Chapter 520: The Star of Extinction
“An ancestor?” Roland said, before he could stop himself. Everyone in the room was staring. He cleared his throat. “I mean—there’s no guarantee any of that is true.”
He felt a gentle pinch on his left shoulder.
“Your Majesty, it is true,” the Chief Astrologer said, lowering his gaze. “And I can prove it. But only you can see it.”
The remaining astrologers, hearing those words, rose and left the hall on their own. Roland considered a moment, then nodded to the witches and guards. “I’m all right. Give us the room.”
Nightingale would remain—invisible, silent, and close.
Dispersion Star withdrew to a small chamber adjoining the hall. He was gone for some time. When he returned, he carried an iron box in both hands and set it on the table before Roland with the care of something that mattered.
“What is this?”
“Instructions, left by your ancestor. He foresaw that this moment would come.”
“You mean someone trying to close the station?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” A wry line crossed the old man’s face. “And it has happened before. Astrology and alchemy are both called the academics of sages—but they are different in one important way. Alchemists produce things of value to the kingdom. We have little output. The Association consumes significant gold royals each year: high-quality crystal, skilled craftsmen, constant maintenance. To prevent a thrifty future king from dissolving us, your ancestor had the instruction engraved and bound this station to royal authority, so that no one could interfere.”
Roland opened the box.
Gold sheets—eight of them. Each roughly three millimeters thick, two palms wide, heavy in his hands. He hadn’t expected gold; it spoke to the seriousness with which whoever wrote these had wanted the words preserved across centuries.
He laid them on the table and read the first.
Nobody should interfere with the members of the Astrological Station in looking at the night sky, where lay mysteries which can show the fate of the world.
He paused on the final phrase. Mysteries which can show the fate of the world.
The station was strange from the beginning. If astrology actually worked, Wimbledon III would not have been replaced by the Church without warning—he would have killed the High Priest first. Even Dispersion Star himself had said the station produced “little output”—which suggested he did not regard divination as a real product. And the man looked entirely different now from the Church-adjacent figure Roland had first imagined him to be: tired, careful, resigned. An institution carrying an obligation it didn’t fully understand.
The ancestor who had built all this—who spent considerable wealth, who had the instructions hammered into gold, who erected a precisely symmetrical stone tower—was not, Roland was now almost certain, merely a man who loved stars. He wouldn’t have done this to preserve a hobby. The instruction’s phrasing was careful: the fate of the world. Not the fate of the kingdom. Not the fate of a dynasty.
He worked through the other sheets. Basic star observation methods. The Association’s history. The final sheet described techniques for grinding and enlarging crystal lenses—and referenced something called a “supreme commander.” Apparently one of the Wimbledon ancestors had also served as Chief Astrologer. Roland combed through his knowledge of the family’s history and found nothing that matched.
He returned to the first sheet and touched the final phrase.
“What does this mean? What fate?”
“I don’t know,” the Chief said, and shook his head.
A sharp pinch on his right shoulder.
Roland suppressed a smile and leaned back. “Listen to me. Rules bend to circumstances, and the rule your ancestor wrote was probably correct in his time. Times change, and I am not bound by what a predecessor decided centuries ago. I’m the King of Graycastle, and I’ll do what I think is best. Do you understand?”
“But Your Majesty—you can’t simply—” The Chief’s expression went rigid.
“You know the situation clearly.” Roland kept his voice level. “You’re spending money and watching sky and producing nothing. You don’t know the fate of the world. When my father was murdered by the Church, you couldn’t even send him a warning. Why should I keep this station open? You can’t trade stars for gold royals.” He held the man’s gaze. “Pack your things and come to the Western Region.”
Dispersion Star stared at him for a long moment. His expression, which had already hardened at the mention of Prince Roland’s former reputation for impudence, went darker still.
Then something shifted.
“You’ll likely regret knowing this,” the Chief said quietly.
“How would I know whether I’d regret it if you don’t tell me?” Roland kept his tone mild. It was occasionally useful to let himself appear impulsive, even reckless—it was the only pressure these old men would respond to, since Iron Axe could hardly be asked to interrogate astrologers.
Dispersion Star settled himself and was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice had the cadence of something that had been practiced in the mind for a very long time.
“We have been carrying a mission that lasts for hundreds of years. It began when the first lord Wimbledon arrived in this region.” He paused. “This secret is revealed only to the successor of the royal family when he becomes king, and has reached the age of thirty.”
“Why thirty?”
“Your ancestor believed that successors too young might panic upon learning it. That such panic could lead to poor decisions, and the decline of the kingdom.” Another pause, briefer. “We are looking for the Star of Extinction.”
Roland went still. “What is that?”
“A scarlet star. The Bloody Moon.” The old man’s voice dropped. “When it comes, the world will fall into a disaster beyond redemption.”
Something cold settled through Roland’s chest. The Bloody Moon—mentioned in the ancient texts from the ruins, confirmed by Agatha of the Union, and now here, spoken by a secular astronomer with no connection to Taquila that Roland could identify. The convergence was not coincidental.
“Be specific,” Roland said. His voice came out quieter than he intended.
“Everything I know comes from the former Chief.” Dispersion Star spoke carefully, as though measuring each word. “It is said that a red star moves through the night sky. When it grows to the size of a crescent moon, the world will be destroyed. Our task is to find it before it reaches that size—to trace its orbit and predict how much time remains. That is the true purpose of the horoscope.”
“Becomes a crescent moon?”
“A star’s orbit works the same way the sun’s does, or the moon’s—it follows a fixed path and appears at fixed times. When it disappears from the sky, it hasn’t ceased to exist; it has only moved to a position where we cannot see it. We call this path an orbit. When the scarlet star grows large enough, it will be visible as a crescent. We are trying to find it first—while it is still small, still distant. So that we know how long we have.”
Roland heard the words. He felt them arrange themselves against everything else he knew—the Bloody Moon in the ancient texts, Agatha’s testimony, the five paintings Zero had seen in the Church’s Prayer Room, the first of them the Bloody Moon itself—and something that had always been a vague and formless dread sharpened suddenly into a specific shape.
The world had been watching for this for a very long time.