A frantic, desperate search had begun the moment Ren had fallen. Ganyu, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror, had leaped from the Jade Chamber without a second thought, a streak of blue and white soaring towards the sea. Keqing and a still-dazed Lumine were close behind, their gliders catching the wind.
They found him on a secluded, rocky beach, far from the main harbor.
But he was not alone.
The sight that greeted them made them all freeze in their tracks. Ren was awake, but just barely, his small form looking pale and utterly drained. He was sitting, not on the sand, but cradled in the lap of Sandrone, the Seventh of the Fatui Harbingers. She was holding him with a strange, gentle possessiveness, like a child with a new, exquisitely crafted, and very precious doll, humming a soft, tuneless little melody. Her massive automaton stood silently behind her, a towering, silent guardian, while the maid-like Katheryne was standing beside her.
"Ren!" Ganyu cried, her voice a mixture of desperate relief and furious, protective rage.
Sandrone looked up, her cheerful, pleasant smile not faltering in the slightest. "Ah, the cavalry has arrived," she said, her tone light and conversational. "Don't worry, he's quite alright. Just a little… depleted. It seems that creating a miniature glacier and dropping it on a god is rather tiring work. Who knew?"
The moment Ren saw his sister, a wave of relief washed over him. He weakly pushed himself out of the Harbinger's surprisingly comfortable embrace. "Big sister…" he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.
Ganyu was there in an instant, scooping him up, her arms a tight, trembling cage of desperate love. She held him close, burying her face in his hair, her entire body shaking with the aftershocks of her terror. Keqing and Lumine flanked them, their swords half-drawn, their eyes fixed on the Harbinger with a cold, wary hostility.
Sandrone simply watched the emotional reunion with an amused, detached curiosity. She then stood, brushing the sand from her elegant dress with a delicate, unhurried motion.
"Well," Sandrone said with a sigh, as if concluding a pleasant afternoon picnic, "my work here is done. A most entertaining spectacle, I must say." She looked at the assembled, hostile group, her smile turning a little sharper, a little more cunning.
"I wouldn't waste your energy on me, if I were you," she advised, her tone deceptively sweet. "You still have that idiot, Childe, to deal with. He's the one who broke the seal, after all. He's the one who made this whole mess. I, on the other hand, have simply been a concerned, law-abiding citizen, observing the local festivities."
She gave them a final, brilliant, and utterly insincere smile. "You should really focus on him, not me. Ta-ta."
With a final, lingering look at the pale, exhausted boy in Ganyu's arms, Sandrone turned and walked away, her two automatons falling into perfect, silent step behind her. She melted into the shadows of the coastal cliffs, leaving behind a swirl of unanswered questions, a profound sense of unease, and the distinct, chilling feeling that they had not been the winners of this battle, but merely participants in a much larger, much more complex game that she was playing. They had defeated the god, but the Harbinger, in her own strange way, had just claimed the victor's spoils: the loyalty of the most interesting child in all of Teyvat.