? You’re going too fast. I can’t keep up.”
“Oh, right. I forgot,” he said with a rueful breath. “Veils are what Astrologers call the layers we peel back to grasp the Star Canvas. It’s a teaching metaphor. Most theories say there are nine veils.”
His gaze lifted, recalling old firelight. “Only one being ever saw the truth of the Star Canvas—the founder of Stellar Magic, the world’s first Silver Dragon. Besides her, one elf and one human glimpsed what lies beneath the eighth veil. After that, come seers like us, who’ve reached the seventh.”
He drew out a roll of parchment. The vellum crackled like dry leaves as he unrolled it and showed her neat ink, the veils set down in order. “For a newcomer, tearing three veils at once is real talent. The cost is your body taking in too much knowledge, all at once. You’re overloaded. Your study’s going to be bad for a few days. I’ll tell Fafnir. No classes for now. Let Typhon take you around the Dragon Territory.”
“A break already?” Lilith’s first reaction was relief, sweet as rain on dust. Then embarrassment crept in. Back in her old life, she’d been the type who lived by the school bell. A vacation on day one felt wrong.
“It’s fine. Make it up when you return,” Asterios said, unbothered, like snow unmarked by tracks. “What’s this? You don’t want the time off?”
“No, no, I do,” she blurted, shaking her head like a rattle, fear of a changed mind tapping her spine. “I just have one more question.”
“What is it?”
“Does everyone see the same Star Canvas? I mean, if two people peel the same number of veils, do they see the same night?”
“No,” Asterios said, with a small shake of his head. “Until you see the whole, you only see what the Star Canvas agrees to show. It’s like catching glimpses of her organs. You might see a hand. You might see a mouth. What did you see?”
“Uh… an eye.” The word felt heavy on her tongue, like a pebble dropped in a still pond.
“Oh. Then even the Star Canvas is curious about you,” Asterios said, surprise bright as a struck spark. “No wonder you saw a complete organ on your first try. She wanted a good look at you. She got carried away, though. She forgot how much it would burden your body. Your charm’s something fierce.”
“I wish it weren’t,” Lilith muttered. Bitterness nipped first, then reason cooled it. It was probably this body—god-forged, a lure to every gaze. It wasn’t really her. The thought dimmed her mood like a cloud over the moon.
“Don’t dwell on it,” Asterios said, gentling his voice as he ruffled her hair, a touch light as snowfall. “Rest a few days. When you’re back, it’ll be time for your first resonance with a constellation.”
“Got it,” she said, head lowered, tail swaying like a pale ribbon. The Little White Dragon left the Astrologer’s terrace and padded toward Tartarus’s home, small against the wide, breathing night.
