1 Chapter 1

When Kalo turned ten years old, his father showed him the star that illuminated their planet for the first time. He woke him up early that day, and took him through the castle's marble slab corridors to the outskirts, to climb the tower and jump to the celestial body that orbited his planet. He remembers being drowsy on the trip, and completely waking up when his father whispered to him that he was going to ask the star to dim its glare, just to contemplate it.

Kalo, who at that time was studying in elementary school and was not very aware of his life as a prince, was amazed to see it for the first time. He was surrounded by light, the celestial body of his planet shining brightly thanks to the small star that was enclosed in a large candle. Through it, he could see that it was small enough to fit in his hands, even leaving some slack too! And it had a beautiful appearance of a plump child with a luminescent body and large, expressive eyes, capable of filling you with deep warmth and joy.

"Do you know why our star is so important?" His father asked, but he didn't get an answer. His son was so absorbed by the star's beauty, by its eyes, its size and its intense blinding light.

"Kalo"

The little boy, who didn't want to take his eyes off of the stunning child, looked at his father with pleading eyes, and the man, seeing his son whose big stars glittered with longing and excitement, sighed and opened the only opening of the lamp, which was a small glass door.

"You can touch it" the king said, "but" and Kalo stood still, arms outstretched, fingers curled, "don't show any hesitation".

Eagerly, with his heart pounding against his chest and his mouth as dry as any desert, he took the star between his fingers and its light illuminated his face, marking the lines of his puerile features as if he could travel through the years and see the days of his birth until now. The star, loftily, glittered happily between his tiny hands and smiled.

"Unbelievable," exclaimed his father. "The star accepts you".

Then something grew inside Kalo, a fervent feeling, a longing to grow up and be king, to think of his future, of his father's words, of the happiness that a twinkling star could bring.

Interested in his role as the next king and being worthy enough to have a star like the one they had, he asked Eeka, his father, how Grandfather Elrond had taken such beauty from space. He told him that all the planets had the misfortune of not having a fixed star, so from the beginning they always had to look for one that had the necessary energy, and that was not necessarily big, just shining enough to embrace the planet.

He told him that Elrond had undertaken a journey, where he visited different constellations with the latest technology of his time just to take a star. There were too many, in his words, but none that caught his attention. Until he found it and was allowed to take it with him, promising it a purpose as his and his people's light.

"Of course there have been more before it," his father declared, "but that story is about my grandfather, Elrond's father, and his stories have unfortunately not transcended to our times. I can tell you the story of our early ancestors, it will be your duty to give them to your children and they will share the story to theirs".

Listening attentively to the story, he thought about what life was like in the past, then came to the present and pointed that he had a star he could trust, a wise father, a sweet and kind mother, and even friends at school who, like him, trained daily to be incredible soldiers. His planet was also beautiful, with a sky where the constellations and nebulae beyond could be seen, a floor of smooth rock, several slender and pristine towers, houses to the horizon and a palace, where the starlight reached him, bathing his structure of unparalleled beauty in a divine pool.

But, although he knew a lot about his planet and its people, he never asked about the others (a serious mistake for a future king), and he did not know that the planet Hivand had a new king, whose name was Alcedor, whose stay since he began to rule had become ugly and dilapidated, with buildings and towers in disrepair. A planet that could not be distinguished very well from his own, but with such a bad reputation that its inhospitable landscapes could be heard from other people's mouths. So one day, very early, a piercing scream was heard from the edge of their lands, where the peaceful and blessed people who worshiped the ancestral lineage of their kings lived, and then the blood was spread on the floor, which piled up in the joints and covered the floors.

Eeka, who had awakened with a bad feeling that day, asked Kalo to hide with his mother in the safest place in the palace. Therefore, he had to run far away, watching his father disappear between the palace gates, while his mother avoided approaching the parapet to contemplate the reality outside. He remained locked up with her snuggled to her chest and felt panic for his people, fearing that the happiness of later years would be ruined then, when he was just beginning to understand how fortunate he was

After hours, or days, had passed (Kalo did not sleep, and if he did he dreamed of the disks that passed through his palace and with which each day when he awoke he lay down, just to feel the caress of the star on his face, whose child's smile never died), a sentinel came for them, whose once white suit was full of blood.

"It's over," he gasped, causing Kalo's anguish to leave. He grabbed his Mom by the arm and lifted her up with his strength, running to the outskirts. "Madame, Young master, wait-"

Deaf to the cries of the sentinel, Kalo thought of his father, of his people and the star, until he went outside and was blinded, as there was no light. His heart rose to weep as he felt all the latent, cold darkness, which now ruled the boundary and beyond, and then the few lights in the sky revealed the body of his father, lying dead.

"Father…"

Glimpsing his serene face, beneath the fabric of death, he knelt before his lifeless body and begged, pleaded, for the light of the star, which, however, never came. He had died when his father closed his eyes, he was gone. He sobbed the days away, swirled in his mother's lap; suddenly he had lost everything he had learned to adore.