The second box of the order The Skull of the Stars

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It wasn't found. It found you. In an hour never recorded, between the last stroke of a forgotten tower clock and the first breath of a star that was never allowed to shine, it suddenly lay there: on the table of Nallvir Esquen, a chronomancer and former mapmaker of dead timelines. The casket was heavy as guilt and beautiful as a tombstone. Its dark metal body shimmered like shattered moonlight. Bone ornaments framed astrological symbols that wound in an eternal circle, while a tiny skull – half gold, half ebony – protruded from the center as if it were the beating heart of long-gone orders. Nallvir didn't dare touch it. Not yet. Because whatever this thing was – it waited. The engraving on the front bore no language, only a feeling: "I count what never began." It wasn't until the third night, when the wind whispered through the cracks of the attic like forgotten names, that Nallvir picked up the key. He'd never seen it before, yet it fit, as if it had always been meant to. A soft click. A breath that wasn't his. And then: The world buckled. Not broke—but folded over, like a page in the wrong book. The chamber remained, but was different. The windows looked out onto a sky that knew no stars, but glowing red runes. The shadows on the walls formed prayers. And the box—open now—showed no bottom. Instead: a depth. Not darkness, but a kind of... mirror of memory and possibility, crisscrossed by trembling lines like nerve pathways of an alien creation. Something stirred within. A soft murmur—not of words, but of questions that were never meant to be asked. Nallvir leaned forward. And his skull turned. Slowly. Silently. But undoubtedly. "Who could I have been?" asked Nallvir. The skull clicked. A constellation of points of light formed above the open box—a map. Not of space, but of choice. Each line a path never traveled. Each star a self that never lived. He saw himself as a poet in a land without a name. As a criminal, executed on a cross of smoke. As the father of a child never born. And—finally—as the one who did not open the box. But that final image was empty. There was no light. Only silence. And a feeling. Cold as the first end of the world. Nallvir tried to close the lid, but the skull held it open. The star map trembled. The space grew thin. He understood: The box did not demand his curiosity—it demanded his choice. And every choice was a death. Not of his body, but of his possibilities. He reached out. Touched the star under which he was never born. And was forgotten. When morning came, the chamber was empty. The box stood closed on the table, the key beside it. Whoever found it next won't search for it. But it will find him. And count what never began.