CHAPTER 1
THE STOLEN STAR
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The sky did not crack that night—it screamed.
Thunder rolled across the ancient hills of Orilon like a wounded beast, shaking windows and bending trees as though the world itself was afraid to witness what was about to happen.
Inside a small stone house at the edge of the kingdom, a newborn child cried for the first time.
His name had not yet been spoken aloud.
But the universe already knew him.
And so did she.
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Beyond time, beyond reason, something moved through the storm.
A woman stepped out of the void as if reality itself had agreed to make room for her. Her dress was black—not cloth, but something closer to shadow given form. Her eyes carried centuries. Her silence carried death.
Selene Nightshade.
A witch who was not born… but cursed into existence.
She stood before the trembling doorway of the nursery, staring at the child wrapped in golden cloth.
And above him—
A star.
Not in the sky.
Inside him.
A burning fragment of destiny, glowing softly through his chest like a heartbeat made of light.
Selene’s fingers trembled for the first time in centuries.
“This is him…” she whispered. “The chosen one.”
Behind her, the storm deepened, as if listening.
She should have walked away.
She should have let fate run its course.
But immortality has a cruel flaw—it eventually forgets how to fear consequences.
Selene raised her hand.
And the star responded.
The light inside the child pulsed violently, reacting as though it recognized her. The windows shattered. The candles died. The air thickened into something sacred and dangerous.
“No…” a voice from within the room tried to cry out.
But Selene had already moved.
In a blink, she was inside the nursery.
The guards never saw her.
They never had the chance to scream.
She stood over the crib, staring down at the newborn who was suddenly silent—not because he was afraid, but because he was watching her back.
That was the first sign.
He was not ordinary.
Selene lowered her hand toward his chest.
The star inside him responded immediately, flaring brighter, like it knew it was being betrayed.
Her lips parted slightly.
For the first time in centuries… she hesitated.
“If I leave you here,” she murmured, “you will burn the world alive.”
The child blinked slowly.
Too aware.
Too calm.
Too awake.
Selene’s hand closed.
And she tore.
The star was not physical—but it screamed like it was.
Light exploded outward, ripping through the nursery, bending reality in waves. The child cried out in pain for the first time since birth.
Outside, the storm stopped instantly.
As if the heavens had been struck silent.
Selene held the glowing fragment in her palm now—a floating star, alive and furious, burning with stolen destiny.
The child’s chest dimmed.
But he did not die.
He simply… emptied.
As though something essential had been removed from his soul.
Selene looked at him again.
And for a moment, something unfamiliar tightened inside her chest.
Guilt.
She crushed it immediately.
“Forgive me,” she whispered—not to the child, but to fate itself.
Then she vanished into the storm.
Leaving behind a boy who would one day become a billionaire…
…and a god who would spend his life feeling like something was missing
