The light did not fade.
It pulsed beneath Aion's skin in slow, luminous currents, threading through his small hands like liquid starlight. Even when he squeezed his fingers into fists, even when Mara wrapped them gently in a linen cloth, it remained — a soft, steady glow that felt less like fire and more like a heartbeat.
Aion sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders drawn inward, staring at himself as though he had woken inside a stranger's body.
"Mama…" His voice was barely a breath. "Am I… still sick?"
Mara knelt in front of him. The wooden floor was cold against her knees, but she did not notice. All she could see was the boy she had raised — the child who used to cry when his bread burned, who talked to the sky and named the birds — now glowing like something that did not belong to the earth.
"No," she said, even though the word felt thin and fragile. "You're not sick."
"Then why am I glowing?"
Aion did not say it with wonder. He said it with fear.
Mara reached for his hands. For just a moment, she hesitated — not because she feared him, but because she feared what the world would do if it saw what he had become.
Then she took them.
They were warm. Small. Still his.
The light dimmed slightly under her touch, as if comforted.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But you're here. And you're breathing. And that means you're alive."
His eyes filled with tears. "Do you know what I am?"
The question was not childish. It was too heavy for that. It came from a place far older than seven years.
Mara pulled him into her arms.
He trembled against her.
"I know who you are," she said fiercely. "You are Aion. You are my son. You are the boy who sits on fences and loves broken things and cries when birds fall from the sky. That is what you are."
"But I'm not like the other kids," he whispered. "Lina didn't get burned. I did. I got her pain. The fever wasn't normal. This isn't normal."
She closed her eyes.
He was right. He always was.
But that did not change the truth that mattered.
"I don't care if you're different," she said. "Different does not mean unloved."
Aion leaned back, searching her face for something — revulsion, fear, doubt. He found only terror wrapped around devotion.
"Am I still your son?" he asked.
The light beneath his skin brightened slightly, as if waiting for the answer.
"Yes," she said without hesitation. "Always."
Something in his chest loosened.
The door creaked open.
Elden stood in the doorway, his face pale, his eyes locked on the glow around Aion's hands.
"What's happening?" he asked.
"Nothing that changes anything," Mara said.
"That's light," Elden replied. "That's not nothing."
Aion shrank back. "I didn't mean to—"
Elden crossed the room and knelt in front of him. His hands were rough, scarred from years of work, but when he placed them over Aion's glowing fingers, he did so gently.
The light dimmed further.
Aion exhaled in surprise. "It doesn't hurt when you touch me."
Elden swallowed. "Good."
He looked at Mara. "This isn't natural."
"No," she said. "It isn't."
Silence settled between them.
Outside, the village went on. Someone chopped wood. A baby cried. Life did not stop just because their world had cracked.
Elden spoke quietly. "Should we tell someone?"
Mara's stomach tightened. "No."
"What if he needs help?"
"What if they get afraid?" she said. "What if they try to take him?"
Aion clutched the wooden horse. "Am I something to be afraid of?"
"No," Elden said immediately.
Mara held his face between her hands. "You are something to protect."
That night, they did not let him sleep alone.
Aion lay between them, listening to the steady rhythm of two human hearts. The light beneath his skin faded slowly, but it never vanished entirely.
He stared at the ceiling.
"I don't want to go away," he whispered.
"You won't," Mara said, though she did not know how to make it true.
But far above, beyond clouds and stars, something had already noticed.
Aetherion felt the pulse.
Lysera felt the ache.
And Drazon, alone beneath a crooked tree, closed his eyes as the divine resonance rolled through the world.
"They've noticed," he whispered.
The child's hiding place was no longer hidden.
And nothing gentle would remain untouched.