During the Great War, Euth, a rural village near Treisaules’ border, is shown through Suiming’s Realm-art.

  The soldiers were resting as the morning dew rolled down from the grasses, about to turn colors. They had been staying here for weeks, waiting for the pigeons to deliver their messages.

  At night, they took turns overlooking the new machinery and arcane items the messenger had equipped them with. Boredom was the lead melody to them, not even gazing at the starry night could resolve the anticipation. Nothing much had been going on; the villagers did not seem to be joyful about their appearance, and neither did the messengers and soldiers care.

  Although the soldiers could tell that some of the villagers couldn’t wait long enough to get rid of them, there was one exception- Seren, the daughter of a merchant. She was pretty, to say the least, always responding with a smile and a hug. Seren also took care of the soldiers, bringing them baked food now and then, and helping them write letters to their families. Some soldiers expressed their emotions to Seren, but only returned with the news that her lover was in the Grand Dome, not drafted due to his illness. And so the soldiers kept the fine line between her and themselves as if taking care of their new weapons.

  “Oi, when does the Letter-Writer finally get out of his office? It’s been weeks, not a single word from him,” a soldier said. He was recently recruited as the Letter-Writer and realized that only messengers weren’t enough for the war.

  “…Can’t you wait, in the name of Starseeker, this war ain’t going to be a matter of days. Our brothers are going through Treisaules…they are hard to fight…especially in the unending birch forests…but they say they arrived at Siyue and are fighting the Siyuenese,” said the messenger, a rank higher than him. His mask was new, and it was taken great care of by him, but laughed at by seniors and called an idiot. He didn’t care.

  “You big city people …whatever, I’m going to Seren.”

  “Hey! You ain’t going alone! I’m coming with ya!”

  “Screw you! Don’t you see that she doesn’t fancy you?”

  “Pfft! Talking big, eh? She doesn’t fancy any of us, lots!”

  …

  “Seren! There you are!” the soldier said, panting. Seren turned her head around, her deep blue eyes were as clear and beautiful as the gemstones the soldier had seen in the richer part of the Dome. Despite her status, Seren felt close to him, unlike the rich businessmen he had seen before, as if she were the girl he sat next to in school. Seren was holding a basket; he couldn’t see what was inside, but he guessed it was fruit, after all, the harvest season was starting. Perhaps that was why he noticed the villagers not showing up to them and giving them unpleasant stares.

  “Morning! You people are up this early?” Seren said as she reached into the basket.

  “Well…uhh, the officers are ordering us to train in the morning,” the soldier said, scratching the back of his head.

  “Here, fresh off the trees,” Seren said as she handed him a big round pear. It was juicy, and the dew on it ran down like a dazzling waterfall.

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “Hey, um, Seren, do you want to watch the stars with me this evening?” The soldier suggested.

  “Hm? This evening? Alright, I don’t see why not.” Seren answered, smiling. Her voice was airy and gentle; hearing her voice was like hearing a mellow sound of a summer night, its breeze and chills.

  Excited and blushing, the soldier ran back to his camp.

  Seren laughed to herself. She hadn’t heard anything from her husband and siblings from the Grand Dome. For the last few days, she could hardly fall asleep. She felt like waiting for the news was waiting for the New Year to arrive.

  Perhaps I need to talk to someone. Seren though.

  As she thought about what could happen to her family and the soldiers who were sent to the frontline, she was pulled away from her thoughts when a pear fell out of her basket. Her face was reflected in the pond that she walked by. Seren’s eyebrows furrowed as if the folds on her forehead could scare away her worries. Her delicate, youthful face looked older in the reflection.

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  Looking away from her reflection, she continued walking towards her house. It wasn’t a long walk, only a few minutes. A road she walked for almost her entire life, she remembers every turn, every stone that she once stood on or tripped on, every tree that was once a sapling or once growing. She arrived at her doorstep. The walls were conquered by vines and mosses, and on the ground, tiny mushrooms sprouted after yesterday’s rain. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. She did not have any servants, not because they were drafted, but because they were dead. Killed in an accident near the military camp.

  She missed the fine Siyuenese tea, harvested from the Soot mountain, brewed by her maid. Seren could never make the same tea, no matter how much of the precious ink-green leaves she poured into the water. She also missed the steak cooked by her chef, she could never get the right proportion of the spiced and the right temperature.

  She stopped by the shrine in her dining room. Putting down the basket, she knelt down and prayed in front of the shrine.

  Starseeker, save us. I pray to Thee to protect my family from this disaster. I dare not rebel against thy will and anguish towards the heretics and non-believers, but…but my heart aches, Thee who embroiders the sky, why must our brothers, fathers, and friends bleed in foreign lands?

  Seren frowned deeper, her eyes closed, she could feel the soreness of her body and the pain from pushing her eyelids. She kept her eyes closed as if she wanted to see something in the grainy void. Something to cling on, something to let all her worries go.

  Out of nowhere, a bang pulled Seren out of her prayer. She looked out the window, a large light paralleling the sun. It shone in the tone of a thousand stars in the darkest nights, yet none of the stars were of this world. They shone a strange, unseen light, like from another plane, otherworldly shining, like the deep space bodies. The light of it was wicked and foul, screaming as its rays wriggled like a spider.

  The light burned in the village as Seren felt a trembling pressure in her. She felt that she couldn’t breathe, her heart bumping slower and harder than ever before.

  “…The letters!” Seren thought as she opened the old, worn-out drawer. Stacks of unsent, open, unfinished letters were in there, written by herself, her lover, and her family; some of them were the soldiers waiting to be sent. Having the letters in her arms, she ran out.

  Seren knocked over the fruit basket as she stepped out of her house, holding onto the door frame she had held since she was a child, panting. Her blurred vision and short, shallow breath couldn’t provide any strength to her as she staggered, trying to run but could barely stand on her own. The flame burnt and stained the sky in its bloody red, every part of her was telling her to run in the other direction, but Seren ran toward the village.

  Please, please be fine…Starseeker, please make my village safe…

  After what felt like an eternity, she arrived at the center of the village. The heat scorched her sweaty face as the letters fell from her arms. Seren’s knees touched the ground, pebbles covered in thick blood bruised them as if mocking her insignificance, the light of no colors she could fathom, she saw a gate, a place beyond stars and skies where nothing yet everything was. As she saw that plane beyond, she realized that this flame of stars bleeding was the Starseeker. She bled from her eyes and ears as she collapsed.

  “…Seren…” a tiny voice called.

  Seren looked toward where the voice came from. It was the soldier whom she had talked to earlier, his face full of blood, and beyond his torso was more of that strange, ghoulish matter, connected to other lamenting faces.

  “The stars aren’t they beautiful?”

  “Seeing you before the Starseeker takes me…at least it isn’t so bad,” the soldier said, voice becoming inaudible as his eyes closed.

  Seren picked up the letters that he could. Stained by blood and felt like picking up heavy boulders. She rolled them into paper balls and threw them into the flame. She has heard that the Siyuenese believe doing such can send messages to their dead loved ones. As they burned into cinders, she saw a silhouette walking out of the flame. A faceless figure, standing over Seren in her blood puddle.

  As Seren struggled to comprehend that thing, she noticed strands of thick, dark liquid connected to the flame. Like a drop of blood.

  “Do you want freedom?” Seren said, voice fading.

  The thing stayed silent.

  “…I can tell what you want.”

  The thing stayed silent, but the strands kept growing thicker in girth as if pulling it back. Seren could feel that she won’t last long. Her heartbeat slowed and slowed as her body collapsed deeper into the ground.

  “Take my body, take my everything, my name, my yesterday, today, and tomorrow! Take it!” Seren yelled.

  “And if you were going to the Dome’s market, remember me to one who lives there,”

  “He once was a true love of mine.”

  …

  Seren?

  She opened her eyes. A red belt burned in the night sky. Living, bleeding red. The earth bled blue, dark blue of something great. Something beyond, yet something so similar. She twitched from the freezing whisper of the tempest as she tried to recognize where she was. She looked into the burning red stream of the ground. It was warm; it looked warm, and it looked like where she belonged. Then she looked into the other side, it was hard to tell, but she could see a dome on the ground. She couldn’t see the exact color, but it still looked warm.

  She tried to open her mouth, but out came a sound that she was not familiar with, a language of inefficiency, unlike the whispers of that great being:

  “Without…no seams…nor needle work….”