Chapter 733 - Taming the Fifth Year - Stars of the Past

’WHAT.’

’WHAT DID HE JUST SAY.’

’HE’S GLAD? GLAD I MEMORIZED HIS MANA MARK?’

’THAT’S... THAT’S NOT THE RESPONSE I EXPECTED. THAT’S NOT... HE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO...’

Her thoughts fragmented into incoherence.

Too many emotions hitting simultaneously for rational processing. Relief and joy and disbelief and something warm that made her chest feel too small to contain it.

Her face was not perfectly neutral anymore.

"I..." she started, then stopped.

What could she even say to that?

Ren smiled. A small and gentle one just for her.

The kind of smile that suggested he understood exactly how much that admission had cost. How much courage it had taken to reveal she’d been paying attention from the very beginning.

"I noticed you too," he said softly, still moving in perfect synchronization with her steps.

Luna’s heart did something acrobatic.

’He noticed me? When? How?’

"Hard not too... You were the one with the strongest beast there and the only one who didn’t laugh," Ren continued, his voice carrying that same gentle quality. "The only one who looked... angry on my behalf instead of amused."

’He saw that? I thought I hid it. I thought my mask was perfect and he SAW THROUGH IT?’

"And then the first school day you defended me from Jin’s group, so I thought..." he paused, choosing words carefully, "I thought that if even one person could see me as worth defending, maybe I wasn’t completely hopeless to show my worth."

The words landed heavy with meaning. With the weight of revelation that they’d both been paying attention to each other from the very beginning.

That this connection hadn’t started recently but had roots going back years to that first day when everything had seemed impossible.

Luna couldn’t speak.

Couldn’t do anything except keep dancing and try not to let her expression crack more completely under the weight of emotions threatening to overwhelm.

’He noticed me. From the first day. Just like I noticed him.’

’We’ve been... what? Circling each other? Watching each other? Caring about each other without admitting it?’

’For YEARS?’

The realization hit like revelation.

Like suddenly seeing a pattern that had always been there but she’d been too close to recognize. Like understanding that what she’d thought was recent development had actually been building since the very beginning.

"Luna," Ren said softly, pulling her slightly closer in the dance.

Not inappropriately. Not breaking protocol. Just enough that the space between them decreased fractionally.

She looked up at him, unable to hide the vulnerability in her eyes anymore. Unable to maintain the mask when everything inside was too big to contain.

"I’m glad you memorized my mana mark and saved me first," he repeated, making sure she heard it. Making sure she believed it. "Because it means I mattered to you even when I had nothing to offer and I was worthless... Now let me save you."

’You always mattered... From that first day. From that first moment I saw you refuse to break. You always mattered.’

But Ren knew that...

So she just nodded.

Ren saw it.

And his smile widened fractionally. Understanding his first mission was complete.

Getting her to trust him enough to share. To open up.

"And while you take your time to tell me your full plan... Keep yourself safe, okay?"

The words were simple. Casual almost.

But they triggered something in Luna.

Memories came flooding back at those words.

♢♢♢♢

Luna was seven years old when her world shattered.

It wasn’t the day it actually happened. That day came much earlier and the news arrived to her months later, when she finally understood what had occurred. Or at least the part her father told her.

When pieces came together in ways a seven-year-old shouldn’t be able to comprehend.

When unfortunately things would never be the way they’d been before...

The loss too permanent and the damage too deep. The fractures spreading through her family like cracks through glass that would never fully heal.

BEFORE

The Starweaver mansion used to be full of life.

Not the cold, formal life of political gatherings where everyone wore masks and spoke in careful phrases designed to reveal nothing. But real life.

Warmth.

Laughter that echoed through halls built for echoing.

Uncle Orion visited often with his wife, Lady Lyzea Goldcrest, or now... Lyzea Starweaver. Her mother’s cousin. An elegant woman with a face quite similar to her mother’s but with golden hair that always brought hidden candies in her dress pockets for Luna.

"Don’t tell your mother," Lyzea would whisper conspiratorially while passing a honey caramel. "She’ll say I’m ruining your dinner."

And Luna would laugh, keeping the secret with a small child’s seriousness.

Uncle Magnus and Uncle Dorian, the twins, were less close but not hostile. They visited for family business, discussed territories and politics with her father Sirius, but there was always cordiality.

Mutual respect.

Not the cold formality of enemies forced to cooperate. But genuine regard between family members who might disagree but ultimately wanted the same things.

The vast Starweaver territory functioned as a unit. The two factions didn’t exist as they worked together toward common goals.

It wasn’t perfect... It never was with nobles.

Politics always complicated things. Different philosophies about how to wield power created friction even when ultimate objectives aligned.

But it was... functional. Even warm in moments.

Luna remembered dinners where the entire family gathered. Where her mother Lykea laughed with Lyzea about some minor scandal among the noble ladies. Where Sirius and Orion debated military strategies without animosity, disagreeing passionately but without the venom that would come later.

Where Luna, small and innocent, thought that’s how it would always be.

That family meant safety. That the people around her would always be there. That nothing could break bonds forged through blood and shared history.

She’d been so young. So naive.

THE CHANGE

Below all the great castles lay ruins.

Ashenway, Goldcrest, Starweaver, and obviously Dravenholm who had the largest... The united family managed the ones of the three schools neutrally with general support, an association considered in a way the fifth family, where directors like Ignatius and some Gold-rank family heads functioned as arbiters of certain political situations.

These ancient ruins were in almost all cases the reason for those noble houses’ birth centuries ago. Contained lost artifacts, powerful potions, information about forgotten techniques, and riches that made modern fortunes look trivial.

But they were difficult to access.

Doors sealed with crystal barriers that only opened when someone reached certain power levels. Security mechanisms that required solving mysteries. Trials that killed the unprepared without mercy or warning.

The ruin beneath Ashenway castle was similar to the one under the royal Dravenholm castle, though smaller. An abundant crystal vein with treasures stored like an ancient vault.

If one traced a line between the three veins of the main schools managed by the united families and the two of Dragarion’s castle and Selphira’s, these five ruins formed an almost perfect square.

And at the midpoint of that square was the last ruin of the united family... the first ruin Ren had plundered years back.

The third ring ruin. The last of the main ruins to open.

But the Starweaver and Goldcrest ruins...

Those remained in what from the sky would look like a diagonal line drawn from the upper right vertex to the lower left vertex of the square formed by the others.

And those were different.

Very different.