1056: Story 1056: March of the Mourning Star 1056: Story 1056: March of the Mourning Star When the Mourning Star rose over the Ashen Expanse, it wept crimson tears.
The sky cracked like glass, leaking shadow and sorrow into the world below.
Elders in dust-choked temples screamed and clawed their eyes out.
Birds flew in reverse.
The dead began to hum.
The world remembered her name: Calvyrna, the Morning Queen turned Mourning Star.
Once a celestial guardian, she had tried to stop the spread of the Eldritch Blight.
But when the stars grew infected, she burned with them—exiled, cursed, and cast down.
Her light became sorrow.
Her return was never meant to happen.
But return she did.
It began with the children.
In the town of Thornmarrow, they stopped dreaming.
Instead, they chanted in unison at midnight:
“She walks in lace of ash and flame.
Open the path.
Open the name.”
Their parents locked their doors.
The priests burned their beds.
But the children only smiled, their eyes silver as starfire.
A comet struck the northern cliffs.
The veil tore.
The survivors of Bastion Hollow—Roake the lantern keeper, Sister Mereth, and the iron-skinned brute Korr—ventured toward the crash site, seeking answers.
What they found was a scar in the land: a canyon that bled upward, defying gravity.
At its base stood a woman cloaked in mourning robes spun from moonlight and bone-dust.
Her crown dripped with petals of frozen time.
Her voice was the sound of forgotten lullabies.
“You called me,” she whispered.
“And I answer.”
Sister Mereth fell to her knees.
“We didn’t—”
“But they did,” Calvyrna gestured to the sky.
“The stars want me back.
You, unfortunately, must burn.”
She raised her arms.
The stars fell.
Comets screamed across the land, each one birthing creatures stitched from memory and light—Starborn Grievers, their bodies wrapped in astral silk, their mouths forever weeping.
Every step they took wilted the land.
Every sob they uttered killed hope.
Roake shattered his lantern, releasing the sacred flame of Lumae—the only light untouched by mourning.
Korr waded into the tide, smashing grievers with fists like tombstones.
Sister Mereth chanted prayers that turned her own blood to silver.
Still, they were only delaying the inevitable.
Calvyrna walked.
When she reached the gates of Thornmarrow, the children opened them.
They welcomed her with open arms.
She wept at their innocence, then kissed each of them on the brow.
They turned to starlight.
At the peak of her march, Calvyrna reached the ancient Tower of Echoes—the last celestial altar.
There, she raised her arms one final time.
“I forgive you,” she said to the heavens.
“Now mourn with me.”
The Mourning Star above her flared with unbearable sorrow.
And the world dimmed.
Across the continent, those who still breathed felt a heaviness in their souls.
The stars no longer twinkled.
Hope became a distant hum.
The March of the Mourning Star had begun.
And it would never end.