The stars over Asteria were dying, and Lyra Silver could feel her own power dying with them. She stood on the high stone terrace and watched the sky. Each night, more lights winked out. A gray stain spread across the black, swallowing them one by one. Lyra was an elf of the old starlight bloodline. The magic slept inside her, and only the stars could wake it. If the last one faded, it would sleep forever. She pressed her palm to her chest. Nothing stirred. No warmth, no spark. Just the cold ache of a gift she had never once used. At the terrace's edge grew a cluster of crystal flowers. Their petals glowed with a soft, borrowed light. Lyra had tended them since childhood. Tonight even they were dimming, starved of the sky they fed on. Their fading told her how little time remained. A low rumble rolled through the stone. Two great shapes uncoiled from the shadows beyond the flowers. One dragon burned red, fire threading its scales. The other shimmered blue, water running down its sides. They were the old ones, the wise elemental dragons. They had guarded this place since before her grandmother's grandmother. Lyra had feared them her whole life. Now their knowing eyes fixed on her. "The blight climbs from below," the fire dragon said. Its voice cracked like burning wood. "It eats the light. It will not stop at the sky." "You cannot fight it," said the water dragon. "But you were not made to fight. You were made to call." Lyra shook her head. "I have no magic yet. I can't call anything." The blue dragon lowered its head toward the terrace. There, half-hidden in shadow, stood a silver harp. Lyra had passed it a thousand times and never touched the strings. "Your bloodline sang the stars into place," the dragon said. "The instrument remembers what your hands forgot." Lyra knelt before the harp. Her fingers shook. Above her, only three stars remained. She had never played a note in her life. But the flowers were nearly dark now, and she had no other plan. She pulled a string. A single clear tone rang out. The nearest star brightened. Hope pushed her on. She played again, and the sound climbed into the sky. The gray stain shivered. She did not know the song, so she followed the ache in her chest, and the harp answered it. The last three stars flared white. Then a fourth returned. A fifth. Warmth broke open inside her, sudden and fierce. The sleeping magic woke at last, pouring down her arms into the strings. The blight recoiled from the light and sank back below the horizon. When the sky was full again, Lyra lifted her hands from the harp. Her palms glowed faint silver. She had woken her power. But the dragons did not celebrate. "The blight did not die," the fire dragon said. "It only fled. And now it knows your name."