Page 1 of Stars in Aura

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Fate’s Fall

ISSA

‘You are Fallen!’

A multitude of voices shrieked in a cacophony of divine wrath and judgment.

Their thunderous roars burst through smoke and flame, devouring walls, furniture, and even the roof in waves of blistering heat and choking ash.

The sky above one of Sacra’s high palaces cracked with thunder, and hail pummelled down as if the heavens wept.

Its interior, once radiant and sumptuous, even cozy for the household it had embraced, now burned.

Curtains of gold thread were consumed by licking embers.

Ethereal banners turned into drifting residue, and crystalline partitions fractured under the burden of divine betrayal.

A family of five stood huddled together in the heart of their home’s ruin, shielding one another, linked as one, limbs trembling, eyes dilated with horror.

The mother’s arms curled in a protective clasp, encircling her youngest daughter and second-born son.

The firstborn, a daughter with celestial starlit eyes, was pressed between her siblings like a shield as one of their father’s one-armed grasp held them tight.

‘I’m so sorry, my loved ones, tis my fault,’ he snarled with bitter rage.

His other hand trembled on the hilt of his glimmer sword electrified with azure and gilded energy arcs.

‘Nadapapa,’ said the eldest, a warrior in her own right, her golden curls disheveled, her face smeared in soot, her weapon thrumming in her hand. ‘You were set up.’

With the hiss of a thousand vipers, the Shackles of Vyri’el came.

Forged from the collapsed heart of a dying star, etched with binding sigils older than time, they sliced through the barriers, shields and smoke.

The rings of luminous gold spiraled like predators hunting their prey.

They shrieked across the space and snapped onto the family’s wrists and ankles with terrifying precision.

In seconds, their weapons were ripped from their grasp and flung away.

Each shackle extended on contact, linking into a chain of light, an arcane lattice of power and punishment.

The screaming kin fell to the floor as the radiant links twisted into a hovering cage, every sigil pulsing like a heartbeat.

They were pulled into its hold, the enclosure door slamming shut with ominous menace.

It rose, spinning, bathed in unholy illumination, defying gravity, mercy, and sense.

For one terrible moment, it hovered just outside the broken expanse of crystalline windows.

Framed by the smoking ruins behind it, the five souls caught within its judgment froze in the unforgiving grip of divine law.

Without warning, the cage was pulled into a vortex like a stone hurled by a god’s hand, and the heavens the family called home vanished in a final breathless heartbeat.

Within the whirling charybdis, the gilded prison plunged toward the planet’s surface below, hurtling through clouds and thunder.

Inside, horror unfolded as the cage fell into shadow.

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