[Reminder: Novel is still undergoing editation]

The moment Verena stepped into the light beyond the archway, it was like waking up from a fever dream.

No more stone walls shifting like a mad god's puzzle. No more celestial glyphs pressing down like judgment. Just open air. Blue skies. Grass that smelled like it belonged in a memory. The academy's central courtyard stretched out before her, familiar yet somehow unreal, like it had been copied from a version of the world where nothing bad had ever happened.

The Trial of Ascendance was over.

There were no trumpets. No dramatic fanfare. No glowing "CONGRATULATIONS" hovering over their heads in golden letters. Just the distant hum of birds, the rustling of leaves—and a heavy, bone-deep silence of people who had seen far too much in far too little time.

Verena staggered forward, every joint aching. Her boots sank slightly into the soft earth. Behind her, Isolde followed with practiced grace, though her face showed more fatigue than she'd ever admit.

Saphira, now uncoiled and back in her usual tiny form, slithered up Verena's arm and curled lazily around her neck like a living scarf.

"Well," the snake yawned, "that was traumatic. Ten out of ten. Let's never do it again."

"Agreed," Verena muttered. Her voice cracked. She coughed, then wiped her face. She wasn't sure if it was sweat or tears. Maybe both.

Around them, other students began emerging—some alone, others in pairs. Not everyone made it back together. Some limped. Some cried openly. Others wore blank, shell-shocked expressions, like they'd seen parts of themselves they wished they could forget.

Then—

"VERENA!"

She barely had time to register the blur of blue and white robes before Evelyn slammed into her like a meteor. Verena stumbled back, nearly toppling over.

"You're alive!" Evelyn was crying and laughing at the same time. "You idiot! I thought something happened again! I was going to beat up a Zodiabeast for you!"

"You and me both," Saphira mumbled.

Verena didn't even push her off. She hugged her back, just as tightly.

One by one, her team regrouped.

Sera swaggered in with a bruised lip and a cracked blade, declaring, "I punched a wall and it taught me about inner peace."

Beatrice appeared shortly after, bandaged but grinning, proudly waving a stolen artifact she "liberated from a trial guardian."

Penelope dragged herself forward, barely standing, mumbling, "Clarina said I was dramatic and I can't even be mad because she's right."

And Clarina—stoic, blood-streaked, eyes burning with restrained rage—only gave Verena a once-over and said, "You're two minutes late."

"I was unconscious in astral space."

"Excuses."

The courtyard slowly filled with other students and mentors, staff members jotting things down with enchanted quills, magic screens materializing to show rankings and affinity growth data. But Verena didn't look.

She was looking at her team. Her strange, dysfunctional, borderline-insane team.

And they were here.

Together.

Professor Sirius eventually found them, his robes torn at the edges, his arms crossed.

"You didn't die," he said, almost disappointed. "Shocking."

"No thanks to your trial," Verena said dryly.

He snorted. "We don't coddle prodigies. We test them. You passed. Now deal with the consequences."

Then he handed her a sealed envelope—heavy, stamped with the gold sigil of the Academy's highest council.

"A reward?" she asked.

"No," he said. "An invitation."

And with that, he walked away.

Verena stared at the envelope, heart pounding again. This was supposed to be the end of the volume. The part where things settled. Where the plot cooled down and gave her a breather.

But the way her fingers trembled said otherwise.

"Open it," Evelyn urged.

She did.

Inside was a letter written in elegant script:

> To Verena Aurelian,

For your exceptional performance in the Labyrinth of Ascendance, and your unique alignment with astral mimicry, you have been selected for the Starborn Convergence.

Only thirteen students may attend. You have been chosen as one of them.

Prepare.

—The Constellarium Council

Thirteen.

One for each sign, including the forgotten one.

Verena stared.

"Oh great," she muttered. "More plot."

And in the background, thunder rumbled—not from the sky, but from the ground below. A new Trial. A new arc. And she wasn't the only one chosen this time.

The Starborn Convergence.

Verena turned the words over in her head as if they were a riddle disguised as an invitation. The weight of the letter felt heavier now, as if thirteen destinies had been folded neatly inside the parchment and handed directly to her.

It didn't feel like a reward. It felt like bait.

"Thirteen students," Saphira whispered from her shoulder, eyes narrowing. "One for each constellation. Including... yours."

Verena didn't respond. Her heart was already racing. The thirteenth sign. The sign that wasn't supposed to exist. The sign she was tied to by blood, by soul, by cosmic accident. She was the outlier. The anomaly. The cursed footnote of the Zodiac.

And now, they wanted her front and center?

It felt like a setup.

The next few days at the academy were far from peaceful. The students who survived the Labyrinth were being evaluated, scanned, questioned by faculty, and in some cases, removed. Those whose magical stability had faltered too far were placed on magical probation. Others collapsed outright, burned out from pushing past their affinity limits.

But not Verena's team.

Somehow, through chaos and insanity, they had made it. Not without scars—but with growth. They were more than a team now. They were something that bled together through time and pain.

But that wouldn't last.

Because the Starborn Convergence wasn't going to be a group event.

It was individual.

Private.

A cosmic audition.

The announcement came with no fanfare—just a projection in the sky that warped the clouds into constellations, forming a spiral symbol that hadn't been seen in over a hundred years.

The Celestial Spire was awakening.

A tower hidden in a sky-locked dimension, visible only through specific astral alignments. It wasn't a place on a map. It was an invitation carved into the stars. Each chosen student would be pulled from their place in the world and cast into a trial unique to their Zodiacal destiny. The challenge: reach the summit and face the truth that bound them to the heavens.

Each floor of the Spire represented a layer of their identity: the past, the present, the illusion, the fear, the bond, the betrayal, the future.

Only those who ascended could be named Starborn.

And no one had ever made it to the top.

The thirteen were chosen publicly, their names called out by the Headmistress herself.

Each name rippled across the academy like a chime of fate.

Artem Sorel of Leo.

Junah Lys of Sagittarius.

Beatrice, of course—under her birth name, which she hadn't revealed to Verena yet.

Even Evelyn, her confidence burning like a second sun.

And finally—

Verena Aurelian. The Thirteenth.

The last name said aloud was met with silence. No applause. No cheers. Just a collective, unsettled breath.

Because everyone knew what the thirteenth sign meant.

She was the sign that wasn't written. The name that wasn't carved. The beast beneath the sky that all other stars turned away from.

"You really are the main character," Sera muttered, biting into an apple, then tossing the core into a trash bin with perfect aim.

"I didn't ask to be," Verena said.

"You never do," Isolde added dryly. "Trouble just likes you."

The night before departure, Verena stood in her dorm room, staring at the box that had arrived hours earlier. Inside was her Starborn uniform—an ethereal robe threaded with silver constellations that shimmered depending on her pulse. It felt alive. Heavy with meaning. And uncomfortable.

She hated it.

"You know this won't be like the Trial," Saphira said, curled atop her pillow. "There's no team. No backup. The Convergence isolates by design. You'll be walking into your own myth."

"Yeah," Verena muttered. "I figured. They want to see what we really are."

She didn't want to know what she really was.

At midnight, the sky cracked open with a soundless rupture of stars. Thirteen rays of astral light beamed down from the heavens, and one of them fell directly on her.

It wrapped around her, tugging at her soul like a hook through water.

And then—she was gone.

No time for goodbyes.

No time to scream.

Just... silence.

She opened her eyes.

The Celestial Spire was infinite.

A spiral staircase coiled upward into impossible space. Around her were thirteen paths, each lined with zodiacal symbols glowing faintly. Her own was a sigil she had only ever seen once, buried in a forbidden grimoire: a serpent devouring its own stars.

She took a breath.

And began to climb.

The first step echoed like thunder. Not in the air, but in her chest. With each ascent, the space around her bent—walls breathing, constellations blinking like watchful eyes. Shadows whispered in languages she almost understood. Her own memories danced along the staircase, fragmented and out of order. A laugh. A scream. A promise. She gritted her teeth, kept walking. She wasn't just climbing a tower. She was climbing herself.

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