Chapter Text
It streaked across the sky, bloody and menacing. All the world as one looked toward the sky, from their beds or from their work or from their worship. Falling stars had before been heralds of the death of kings, they had been portents of doom, or the promise of riches or victory or of the beginning of a new era of history entirely. What none yet knew was which this was.
On a beach of rainbow-hued sand, a woman with brazen skin and hair as black as night looked up from the body of an unconscious woman, her skin as cold as moonlight, to see it streaking low across the northern sky.
In the Palace of Eternal Midnight, countless functionaries and servants and bureaucrats looked up as one and held secret hopes in their hearts, thoughts it was forbidden even to entertain. Then, before the guards could admonish them, they returned to their duties.
The Hordemasters of the Great Grass Sea all called a halt to their maneuvers when the star streaked overhead. They traced the path of the falling star, to the west, and mobilized immediately for their scrolls told them quite plainly what was to be expected within.
Indigo eyes looked skyward from far to the east, their almond irises and unsettlingly pupils staring unblinking at the falling star, charting its descent and preparing to venture forth in search of the promise of tomorrow.
On the streets of Corsica, the falling star transformed night into a twisted, wan twilight, streaking past and moving swiftly east. Telescopes wheeled toward it in the vain hopes of catching a glimpse, but none could add its image to their Grand Library. They would have to settle for the readings of the astrometricians, with the operators of the Grand Sextant already working to track its precise trajectory.
The temple bells range all night, though whether in celebration or mourning none could tell. The slave pits, lit with uncounted braziers in the twilight, were set ablaze as the star traveled directly overhead. One slave in particular, light-skinned and raven-haired, knew that this was the chance to change his stars.