Chapter 11: Star-catcher and Star-lighter

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“The autumn wind stirs the cosmic reeds, and the Lord of Fate bathes in the stars. Let the celestial court gaze at the empty Gate of Orion and tremble—for the sovereign they sought to bind walks unchained.”

Finally, the afternoon bell at St. Jude’s rang, and it felt like a total system reboot for hundreds of fried brains. Testing was officially over for the day. Soon, the exam centre’s heavy oak doors groaned open, letting out a sea of teenagers who looked like they’d just survived a brutal corporate audit.

Down in the main locker corridor, the crew was slowly reassembling.

"Clear the way for the silver-haired legend," Kendl grinned, elbowing Jay as Hiroto drifted down the hall. "Tell me, mate—did that fiery little redhead come crawling back to thank you? Or did she just throw the pencil at your head and run?"

Jay let out a loud laugh. "Yeah! Conny's probably still trying to figure out if she's grateful or if she wants to strangle you."

Hiroto reached his locker, pressed his forehead against the cold metal for a solid three seconds, and let out a long yawn.

"My, my, you lads are trying to offend someone. She kept the pencil," he murmured, not opening his eyes. "That's a win in my book. Why? Involved with that girl is proper disaster."

"Hang on," Stuart said, shutting his own locker with a sharp click. "Aren't you the actual disaster here? You drove a broken-down vehicle and came late for the lock-down protocol. If anyone brought the plague today, it was you."

The group burst into laughter. Kendl slapped Jay on the back.

But Kyle was somewhere else entirely.

He leaned against the locker bank, fingers tapping a rapid rhythm against his backpack strap. His energy was visibly spiking—a familiar wave of intense overthinking taking over as he mentally replayed every single matrix he had written down.

Did I expand that quadratic correctly?

He chewed the inside of his cheek.

What if the coefficient for x² was actually negative and I missed it?

A pause.

And the surds. The bounds were too tight. A fraction off and my standard form answer would collapse.

His fingers tightened around his pen.

Fufufu... no. Impossible. I am a sovereign. I checked the discriminant three times.

But what if I misread the gradient of that tangent line?

"Oi! Kyle! Earth to Your Majesty!" Kendl waved a hand in front of his face. "The paper's done, mate."

"Shut up, plebeian," Kyle snapped. "My cognitive faculties are running a full-system diagnostic."

Before Jay could crack another joke, the cheerful atmosphere in the corridor vanished entirely.

The heavy thud of cleated shoes echoed against the polished marble floor. Students parted like a sea of terrified minnows as a massive shadow fell over the group.

SLAM.

A heavy arm hit the locker next to Hiroto's head. Kevin Williams—St. Jude's 1st XV rugby captain, Blythe's boyfriend, and the kind of person who wore his blazer like a territorial flag—grabbed a fistful of Hiroto's collar and shoved him back against the metal.

"You think you're clever, Shakespeare?" Kevin hissed. "I've been hearing whispers all morning. You walking Blythe to the gates like you belong in her circle."

Hiroto didn't tense. He tilted his head back against the locker and let out a slow yawn.

"Blimey, mate... she isn't my type," he murmured. "And your breath? Proper intense. Is that the standard diet, or did you have raw onions for lunch specifically?"

An awkward silence settled between them.

"Though, I'd rather take that short chihuahua over your girl."

"You piece of trash!" Kevin's grip tightened. "Your family's bleeding cash across the continent. Stay away from my girl, or I'll make sure you've got nothing left to bleed."

Hiroto offered a lazy, provocative smirk. "Whatever you say, big man. Though she's the one who enjoys walking with me. Maybe buy me a reliable car so the mornings go smoother?"

"Why, you—!"

"Kevin! Drop him right now! You're misunderstanding!"

Blythe came through the crowd at speed, shoving Kevin's arm away from Hiroto with a force that surprised him.

Kevin released Hiroto's collar and smoothed his jacket.

"Just reminding the trash where it belongs, babe."

He grabbed Blythe's wrist.

"Car's out front. We're leaving."

"Let go! I can walk by myself!" Blythe yelled.

She struggled desperately against his hold.

As she was pulled down the corridor, she cast a brief glance back.

Her eyes flickered toward Hiroto.

Then, almost involuntarily, toward Kyle.

But Kyle? The sovereign didn't notice. He was already muttering about vector coefficients again.

Hiroto dusted off his collar, letting out a soft chuckle. "Wow. Abusive boyfriend. Splendid talk. Poor girl. Right, Kyle?"

"See? I told you lads to stay away from the elite girls."

He massaged his temples.

"First Hiroto gets cornered, and you, Kyle... you're next."

Stuart groaned, looking at the ceiling.

"We're going to get pulverized before the half-terms even end!"

Kyle didn't register any of it. He was already back to muttering about coefficients.

Jay grinned, pointing toward the end of the hall. "Fair point, Stuart... but those year 11 girls are still hiding behind the water cooler just to watch Kyle adjust his tie."

Stuart buried his face in his locker. "I give up."

Suddenly, a sharp vibration cut through Kyle's frantic internal monologue. He pulled out his phone. The caller ID read a single character: F.

He pressed answer. "Fufufu... speak, diva. I am currently concluding my post-examination tactical assessment—"

"Zee. Your verbal output is unnecessary," Yve's voice cut through. "I've been at the platform for four minutes. The train leaves in three. If you're not here in one hundred and eighty seconds, I'm leaving without you."

Click.

Kyle blinked. "That insolent, robotic—" He stuffed the phone away, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "The diagnostic is paused. Move, commoners!"

"You guys live together—" Jay said frantically before Kyle stuffed a sheet of class notes into his mouth.

"Don't jump to conclusions—she's a fox in my constellation who wants to steal my divine brainpower for a week!" Kyle replied quickly as he ran.

"Yeah, yeah, go take care of your queen, Your Majesty," Kendl laughed as Kyle sprinted down the hallway.

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

Ten minutes later, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the Northern service carriage. Yve stared out the window, still and detached. Kyle paced beside her, foot tapping, energy bouncing off the walls—restless, unfocused, searching for an outlet.

By the time they reached Didsbury Road, the sun had disappeared behind the Manchester fog. Aunt Maria's stew filled the hallway the moment they opened the front door. The house was quiet; Aunt Maria was likely still at the markets.

Kyle kicked his shoes off and marched upstairs. Yve followed at a measured pace, carrying her leather bag into his bedroom—still her territory for the week.

The moment Kyle crossed the threshold, he slammed his hand onto his desktop power button. Screens flashed to life.

Yve dropped her bag on the mattress, watching him with blank confusion as he clicked through tabs at lightning speed.

"Where is it—" He muttered. "The schedule said zero-six-hundred. She broadcasts Monday and Friday. I need the distraction."

He checked the community boards. Hit refresh three times.

Broadcasting hiatus — one week.

Kyle's hand dropped.

The racing energy in his chest hit a wall of boredom.

"Fufufu... a hiatus?" he groaned, collapsing into his desk chair. "An unauthorized cessation of entertainment protocols? I am trapped in a vacuum of post-exam monotony! There is no high-frequency visual stimulation! I am bored, Yve. Profoundly. Mathematically bored."

Yve observed him with clinical detachment.

"Your emotional volatility over a digital broadcast is statistically inefficient. We have another exam block tomorrow."

"You lack the capacity to understand high-grade entertainment," Kyle grumbled, spinning to face the wall.

A soft rustle broke the silence.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder. "If you're planning flashcard drills, I'm—"

He froze.

Yve's blazer was already on the bed. Her fingers were halfway down the buttons of her blouse. She reached for her skirt clasp with the casual, clinical indifference of someone alone in an empty room—completely oblivious to the fact that she wasn't.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't blush. She just... continued.

"WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING BARBARIC WOMAN?! ARE YOU INSANE OR AM I THE CRAZY ONE HERE?!" Kyle shrieked, voice cracking.

He lunged forward and delivered a frantic bonk to the top of her head with his knuckles.

Thwack.

Yve stopped mid-motion, raising her green eyes with profound, dense confusion.

"Zee. Your physical intervention was outside acceptable parameters. Why did you strike my cranium?"

"Because you are actively attempting a public decency violation in my domain!" Kyle spun around, hands over his eyes. "Read the room! This is a shared cohabitation space, not a private dressing suite!"

"I am executing standard post-academic transition protocol," Yve explained to his back. "My uniform restricts movement and lowers cognitive relaxation by twelve percent. To optimise study preparation, I must transition into loungewear. Your presence does not alter the physical mechanics of changing clothes."

"Who cares?! It alters the psychological physics of my sanity!" Kyle countered. "You have zero awareness of situational context! You are a literal hazard to my domestic peace!"

Yve blinked. "Your behavioural reaction is highly irrational."

"I don't care about your data sheets!"

"Your welcome."

"Weirdo."

Without looking back, Kyle grabbed his duffel bag and started yanking clothes from drawers.

"That's it. Emergency relocation protocols are now active. I am officially evacuating my personal assets to the ground floor. I would rather sleep on my gran's floral sofa than face another structural short-circuit like this."

He zipped the bag, turned, and backed toward the door—eyes locked on the ceiling.

"I am moving my operational base downstairs. It is mathematically superior for me to handle this logistical shift myself... because if Aunt Maria catches you doing that in here, she won't just hit me with a broom."

His expression turned deadpan.

"She will personally see to it that I am erased from the family tree."

Yve stood there, blouse half-unbuttoned, watching him retreat with a blank gaze.

"Understood, Zee. Your evacuation has increased my available square footage by forty percent. Thank you for the accommodation."

"You are infuriatingly dense, diva!" Kyle burst through the doorway and slammed it shut.

He stood in the dark hallway, back against the wood, letting out a ragged breath.

Deep within his mind, the static melted away, replaced by a low, smooth resonance.

"Deep breaths, my Little Prince," Viper murmured. Her voice carried a rare warmth—soft, maternal. "Your pulse is racing. You've been pushing your cognitive core through a meat grinder all day."

Kyle leaned his head back.

I'm fine, he answered internally. Just a minor short-circuit. The environmental variables today are completely irrational.

"Are they? Isn't it about that pitiful girl?"

He remained silent.

"You can trick your friends with grand declarations, and run from the confusion in that bedroom..."

Viper paused, her tone laced with a knowing warmth.

"...But you cannot hide the heavy knot tightening in your chest. Something feels profoundly unsettled, Kyle."

He ground his teeth, staring into the dim hallway.

"Rest now," she whispered. "An uneasy mind breeds fractured focus."

The air around him felt heavy.

"If you keep letting this friction disrupt your frequency, your perfect trajectory will slip—"

She let out a soft, dangerous hum.

"—And I truly do not wish to see your beautiful matrix collapse on tomorrow's paper."

Kyle took one last slow breath and stepped toward the stairs.

The half-term wars at school were exhausting enough. The domestic front—and the territory within his own head—proved to be a different kind of minefield.

˚⊱✿—✦✦✦—✿⊰˚

EXTRA:

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and God fulfils Himself in many ways... hmm? Who am I speaking of, you ask? Truthfully, I am not certain myself. Please accept that as a gentle tease from me, Gil."

While St. Jude's International High Academic sat locked in the suffocating quiet of its half-term assessment series, the capital city three hundred miles south was drowning in a classic, miserable British downpour.

Near the London docks, the alleyways smelled of rusted iron and old rain. Damp brick walls stood beside dripping fire escapes. This dreary place had absolutely nothing to do with Oxbridge personal statements—which made it a deeply inconvenient location for two of St. Jude's most distinguished Year 13 students to be standing on a Monday morning.

"Proper nightmare, this," Gilbert muttered.

Leaning against the wall, he carefully shielded his expensive wool coat from the dripping fire escape above.

He ran a hand through his thick golden hair—a sharp wolf cut with the top swept casually to one side—and directed several legitimate grievances at the back of Arthurine's head.

"Seriously, Leonhart. It's our final year. We had the Oxbridge prep seminar today. Personal statement drafts are due Friday. Skipping means I'm buried in extension paperwork for a fortnight."

Brief silence followed.

His amber eyes drifted toward her with a slow, easy warmth that had nothing administrative about it.

"The world belongs to people who have the power to run it, my dear girlfriend. These lowlifes in our territory could've been handled with one call to the family office."

Out ahead by a few paces, crouching over a rusted iron grate, Arthurine did not look back.

Her pale blonde hair was locked in a tight waterfall braid—not a single loose strand escaping despite the damp wind.

Clear hazel eyes were fixed on a faint, glowing residue burned into the brickwork near the drainage pipe.

"This is not a matter of resource deployment," she said, finally standing.

Faint warmth had touched the very tips of her ears—barely perceptible, entirely unacknowledged.

She turned to face him, and her beautiful eyes carried the particular friction that had defined the space between them since the day they met.

"The Akkadia Sanctum has crossed the perimeter. They are mapping the regional grid under cover of exam season—when response capacity is lowest. If we don't dismantle this scouting node today, they establish a foundation. And you know what they build on foundations."

Gilbert's easy smile faded.

He knew. The Akkadia Sanctum didn't send scouts for reconnaissance. They sent scouts to mark territory they had already decided was theirs.

"My point," he said, "is that you could have told me yesterday. Instead I got a three-word message at six this morning and was expected to materialise at Euston."

"You materialised," Arthurine said.

"I always materialise," he replied, with the resigned energy of a man who had never once won this argument. "That's the problem."

Something at the corner of her mouth moved. It was not quite a smile.

Her composure resettled before it got any further.

She unzipped the military-grade duffel at her feet and hauled out a dense bundle of high-tech polymer.

Without another word, she threw it at his chest.

Gilbert caught it one-handed and unrolled the fabric.

The tactical bodysuit was built for urban work—matte charcoal-black carbon weave, impact-absorbent plating, and streamlined midnight-grey lines running from chest to wrist.

Crafted for altitude, rapid transit, and darkness, it was the kind of kit that made registered hero corporate gear look like it had been designed by a committee.

He looked at the armor, then back at her.

She was already pulling on her reinforced gloves with the focused efficiency of someone running through a pre-operation checklist in her head.

"The C.A.S.T.L.E. scouting team deploys from the docks at midnight," she said. "You will put that on, set the theatrical persona aside, and execute the sweep with me. No exceptions."

Glancing down at the armor, Gilbert then looked back up at her face.

The tight set of her jaw and the absolute certainty in her eyes spoke volumes.

It was the exact expression she wore when she had already decided how the next several hours were going to go, simply waiting for the world to catch up.

Slowly, a genuinely dangerous smile crossed his face.

He'd known from the moment her message arrived at six that morning that he was going to be standing exactly here, holding exactly this.

Throughout the entire train journey south, complaints had filled his head, and the ride back would likely be the same.

None of it changed where he was going to be when Arthurine decided something needed doing.

"Fine," he said.

The smile settled into something quieter.

"If my queen wants a hunt—"

Catching her sharp look, he absorbed it without visible damage and continued.

"—the Akkadia Sanctum picked the wrong Monday. But when we get back, you are personally explaining to the sixth form office why the School Council Head Boy and Head Girl's personal statement drafts are both late."

"I will send them a note," Arthurine said, turning back toward the foggy docks.

The rain was heavier now.

Grey mist left the river barely visible.

And somewhere in her posture—not quite relaxation, not quite anything that could be named directly—something had finally settled.

"Get dressed, Gilbert," she said. "We have work to do."

Gilbert watched her for exactly one second.

Shaking out the armour, he started pulling it on.

Matte charcoal weave settled across his frame with the quiet, familiar weight of something he knew exactly how to wear.

Heavy drops continued to fall from the sky.

Pulsing once, slowly, in the dark, the glow on the brickwork faded.

Somewhere deep in the London docklands, on a Monday that was supposed to be about personal statements, the hunt began.