[Cassius's POV]
[Dawnspire Wing—Lavinia's Chamber—Moments After Thalein Begins Healing]
The air was still.
Too still.
The room pulsed with light from Thalein's hands, his elven magic curling like vines of gold and green around my daughter's body. The physicians had all gone quiet now, giving way to something older than medicine—older than logic. Magic that remembered the roots of the world and the first breath of life.
And I—
I couldn't breathe.
My lungs refused to move, and my heart hammered in my chest like a warning bell. I stared at her face—too pale, too still—and begged the gods I've spent a lifetime cursing to just this once…
Then I saw it.
A tear.
Sliding down her cheek.
Slow. Quiet. Like a whisper from the edge of death.
And that was when something inside me broke.
