Asterios didn’t keep Lilith waiting. The Silver Dragon swept back into the studio in under half an hour, like a comet cutting dusk. She pulled the star chart Lilith had chosen, hugged her Astrolabe, and led the Little White Dragon out to the altar.
Lilith followed with quiet nerves humming, like wind over reeds. She’d read the constellations again and again, then finally chose one that fit her way of fighting, in case resonance with the Little White Dragon couldn’t be changed later.
The Silver Dragon Saint stepped to the marble altar’s heart. She bent and spread the chart over a char-black slab, a burnt moon in stone. Asterios rose and tapped her Astrolabe twice. Pale-blue starlight veins bubbled up through the marble and wandered wide, sketching a constellation across the altar like frost tracing a window.
“All right. Step here.” Asterios lowered her Astrolabe and beckoned Lilith to her side. The Little White Dragon stood on the chart, head bowed, watching the constellation glow under her feet. The pale-blue Star Energy lines weren’t what she’d imagined; if she lifted her head now, the sky wouldn’t be a loose net of stars, but a single blinking giant eye, and she couldn’t even tell which part of that eye this constellation was.
“Do you feel the stars watching you?” Asterios crouched beside her, then lifted her gaze to the black-painted Star Canvas hanging over Lilith’s crown. At the word, the Little White Dragon shut her eyes and reached with her whole heart, like cupping water in the dark. No matter how she tried, no answer came. It wasn’t even dusk; the sun still owned the stage, and it wasn’t the Astrologer’s hour.
“I know what you’re thinking. You’re right—time is a key axis for an Astrologer,” Asterios said, voice steady like a river under ice. “For most Astrologers, the Star Canvas shows its power only at night. That’s why nightborn folk take to it easier. But once you study deep enough, the sun’s veil stops blocking your sight. In truth, under sunlight the Star Canvas shows its truest face. Daylight study is the best path. You’re my student. I’ll give you the best.”
Lilith lifted her eyes, hope and sting mixing like brine and gold. The westering sun still blazed, eye-scorch bright, and even squinting hurt; it didn’t look ready to fall. Yet, holding to Asterios’s words, the Little White Dragon began to search, trying to catch that blinking giant eye in the blue.
No matter how she strained, the sky gave her nothing.
“I’m sorry, Teacher Asterios. I really can’t feel the Star Canvas watching me.” Lilith’s voice fell and her head with it, like a willow’s shadow. In this short time, she’d learned that whatever Asterios asked, she believed Lilith could do. Daylight resonance meant her teacher believed she could reach the stars under the sun. But she’d disappointed her. “You treat me so well, and I still can’t feel the stars. I let you down.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Little White Dragon.” Asterios shook her head, gentle as dusk wind. She raised her Astrolabe and looked into the high vault. “Truth is, not feeling the gaze is normal. Daylight’s protection isn’t easily pierced. Many Astrologers spend a lifetime and never cross that threshold. Otherwise the Star Canvas wouldn’t relax its guard under the sun. Our task is to tear off the veil—and you catch the moment and resonate.”
“Yes. What should I do?”
“Grip your Astrolabe, and hold it high.” Asterios smiled, silver bright. She lifted her Astrolabe above her head. Silver Star Energy coiled up from her feet, three thick streams twisting like braided rivers, surging into the Astrolabe. The aquamarine gem deepened to a sea-dark glow. A thread-fine, near invisible ray lanced upward, laser-guided into the calm sky. “From here on—trust your instinct.”
Asterios thrust at the heavens. In an instant, a white pillar knifed into the clouds; concentrated Star Energy turned into a cannon beam and shattered the quiet firmament. Sunlight tore like cloth, a hole ripped open. Behind it, the Star Canvas had been dozing; startled awake by the sudden spear of light, it scrambled to drag its veil back on—too quick to cover everything, too slow to seal the brief gap.
In that gap, Lilith raised her Astrolabe. The marble under her fingers grew ravenous, begging for the Star Energy in her body, and the aquamarine at the tip hungrier still, gulping starlight from the air like a thirsty mouth.
Instinct swelled and shouted inside her chest. Lilith lifted her head. Her eyes, dyed sky-blue by the Star Canvas, locked onto the blackened vault and met the immense eye surfacing there. Her body answered with draconic bloom: her hands thickened; her bare skin lacquered over with spreading scales; the twin horns at her crown pushed outward; and most of all, a fierce itch unfurled across her back like sparks in dry grass.
Control slipped like sand. Lilith’s lips parted on a ragged breath; sleep crept through her limbs while a feverish itch roared up, a heat reminding her that the trembling body was still hers.
Bony spines tore through her smooth back. White scales sheathed sticky skin-wings ripping out of the girl, bloody and raw—ribs wrenched open, webbed membrane stretched between them, then layered with tight-packed scales. No gentleness, only a warped grace.
Lilith had no time to care. Instinct wrenched a harsh scream from her throat. The dragon-girl flung her newborn wings wide; her hands, now full claws, clenched the Astrolabe as if the next heartbeat she’d hurl it aside and fly up to fistfight the Star Canvas.
But it wasn’t Lilith who soared to the Star Canvas. The Star Canvas fell to Lilith.
A sky-blue column poured from the vault and slammed onto Lilith’s crown. The half-dragon girl screamed, the sound sharp as ice breaking; even her scale-clad skin couldn’t withstand the rain of starlight.
Lilith dropped and curled, pain folding her like a wave. On her scaled belly, a pale-blue sigil of wings slowly bloomed, a frost-feather brand.
The constellation that commands the Void—the Void Command Seat. Resonance achieved.
