The sanctuary held through the night, but no one truly slept.
The sigil dome shimmered softly in the darkness, its boundaries alive with the faint sheen of warding light. Outside, the world remained suspended—silent, yet not empty. The wind had stopped moving. The trees no longer swayed. Even the insects, which earlier had danced like lanterns through the air, were gone. It was the kind of silence that did not offer peace, but rather, braced itself for a question that had not yet been asked. The hush felt thick—like velvet soaked in dread—drawing breath only to hold it, to wait.
Lysander sat with his back against the monolith, blade across his lap. The frostfire edge had finally dimmed, though the sword remained warm against his hand — like it still remembered the fight, and waited for the next one. The faint etchings on the blade shimmered faintly under the ward's glow, pulsing in and out like the ticking of some unseen clock. He hadn't closed his eyes in hours. Sleep didn't come easily, not when the very air tasted of unfinished memory and future judgment.
Across the ward, Seraphine was deep in meditation. Her posture was still as glass, but subtle signs betrayed her unrest. The furrow on her brow. The occasional flicker of movement at her fingertips, as if her hands were caught tracing sigils in dreamspace. Whatever she saw in trance, it was not peace. Her breath hitched once — just once — and her lips moved without sound, as though arguing with a phantom that would not yield.
Mira curled beside a small flame near the centre of the ward. The fire was low but steady, sustained by Seraphine's magic rather than fuel. Its flickering light cast long, dancing shadows against the curve of the sigil barrier. Mira slept fitfully. Her breath came in shallow bursts, her brow occasionally twitching. One hand was clenched tightly around the jade pendant at her throat. The light of the charm had dulled—but every few minutes, it pulsed faintly, as if matching the rhythm of something older than her heartbeat. A rhythm beneath rhythms. A call beneath dreams.
Then the pulse brightened.
Just once.
Lysander's eyes snapped open.
He didn't move at first. Just watched.
The pendant flared again — stronger. The light spilt over Mira's face like moonlight caught in a mirror. Her lips parted. A sound escaped—not a word, but a breath drawn through fear.
And then she sat up.
All at once.
Not startled. Not disoriented.
Awake.
Her eyes opened—and they were glowing.
Not brightly. Not like the raw celestial fire of Seraphine's glyphs, nor the haunting ice-flame of Lysander's sword. This glow was softer. Deeper. Like the light behind closed eyes. Golden at the core, rimmed in violet, as if two powers were braided in her pupils. The firelight dimmed in comparison, as though recognising an older authority.
"Mira?" Seraphine stirred, her trance breaking.
But the girl didn't respond.
Her gaze was fixed outward, past the boundary of the ward, to the edge of the grove where mist had begun to gather — rolling low along the roots like breath from something vast just beyond sight.
The mist thickened, coalescing.
Then parted.
A figure stepped from the gloom.
Tall. Clad in robes the colour of deep oceans and midnight glass, trimmed in bands of bone-white thread. His antlers curled upward and outward from his skull, etched in glyphs that shimmered faintly with each movement. The edges of his shadow bent the air—not through force, but by suggestion, as if reality was politely stepping aside to make room. The scent of old parchment and storm-soaked stone followed him.
He moved soundlessly.
And when his gaze settled on the camp, the sigil dome did not reject him.
It pulsed.
Seraphine rose to her feet instantly, placing herself between the stranger and Mira. Her dagger slipped free with barely a whisper. Her aura coiled around her like a storm held in glass.
Lysander was slower, but deliberate. He stood beside Seraphine, his blade drawn but lowered—its tip hovered just above the frost-crusted soil. His voice remained silent, but his stance screamed readiness.
The stranger did not approach.
He raised a single hand in greeting, open-palmed.
"Child of frost. Keeper of flame," he said. His voice was a vibration—carried not on sound, but on thought. "You have opened the veil."
Lysander's grip tightened. "Who are you?"
The stranger's antlers gleamed. "I am Aldrin," he said. "Warden of the Pathless Vale. Witness of Echoed Bloodlines. And I have been waiting."
The name hit something in Seraphine's memory. Her blade lowered a fraction. The weight of prophecy stirred.
But it was Mira who moved first.
She stood — steadily, without hesitation — and walked toward the edge of the ward. Her pendant pulsed with every step. The dome shimmered at her approach, and where her hand touched the boundary, it parted like silk. The sigils parted willingly, not broken, but opened.
She stepped outside.
Lysander moved to stop her — but Seraphine held out a hand. "Wait."
"She knows him," the woman whispered.
Outside the barrier, Mira stopped a few paces from Aldrin.
"You're the voice from my dreams," she said quietly.
Aldrin inclined his head. "Then the waking must begin."
The mist around them stilled.
Aldrin's gaze passed over Lysander and Seraphine, then returned to Mira.
"You carry two echoes," he said. "Bloodlines that were never meant to meet. Yet here you are—alive, whole, still changing."
"Why now?" Mira asked. "Why show yourself?"
Aldrin's gaze was solemn. "Because the Cradle stirs. The mirrors will open. And when they do, truth must stand ready to be seen."
He turned toward Seraphine, then to Lysander. "You were both shaped by edits. Sculpted by hands that fear remembrance. But the threads are loosening. And she…" he motioned to Mira, "...is the loom."
He extended something—a scroll sealed in wax bearing the mark of the Veyrin Prophecy.
Seraphine's breath caught audibly.
"The Oracle lives," Aldrin said. "But time is thinning. The veil weakens. And Vex's other face has already begun to move."
Lysander stepped forward, blade lowered but voice hard. "What do you want from us?"
Aldrin smiled faintly. "Nothing. What you are… what she is… will choose their own path. I only bear witness."
Then his tone darkened. "But know this—the mask you shattered? It was not the only one he wears."
He stepped back into the mist.
And was gone.
The ward reformed behind him without resistance.
Mira swayed.
Seraphine caught her before she fell.
"What did he mean?" Lysander asked. "About the Oracle?"
Seraphine was pale.
But her voice was steady.
"It means," she said, "that the next step… is into the Cradle itself."
And above them, the stars twisted once more.
One eye blinked open — hidden behind constellations.
Watching.
Always watching.