Esperanza screamed.
Not a tantrum.
Not a child's cry.
A soul scream.
Aurora tried everything-
cradling her, rocking her, chanting sacred lullabies in three different languages. But nothing worked.
Because the moment the cursed blade sliced into Elena, far across the land, in the city square of Port Clairy, her daughter felt it.
"MAMI!" she wailed, tiny hands sparking with green and violet fire.
The air changed.
Their lodgings ignited, flames devouring curtains, wood, bedframes. Smoke curled from the child's curls. She wasn't burning, but everything else did.
Her sobs turned to shrieks, every heartbeat matched by a thunderclap.
The Daughter of Storm and Lion did not rage- she unraveled.
And the world came apart with her.
Children hid under bunks. Mothers wept, terrified. A toddler… was bringing down the heavens.
Aurora held her, kissed her, whispered every word of comfort she could think of. But the child shook violently, curling into a ball, her body spasming with surging, divine energy.
"That's not mami…" she whispered into Aurora's chest. "That's not mami anymore…"
She shivered once, shoulders shaking. "She's gone. I can't feel her."
And Aurora wept with her, shielding her from the world.
In the sacred pool, Elena floated. Her body limp, bloodless.
Her abdomen had been burned shut, not merely sliced.
The cursed blade had cooked her from the inside out.
Her blood had curdled.
Her mana had begun to rot.
The Behike had no choice.
They cut her open again.
Not to take a child-
but to cleanse death.
Her scream echoed through the cavern on the first incision.
But it was not Elena's voice.
It was the serpent's.
The goddess that had no name but rage.
She did not wake.
She hovered in the waters, her glowing eyes wide and sightless. Her veins lit like cracks in amethyst.
The water churned beneath her, refusing to let her sink.
The snake would not leave its vessel.
But the woman?
The woman was… gone.
The only thing tethering her soul to this world was the tiny infant, latched weakly to her breast.
Wrapped in linen. Anointed with sacred oils.
Phineus.
The boy born of blood and fire.
Señora Behike whispered every prayer she had ever known.
She anointed mother and child every hour.
They bathed in power.
They floated in eternity.
And far away, closer with every heartbeat, came the Lion.
A journey that would've taken three days under any other moon, Niegal crossed in hours.
Carried not by muscle, but by myth.
By divine wrath.
By wind.
The jungle parted.
The stone bent.
And still he pushed harder… because she was slipping.
By the time night fell, he was there.
Niegal burst through the cave wall, claws gouging rock, panting like a beast freshly loosed from the wild. The spring shimmered ahead, glowing faintly under torchlight and spirit-flame.
He paused, frozen to the spot.
There she was.
Elena.
Aglow with the divine.
Hair floating like kelp in slow motion. Arms limp but still cradling their child.
Her stomach had been stitched closed again, jagged and brutal. A mark drawn by a furious god.
Her breath was gone.
But her eyes…
Her eyes were open.
Garnets. Amethysts.
Sparks of violet thunder.
No scream.
No voice.
Just tears floating down her cheeks into the sacred waters like rubies in slow fall.
The serpent watched him.
Judged him.
He took one step.
Then two.
Collapsed.
Niegal hit the floor with a roar caught in his throat.
His claws curled into the stone.
The Lion had brought him here.
But it could not give him peace.
He reached forward, trembling.
"I'm here… mi amor. I found you. Please…"
No answer.
Just the baby, breath-wet and quiet, mewling against her chest.
Niegal laid his head in the crook of her arm.
"I should have never let you go alone," he whispered, pressing his lips to her wrist. "I should have seen it. I should have known…"
His voice cracked.
"You're still here. I see you."
His shoulders shook.
"I can't lose you again."
"Please…"
Señora Behike watched, saying nothing.
The Behike of Marisiana bowed her head, reverent to a god vessel in mourning.
Tears streamed silently down their cheeks.
Niegal rested his head on Elena's chest, beside his son. One hand over her belly- still warm.
Still glowing faintly with goddess flame.
And Elena's eyes cried.
Still unblinking.
Still not breathing.
But crying.
And outside, across the whole of Veracchia-
the wind howled.
The storm rose not in vengeance.
But in mourning.
For the storm's vessel.
The Lion's love.
And the child she nearly died to save.