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Stars were born.
The dream was so vivid, not like the others. Callum was standing in an endless of shimmering and twisting starlight, a sea of black glass stretching beneath his feet. It reflected no light, though the silver clouds swirling around his feet hummed with energy. He was not alone.
A figure emerged from the dark. “Beautiful isn’t it? This moment is a reflection of my first emergence.” Aaravos gestured to a twinkling group of stars. “I almost miss the wonder of youth.”
“Get out of my head!”
"You seem restless, Callum," Aaravos began. He smiled faintly, though his gaze held none of the warmth it implied. "Have I disturbed your slumber? I suppose it is rather rude it walk in unannounced. The mind is a very private thing.”
"I—" Callum hesitated. "I told you to get out!” Am I dreaming?
"In a manner of speaking," Aaravos replied, stepping closer. "Don’t look so stunned. I cannot read minds. You wear your thoughts on your face, even in your little dreamland. But does it matter? Dreams and reality are separated only by perception. And perception is so... malleable."
Callum exhaled, the stars around him shifting with him. He folded his hands over his chest. "I expelled you. Your darkness.”
Aaravos scoffed softly, shaking his head. "Your past cannot be changed. You used dark magic, I can connect to you. While I can’t inhabit your body, we can still commune. Completely severing this tie is… hmm… let me think of a simple way to explain… It’s trying to banish your own shadow – rather pointless, don't you think?” He laughed, genuinely. "I’m not the mud underneath your boots that can be washed away."
“Why are you here?"
Aaravos tilted his head, his expression unreadable. "To talk. To teach, perhaps. If you wish to listen, that is."
Callum frowned. "To what? More lies? Tricks to get me to do dark magic again?"
The smile Aaravos gave him was slow. "It is only natural to be afraid of what you do not understand. Tell me, Callum, do you eat meat?"
“What does that have to do with anything?"
"Humor me," Aaravos said.
"Well, yeah, sometimes," Callum admitted, thinking of the meals shared with Rayla, Runaan, and how Ethari, and how the latter had managed to merge human and moon shadow elf cuisine in their new home. Just that night, Runaan had hunted their meal. “Why?"
Aaravos spread his hands as though the answer was obvious. "When you eat, you consume. You take from the world to sustain yourself. A life is ended so yours might continue. Is that not the natural order of things?"
"That's not the same," Callum argued, panic clawing at his throat like a trapped animal. The memory of dark magic's corrupting touch made his skin crawl, remembering how it had felt when he'd saved the Rayla—like thousands of insects burrowing under his skin. "You're stealing one of the most precious things about a living thing… Your magic is just taking from something else- something alive!"
"Something alive?" Aaravos's tone was patient, almost fatherly, which somehow made it worse. "Spoken like a boy who has never seen a sun wink out. At its core, dark magic is no different from any other form. You draw from the energy around you, yes. But so does every mage. While they aren't alive, Primal sources are not endless, Callum. This Sun will dim. Your Stars will fade. And every Sky will grow still with time. The death of a single spider here, and a winged badger there doesn't lead to the death of a world. Magic—all magic—takes. Dark magic merely demands that you look it in the eye when it does."
Callum shook his head violently, trying to block out the words, but they slid under his skin like splinters, finding purchase in the darkest corners of his doubts. "Using living things for their magic is wrong! It's—"
"And the boy mage believes using them for their nutrients is right?" Aaravos's voice took on an edge of steel. "You are only alive today because of the sacrifice of thousands of living things. You eat, you live. Humanity was on the verge of extinction when I taught them magic."
"No! It corrupts. Rots people from the inside out." Callum's hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"Do you know what happens when you eat too much, Callum? When you gorge yourself on sweetness or richness? Oh, of course you do, a baker sits on your royal council. When you and yours gorge yourself, the elven and human body rebels. It weakens. Becomes sick. Magic is no different. Too much, of any kind, will break you. Sky magic hollows bones, Sun magic burns from within, Moon magic fragments the mind, Earth magic petrifies flesh, Ocean magic drowns the spirit, and Star magic..." He paused, a shadow crossing his handsome features. "Well. You've seen what immortality does those chosen."
Callum felt his chest tighten. He had seen it—in scrolls, in stories, in the haunted eyes of Star-touched mages who'd lived too long, seen too much. "That's different. We work with the Primal Sources, not—"
"Not what? Death?" Aaravos stepped closer, and the starlit void seemed to bend around him. "Everything dies, Callum. The butterfly you spare today will perish tomorrow. The deer you hunt will feed a family regardless. The only difference is whether its death serves a purpose beyond mere sustenance."
"Stop it," Callum whispered, but his voice lacked conviction. The stars above seemed to dim, leaving only the endless black glass beneath his feet.
"You fear corruption?" Aaravos's voice softened dangerously. "Look at your hands. Count the calluses from your sketch pencils, feel the scars from your sky magic. All power leaves its mark. The question isn't whether magic will change you—it's whether you will master that change, or let it master you."
Callum looked down at his hands, remembering how they'd trembled after his first dark magic spell, how they'd steadied when he'd connected to the Sky arcanum. "I won't let you twist this. Dark magic is wrong because—because—"
"Because others told you so? The same others who once said humans couldn't do primal magic at all? You've already proven them wrong once, Callum. How many other lies have they fed you?"
The dream-space seemed to constrict, and Callum could feel his heart hammering against his ribs. He wanted to wake up, to escape this conversation, but something held him there—curiosity, or fear, or something darker still. No. “I won’t let you get into my head.”
The elf laughed again, not bothering to inform the boy that he was already there. “You are a strange child.” He took a step back, the starlit void around them shifting like a living thing, conforming to his movement while reality itself bent to his will. He snapped his fingers and lounged on a pillow. "You protest killing any creature for magical means but were willing to betray your own brother and king for an assassin."
Ice flooded Callum's veins. "I didn't betray him! I would never—"
"Oh, certainly. The grand high mage attacking the king of Katolis and running away with the murderer of the last king, your own stepfather, for his... special friend is hardly traitorous activity." Callum looked away, when he turned back towards him he was sipping on a shimmering blue drink in a gold goblet.
“Thirsty? I can get you one.”
"Enough!” He slapped the cup out of his hands. The glass shattered and the discarded liquid slowly shifted into various silhouettes. King Harrow, Rayla, an elf with a single horn.
“Temper, temper.”
“You're twisting everything! You're a liar!" Callum's voice cracked, the stars above them flickering violently in response to his distress.
"Oh, I don't lie, Callum. But you do. I'll leave you to ponder that," Aaravos said, his form beginning to fade into the darkness. "After all, understanding takes time, and while your life is but a breath for me, I have all the time in the world. In this one and the next."
Before Callum could respond, the dream began to dissolve, the stars dimming one by one, the floor cracking beneath his feet like thin ice. He screamed as his dream's reality fractured around him, catching one last glimpse of Aaravos's smile—ancient, knowing, and terribly patient.
Then the stars went out.