Estel trudged alone toward the temporary camp. The wound in his palm throbbed—a relentless reminder from the crystal shard embedded there.
Wind lashed his armor with a *clang-clang-clang*, like whispers of the dead.
Memories surfaced:
Morias as a raw recruit, sparring under the training grounds' sun. "I want to be a knight like you," he'd said by the campfire, eyes bright with faith in Idrila. "Guard all beauty in this cosmos."
Now everything lay shattered. Idrila's fall had crushed their convictions.
Some knights wandered adrift; others, like Morias, drowned their despair in power.
Estel halted, staring into the blizzard-veiled stars. He gripped the Peragius Mirror Shield.
Its cold seeped through his gauntlet—a fusion of twenty-eight tarnished insignias, each a tombstone for a fallen brother.
Never abandon the pursuit of beauty, he'd sworn while melting them.
The shard in his palm flared.
Visions erupted:
Golden threads pulsed through the void, weaving toward an unknown world. Tidal rhythms synchronized with his agony until stellar coordinates branded his mind—Luna Trajectia.
A backwater planet. The pulse grew urgent, resonant.
Should he chase this phantom? Or salvage the ruins of his order?
He glanced at his distorted reflection in Peragius. Recalled the fleeting peace in Morias's dying eyes.
"Perhaps Luna Trajectia holds answers."
He turned toward the stars.
Bloodied armor caught the blizzard's howl—a knight marching into fractured hope.
The night was iron-cold. Estel curled in a rotting tent, Peragius leaning against mold-streaked canvas.
He jolted awake, a strangled cry in his throat. His hand flew to an empty scabbard—only the crystal wound answered.
Memory-fragments stabbed his mind:
Twilight in the quartermaster's hut. Jeronimo blew polishing dust off a silver insignia. "Look, Captain Estel!" He held it to the setting sun. "The crack resembles starrails!" Rose petals clung to his apron.*
The vision curdled.
Estel stood in the gutted quartermaster's post. Jeronimo's apron was blood-soaked. Half his face had crystallized into a mirror. In his hand—not a brush, but a broken lance.
"Beauty?" Jeronimo's laugh scraped charcoal beams. His crystal fist smashed the insignia display case. Silver mirrors rained down.
Estel lunged—too late. Jeronimo crammed a whole insignia into his mouth. Crunch. Bloodied shards sprayed as he grinned. "True beauty... is breaking everything... and remaking it!"
Veins of light crawled up his neck. Each step ground insignia shards into the floor, reflecting a thousand distorted Estels pointing swords back at him.
Reality snapped back. Estel pressed palms to his temples.
After Idrila's demise, the old Captain had infused slivers of her power into twelve Star-Mirrors.
The grandest—forged from Imaginary Tree Silver Pith—resided in the Oath Hall.
Named Peragius ("Gathering Shattered Starlight" in the Old Tongue), it reflected the purest beauty within a knight's soul.
During knighthood ceremonies, initiates placed hands upon it. The shield would glow with scenes of beauty they'd protected, etching silver vow-glyphs onto its surface.
When Estel became Captain, Peragius was pristine.
Then Morias led the first corruption. Estel gathered twenty-seven defiled insignias from battlefields—emblems that once held young knights' smiles, now crusted with blood and filth.
The shield of beauty had become a weapon.
Ghosts haunted him:
Jeronimo's crystal eye reflecting Estel's blade.
The old Captain's chest wound frothing into a Mara-Struck rose.
Morias's final grin, half a chewed insignia wedged in his teeth.
Their faces were rusted gears grinding in his skull.
"I'll find the answer," Estel vowed to the darkness, wiping blood-tears away. "Even if I must touch forbidden power... Pure Beauty will be reborn."
The ship's engines droned through silent space. Blue exhaust cut the void like a blade.
Estel gripped the controls. Beyond the viewport, infinity yawned.
Peragius leaned against the bulkhead, its cracks glinting faintly—a silent chronicle of loss.
Before departure, he'd walked the ruins of the knight's citadel. Wind moaned through shattered silver insignias and rusted armor.
He'd picked up one intact insignia. Rubbed dirt from its Pure Beauty filigree.
Still beautiful. Still broken.
"Idrila... where did you go?" he whispered to the stars, exhaustion hollowing his voice.
Faith had frayed with every betrayal. Yet he flew onward—for the knights still fighting, for beauty unmade.
The nav-system chimed. Luna Trajectia: Locked.
Estel hit thrusters. The ship shot like a loosened arrow.
Nearing the planet, sensors flared. Two energies intertwined:
One—a gentle ripple, like starlight on water.
The other—a seething, buried scream.
His pulse quickened. Danger waited.
As the ship pierced the atmosphere, twin moons hung low.
Their light sheathed the hull in spectral silver. Below, an alien sea of flowers shimmered—a river of stars spilling across the land. Breathtaking. Terrifying.