The frozen man's scream tore through the Blackwood, a soundless horror that reverberated in Tatsu's skull. Around him, the diamond-like shells of the frozen ones splintered, their jagged cracks spreading like veins. The air rippled, warping the forest into a nightmare of fractured time, a tree branch aged to rot in seconds, a star fragment bloomed into a dying supernova, then crumpled to ash. The throne's voice boomed again, not from his mind but from the decomposing star above, its crimson light dissolving into a black smear across the sky.
"Run," it commanded, the word sharp as shattered glass.
Tatsu stumbled backward, his star-marked palm searing as if dipped in molten steel. He fled, the forest twisting against him, branches snagged his clothes, roots rose like skeletal hands. Behind him, the frozen ones shuddered, their stiff joints cracking like gunshots. He didn't stop until he collapsed at the forest's edge, the city's skyline glowing mockingly ordinary in the distance. His hand blistered, the star mark swollen and throbbing. He shoved it into his pocket, ignoring the warmth of blood seeping through the fabric.
The next morning, Tatsu's hand was bandaged, a lie about a lab accident. His mother, her star-born eye (the gold one) lingering on the injury, said nothing as she handed him a lunchbox of cloud rice and pickled comet-root. At school, rumors buzzed like static.
"The Blackwood's frozen ones are moving."
"Saw a star dissolve over the eastern fissure."
"The Ashen Cabal marked the gym walls last night."
Kio cornered him at his locker, her cobalt-dyed hair frazzled. "You smell like burnt stardust," she hissed. "What did you do?"
Before he could answer, a voice cut through the hall:
"Tatsu Kuroda. Principal's office. Now."
Principal Halara was no reconstructed relic, she was pure star-born, her marble-pale skin flawless, her eyes twin galaxies swirling with cold light. Her office was a vault of dead stars, their glow preserved in glass orbs that hummed with restrained power. She steepled her fingers, her voice echoing like distant thunder.
"You entered the Blackwood."
Tatsu met her gaze. "So?"
"So," she said, tossing him a shard of decomposing star-metal, "stabilize it."
He let the shard crumble to ash. "I'm not your experiment."
Halara's star-marked eyes narrowed. "You will be. Or you'll break."
In star-history class, holograms of the Splintering's earliest days flickered, continents drifting like broken puzzle pieces, star people descending in beams of light.
"Anchors," Mr. Veyn said, shifting the hologram to an obsidian throne, "mythical stabilizers of the Splintering. Some say they were hybrids. Others claim they were conduits for star-gods."
Kio kicked Tatsu's chair. "Sound familiar?"
Ren, his prosthetic star-metal arm gleaming, scoffed. "Propaganda. Stars caused the Splintering, they don't fix it."
Behind Tatsu, Lira, the silver-haired transfer student with starless black eyes, leaned forward.
"What if Anchors aren't born?" Her voice was a whisper, yet it silenced the room. "What if they're… made?"
Tatsu's bandaged hand pulsed.
Lunch was a minefield. Ren's human-supremacy clique glared at hybrid tables; star-born students levitated utensils in silent defiance. Kio dragged Tatsu to their corner beneath a withered star-vine.
"Show me your hand," she demanded.
Reluctantly, he unwrapped the bandage. The star mark had spread, tendrils of light snaking up his wrist.
Kio paled. "That's not a burn. It's a brand. Like the ones on the frozen—"
A shout erupted. Ren stood over a star-born freshman, her lunch tray upturned.
"Freak. Your kind killed my dad."
Tatsu moved before he could think. His branded hand gripped Ren's prosthetic arm and the star-metal melted, glowing white-hot.
Silence.
Ren stumbled back, clutching his smoldering sleeve.
"What are you?"
That night, the dream began with a table.
An obsidian slab stretched endlessly, its surface etched with squirming constellations that pulsed like exposed nerves. The air tasted of rust and spoiled milk. At the table's head loomed the throne, no longer a seat, but a jagged spire fused with the floor, its arms twisted into thorned serpents that hissed as Tatsu approached.
"Sit," the throne commanded, its voice a chorus of drowned whispers.
Tatsu's legs moved against his will. The throne's serpents coiled around his ankles, dragging him closer. The moment he touched it, the room shifted. Walls erupted, stone weeping black sludge. The ceiling vaulted into a cathedral of hooked spires, their talons dripping tar. The table stretched, its edges dissolving into shadow as new chairs materialized, twelve in total, each carved from a different horror: fused bone, rotting star-flesh, frozen screams.
"One day," the throne, "these seats will fill. Kings and corpses, liars and lords… all hungry for what you are."
Tatsu tried to stand, but the serpents pinned him. The throne's spire writhed, its peak splitting open to reveal a mouth lined with splintered stars.
"You will host them," it hissed. "You will feed them. And when the table is full…"
The chairs groaned. Shadows pooled in their seats, forming figures with hollow eyes and grasping hands. One reached for Tatsu, its fingers snapping like brittle twigs.
"They will feast on what's left of you."
Tatsu gripped the throne's arms and screamed. The serpents' thorns burrowed into his palms, his blood pooling into the table's constellations. The shadows laughed, a sound like cracking ice.
"Remember this, little anchor," the throne whispered as the dream frayed. "Every king is a throne's first meal."
He woke with a gasp, his star-mark throbbing. Black lines now traced his veins, winding up his forearms like ink injected beneath his skin.
Outside, the undecaying star still hung a bloated, rotting eye in the sky.
And on his bedroom wall, etched in faint starlight ash, was a single phrase:
The table awaits.
In the Blackwood's shadows, the Ashen Cabal's vassal, the Duskwarden watched. Its cloak billowed with dead starlight, its voice a chorus of distorted whispers. Frozen victims knelt around it, their diamond shells etched with a single phrase:
Crowned or Drowned.
When Tatsu returned at dawn, the Duskwarden's sigil burned at his feet, a black crown floating above a starless void. The message was clear:
"Choose, Anchor. Ascend… or sink."
But as the city slept, Lira appeared beside him, her fingertips flickering like static.
"Thrones drown faster than they shine," she murmured. "And I… I think I'm running out of time."
The ground beneath them trembled. Somewhere, a star screamed.