Status Updates From The Last Starborn Seer (Chr...

I've overpowered the night-birds, reclaimed the Starlight Staff, saved my mother's life, and learnt the whereabouts of the next lost sceptre. I would have given anything to be in this position a few hours ago. Why, then, do I still feel so uneasy?

More than any of that, he says, catching hold of my hand again, I want to make this work. I want...? He worries at his bottom lip. 'I want to support you as you assume your rightful place on the Throne, and when the occasion of our binding comes - whenever that may be - know I'll be honoured, proud, to walk this life alongside you?
I swallow hard, hoping Astrophel doesn’t notice the tremor in my hand

The parameters of the search have changed. A seismic shift. Our quest is infinitely more difficult, more dangerous, now.We were close, so star-damned close. And now... Not one magical sceptre to find, but four. Scattered to the corners of the realms, in hostile enemy territory. Four blood rites to perform. Four dalliances with Shadow Lore to endure. Four encounters with deadly magical creatures to try and survive.
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Arden is following them, but Leilani found out they have to receive 4 scepters from 4 different parts of the realm. They have to be together in order to perform the blood rites necessary for retrieving the scepters and also to overcome all the obstacles that defend the scepters from being found

a mark that shouldn't be there, a mark usually hidden by his torc.
Is it part of the lightning burns? But even as the thought crosses my mind, I reject it. There's no denying what that mark is. That faint mark in the shape of a flame.
Flame-kissed. Flame-cursed.
Blayze is Flame-Branded.

But I can't lie to myself anymore.
I want Blayze. Want him with a wild, aching need I never dreamt possible.
I can't explain it. Only that I'm drawn to him by some invisible force bigger and stronger than my own will - as if'm one of Arcelias moons, and Blayze the burning sun locking me in his orbit.

Our binding was never supposed to be a love match, but my feelings for Leilani grow warmer with each new dawnrise. I think - hope - her prejudice against me is thawing too. I felt a spark in that cave, and these mountains are living proof that flowers can bloom in the most barren soil. Who knows how our union could flourish, given time, and driven by a common purpose.

Pause 🙄

SHE SURFACES AGAIN. Faceless. Nameless. A gaping void where her features ought to be. Wreathed in flame, making inhuman grunting sounds, trying to speak through a mouth she no longer possesses. But what is she trying to say? I want to ask her. Help her, if I can. But the flames engulf me before I can utter a word. Searing Alesh from bone. I wake with a gasp.

He's the most bewildering person I've ever met. Scarcely a word since we met, save for jibes, then two emotional outpourings in the past few moonsrisings. He's talking to me as though we're friends instead of enemies, yet I know he can't stand the sight of me. He thinks I'm a... What was the word he used? An abomination. - about Blayze

My thoughts drift, and before I can stop myself, I'm imagining being bundled under that cloak with Blayze, gathered in the circle of his strong arms, cradled close against his sculpted chest. Feeling the beat of his heart, inhaling his earthy scent of musk, amber and dreamroot. Right now, I'd give anything to feel a breath of warmth on my pebbled skin. Even being enfolded in the arms of Blayze star-damned Arcuri.

Finding the Starlight Staff, finding it quickly, it's the only thing that matters. And not because it could save my mother's life and earn me my father's forgiveness. I've been approaching this all wrong. Only thinking of myself, about how this quest could benefit me. But it's so much bigger than that. The realms are broken; this is a chance to do more than repair rotting threads. We can weave our world anew