Chapter 10: The Festival of Broken Stars
"When the stars fall, the world listens.
When the stars speak, the wise bow their heads."
— Old Saying of Alas Purwo
In the days after the Watcher's retreat, life in Alas Purwo began to bloom anew.
The rivers ran clear again, weaving silver threads through the green.
The trees shook off their black blossoms, unfurling fresh leaves that gleamed like emerald fire under the sun.
The spirits, once cautious, returned — curious, chattering, and mischievous as ever.
Mubali often caught glimpses of them:
A pair of bright eyes blinking from inside a hollow tree.
A song whispered by unseen voices on the evening breeze.
Laughing shadows dancing at the edge of the moonlight.
Hope, it seemed, had returned.
But Mubali knew it was a fragile, newborn thing.
It needed tending.
It needed protection.
And sometimes, it needed sacrifice.
One evening, as the last crimson rays of sunset bled into twilight, Mubali stood at the edge of the clearing with Wira.
Above them, the sky was wrong.
Beautiful, but wrong.
Stars wheeled and danced across the heavens — not slowly, as they should, but racing, spinning, breaking apart like glass thrown against stone.
Brilliant shards rained down, fiery streaks across the night.
The forest trembled.
The rivers sang louder.
The spirits gathered in silent, wide-eyed awe.
"What is happening?" Wira whispered, clutching Mubali's sleeve.
Ki Ranu appeared behind them, his face grave but somehow joyful.
"It is the Festival," he said.
"The Festival of Broken Stars."
That night, Mubali learned a deeper truth about the forest she loved.
Once every few centuries, when the balance between earth and sky grew thin, the heavens themselves would crack.
From these cracks fell beings of pure spirit — the Sang Cahaya Retak, or "Broken Lights."
They were not gods, nor demons.
They were fragments of the ancient songs of creation — beautiful, terrible, full of both gift and grief.
Some brought blessings:
Healing waters that cured all sickness.
Seeds that grew into trees of gold and wisdom.
Words that could open closed hearts and minds.
Others brought curses:
Plagues that devoured memory.
Vines that strangled the land.
Songs that drove listeners mad with longing.
The Broken Lights did not choose where they fell.
And humans had little choice in what they received.
It was a festival of chance, of destiny, of change.
And tonight, it had come again.
Villagers from the edges of Alas Purwo gathered at the great field by the sacred banyan tree.
They wore simple garments dyed in the colors of twilight: purple, blue, silver.
They carried offerings — fruits, flowers, songs, dreams whispered into folded leaves.
Mubali stood among them, feeling strangely out of place.
She had faced death, fought spirits, touched the mind of an ancient terror...
And now, she was just another soul, waiting beneath a sky that shattered itself with light.
Ki Ranu approached her, carrying a staff woven with stargrass and moonvine.
"You must lead the opening," he said.
Mubali blinked.
"Me?"
"You are the bridge now," he said simply.
"The spirits listen to you. The stars know your name."
Mubali's heart thudded painfully.
She looked out over the sea of faces — villagers young and old, eyes full of hope and fear, their lives fragile in the face of the unknown.
Could she carry them?
Could she be more than a survivor?
She swallowed hard.
And stepped forward.
At the center of the field, under the massive banyan, Mubali raised her arms.
She let the silence settle first — a deep, reverent stillness.
Then she began to sing.
It was not a song she knew.
It rose from her bones, her blood, her dreams.
A melody older than language.
A song of longing and belonging, of sorrow and hope braided together.
The villagers joined in, hesitant at first, then stronger.
Voices lifted into the night.
The stars responded.
Above them, one particularly bright shard broke free from the heavens, trailing a comet's tail of silver fire.
It fell — slowly, majestically — toward the field.
Mubali watched, breathless, as the shard struck the ground with a sound like a bell tolling across eternity.
Light erupted, blinding but soft.
When it cleared, standing at the center of a perfect circle of scorched grass was a figure.
It was neither man nor woman, neither young nor old.
Its skin shimmered like pearl and ash.
Its eyes were deep wells of starlight.
Around its form flickered thousands of tiny images — memories of forgotten worlds, lost songs, nameless beasts.
The villagers fell to their knees.
Mubali stood firm, heart hammering.
The Broken Light spoke.
But not with words.
With feelings.
With memories.
With dreams.
And Mubali understood:
It had come for her.
The Broken Light — whom Mubali later called Cahaya — did not stay still.
It danced, it laughed, it wept without tears.
It showed visions:
A river that ran backward in time.
A mountain that sang.
A village made of roots and sky.
And then, it touched Mubali's forehead.
In that instant, she saw herself — not just as she was, but as she could be:
A protector of the forest.
A weaver of pacts between humans and spirits.
A bearer of both sorrow and joy.
It offered her a choice:
"Bind yourself to the forest, truly and forever.
Or walk away and be forgotten."
There was no anger in the offer.
No threat.
Only truth.
Mubali hesitated.
Forever was a long time.
It meant sacrifice.
It meant loneliness.
It meant becoming something not entirely human anymore.
But as she looked around — at Wira's worried face, at the villagers' hope, at the singing rivers and whispering trees — she knew.
She could not walk away.
She did not want to.
"I choose to stay," she whispered.
The Broken Light bowed.
And then it broke again — this time into a thousand tiny motes of light that sank into the earth, into the trees, into Mubali herself.
She felt the change immediately.
Her heart slowed, then sped up.
Her skin tingled with new awareness.
She could hear the sighs of the stones.
The laughter of the leaves.
The heartbeat of the deep roots.
She was no longer merely of the forest.
She was part of it.
And it of her.
The villagers rose, sensing the shift.
They cheered, sang, wept with joy.
The Festival of Broken Stars had brought them not a curse, but a blessing.
And Mubali, newly remade, smiled through her tears.
For the first time in her life, she truly belonged.
As the celebrations continued — feasting, dancing, songs that stretched long into the silver-drenched night — Mubali wandered a little way from the others, needing space to breathe.
That's when she saw him.
A figure cloaked in midnight blue, standing at the edge of the forest.
Tall.
Still.
Watching.
When she approached, he bowed slightly.
"You have done well, Little Root," he said.
His voice was like wind through old stones — rough, but not unkind.
"Who are you?" Mubali asked.
He smiled, though it was a sad smile.
"I am a Keeper," he said.
"One of many.
And I have come because you are ready."
"Ready for what?" she asked.
He looked up at the sky, where the cracks still shimmered faintly.
"For the truth," he said simply.
"The truth of your blood.
The truth of your name.
The truth of the storm yet to come."
Mubali felt the forest tense around her.
The trees leaned closer.
The rivers hushed.
The stars flickered.
She squared her shoulders.
"Tell me," she said.
The Keeper chuckled.
"Not yet.
First, you must walk the Path of Remembrance.
First, you must survive."
He pointed eastward, where a faint trail shimmered — a path made of silver dust and broken leaves.
"At the end of that path," he said, "you will find the pieces of yourself you have forgotten."
He turned to go.
"Wait!" Mubali called.
"Will I come back?"
The Keeper paused.
"That," he said, "depends on how much you are willing to lose."
And then he was gone.
Vanished like mist before the rising sun.
Mubali stood alone at the edge of the trail.
Behind her, the festival roared on — laughter, songs, hope.
Ahead of her, the unknown waited — silent, vast, hungry.
She clenched her fists.
She would walk the path.
She would survive.
For herself.
For Wira.
For Alas Purwo.
For the songs yet unsung.
With a final glance at the celebrating village, Mubali stepped onto the trail of silver dust.
And the forest swallowed her whole.