Another pillar flared. The text rearranged itself.
[ SPEAK ONLY WHAT YOUR SOUL CAN CARRY.
A LIE IS MOTION WITHOUT ROOT.
WHEN FALSEHOOD OUTWEIGHS TRUTH,
THE TONGUE SHALL FALL SILENT. ]
As if to demonstrate, not far away two practitioners were arguing.
One, shaking his head, said, "It’s not that bad—this place isn’t dangerous if we stay calm."
Lucien who could feel the oppressive weight in the air knew that was at least half a lie.
The Court agreed.
The star directly above the man dimd to ash-grey.
A spiderweb of cracks splintered from his feet, racing outward across the mirror as if soone had dropped reality and it shattered.
He reached for his own throat—
And froze.
Not slowly. Not gently.
One instant he was moving. The next, his motions were carved out of existence.
His body remained upright but the idea of motion had been deleted from him.
Marie’s voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
"If we lie, we get... turned off?"
Eirene nodded grimly.
"This is why it’s called a Court. It punishes motion divorced from truth."
Another set of runes lit up.
[ PURPOSELESS MOTION IS A CRI.
EVERY STEP, EVERY GESTURE,
MUST BE WEIGHED AGAINST YOUR INTENT.
FRIVOLOUS ACTIONS SHALL BE ERASED. ]
Soone across the chamber fidgeted. It was just a small, anxious pacing.
But his reflection didn’t move with him.
It watched him.
When he took another restless step, it reached up and pulled.
He vanished into the mirror without a sound.
Marie quietly pressed herself closer to Lucien.
"Okay," she muttered, "I officially hate this place more than the breath-erasing garden."
Lucien’s eyes stayed on the shifting runes.
"It looks like... The protective chanism made this worse," he said quietly.
Eirene glanced at him.
Lucien gestured subtly toward the ceiling.
So constellations were lted at the edges as if sothing had stressed the Court beyond intended limits. A few runic lines flickered, half-faded, as though the system was running hot.
"This trial was probably ant to judge intent and composure," Lucien continued. "Now it judges with lethal precision. No warnings. No second chances."
"Like the rest of the ruin," Eirene murmured. "The Court now wasn’t as peaceful as before. Now it kills."
It was then that they saw the Starforge Cartel.
Their mbers stood on a raised platform of starlight, half-silhouetted against the frozen constellations.
Lilith leaned heavily on a hamr-polearm. Her single horn caught the dim glow of the stars. Around her, several cartel mbers were locked in place.
Their bodies were rigid, their mouths were parted as if caught mid-word, and their eyes were fixed on sothing only they could see.
Lilith herself looked like soone pinned between pride and panic.
Marie whispered, "The Starforge Cartel..."
Eirene’s brows furrowed.
"So even they’re stuck..."
A hoarse voice drifted over. It was clear despite the distance.
"Little darling, you’re here too..."
Lucien turned.
Lilith hadn’t raised her voice, but he heard her as if she stood right beside him. Her horn glimred faintly. Whether it was a racial trait or a skill, it clearly helped carry her words.
She did not step away from the platform. Every muscle in her fra was coiled but motionless, as if she feared that even walking might trigger a sentence.
"I could use so help," she said dryly.
Lucien smiled faintly.
He nodded toward Eirene, and the Verdant Veil understood without a word.
No one needed reminders here. They had all felt the Court’s teeth.
They moved as a unit. Slow and deliberate. Each step was placed exactly where Eirene stepped before them.
There was no hesitation and no extra movent. The spiral stairway of stars responded with soft pulses of light as they climbed toward the platform where the cartel waited.
Lilith wore a strange expression when they arrived.
She and Eirene had traded barbs more than once in the past, but now, neither had the luxury. Eirene chose not to tease her. After all, they weren’t true enemies... just rival rchant associations caught in the sa noose.
When they reached level ground, Lucien spoke first.
"Sister Lilith," he asked, "how did your group end up like this?"
The usual iron-willed Lilith finally let so of the tension show. Her tall fra leaned harder against her weapon as she sighed.
"It’s... a little embarrassing," she admitted. "We ca for the Court’s treasures. Instead..."
She tilted her head toward the rigid figures around her.
"...we found stricter laws than we bargained for."
Marie frowned.
"Why are they frozen like that?"
Lilith’s lips thinned.
"We weren’t like this at first. We cleared the initial approach. We even identified and claid most of the artifacts already."
She nodded toward one side of the platform.
There, arranged on crystalline plinths, lay several items sealed under translucent star-barriers:
A headband of midnight tal inlaid with tiny unmoving constellations.
A pair of gloves trimd with filants that shimred like cot-tails.
A thin, disc-shaped instrunt like a compass with its needle pointed toward so invisible, fixed direction.
And a folded dark mantle whose fabric swallowed even the Court’s pale light.
"The Court of Unmoving Stars hoards artifacts of trajectory and fixation," Lilith explained. "Things that guide, anchor, or refuse to be moved."
She pointed with her chin.
"That headband lets you lock onto a single star in your vision as a permanent reference in the void... perfect for navigation. That compass refuses to spin even inside spatial distortions. Those gloves stabilize fine work during micro-gravity forging. And that cloak..."
Her gaze lingered on the dark mantle.
"...can pin your position in space so that forced teleportations simply fail to relocate you."
Marie let out a low whistle.
"Void navigation gear," she muttered. "No wonder the Starforge Cartel sprinted here."
Lilith’s expression soured.
"The Court only releases them when its conditions are t," she said. "We thought we were close. But just as we reached this platform... everything shifted."
Eirene’s eyes narrowed.
"The Court turned harsher?"
"Harsher. Unstable. Overlapping," Lilith said bitterly. "Under normal conditions, an unworthy soul is rely repelled or sent back to the entrance. Now?"
Her jaw tightened.
"Now, motion is erased. Breath is frozen. Consciousness gets trapped in reflections that never blink."
Lucien’s gaze slid to the unmoving cartel mbers. Their eyes are unfocused and their bodies are locked mid-motion.
"Why didn’t you retreat the mont the Court changed?" he asked.
Lilith gave a humorless laugh.
"The exit doesn’t open until the Court’s verdict is complete. To finish that verdict..."
She nodded toward the distant center of the chamber.
"You have to reach the Star Dais and make an Unmoving Star move."
Marie blinked.
"Sorry—make a what do what?"
Eirene inhaled slowly.
"That’s why it’s called the Court of Unmoving Stars," she murmured. "The stars here have been sentenced to absolute stillness. To pass, you must convince the Court that one of them deserves to move again."
Lucien followed Lilith’s gesture toward the heart of the realm.
At the far center of the mirrored floor, raised upon a slowly rotating disc of condensed starlight, stood a circular dais.
Suspended above it hung the colossal star-gavel they’d seen before. It was frozen mid-swing, eternally monts away from delivering a verdict.
Spiral walks of light arced toward the dais, but they were wrong. They looked simple but there are distortions.
Sections of the spiral were bent, doubled, or missing entirely. The paths were misaligned like a shattered orbit. So stretches overlapped others in impossible angles, creating zones where motion itself seed mis-synchronized.
Lilith’s voice dropped.
"My people tried the usual thod," she said. "Run fast, jump gaps, test the paths. Chart which stars were safe the hard way."
Her gaze lifted toward the vaulted sky.
The ’stars’ were shaped like curled-up people, faint human silhouettes folded into themselves, clinging to their knees.
"Every wrong step," Lilith said quietly, "had a cost."
Eirene nodded slowly.
"So you reached the ’final argunt’ stage... but had nothing the Court found convincing."
Lilith’s lips tightened, insulted, but she didn’t deny it.
"We’re rchants and smiths," she said. "We know how to bend matter and trade value. We... don’t speak the language this court wants to hear."
In other words, at their core, the Cartel’s purpose was profit. The Court had weighed it... and found it lacking.
Lucien turned his attention back to the Star Dais.
"I’ll take a look," he said lightly.
Lilith studied him for a heartbeat, then smiled with a little of her usual sharpness returning.
"Little darling," she said, "if you solve it, the Starforge Cartel will owe you more than a favor. And if we can pull our people back from the stars, we’ll rember who made it possible."
"More backing," Marie muttered under her breath. "How many groups want to owe you now?"
"As many as it takes," Lucien replied, amused.
He glanced back at Lilith.
"I only want one thing in return, Sister."
Lilith tilted her head, curiosity sparking.
"Oh? Na it."
Lucien smiled.
"If I succeed... please stop calling ’little darling.’"
Lilith stared at him.
For a second, her composure cracked. Laughter almost burst out, but she caught it, pressing her lips together.
"...We’ll see," she said at last, eyes glinting.
The Court’s starlight reflected off her horn and off Lucien’s calm gaze.
The bargain was made.
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