The music followed them outside.
It spilled from the open ballroom doors in ribbons of violin and harp, bright and triumphant, as though nothing in the world had shifted.
As though marble had not cracked.
As though frost had not crept along the palace windows.
Lanterns had been strung between the silver birch trees that lined the gardens. Their warm glow bathed the lawns in honeyed light. Crystal glasses chimed softly as servants hurried to reassemble the celebration beneath the open sky. Long tables shimmered with gold-threaded runners. Beyond them, the fountains reflected the moon like polished mirrors.
It would have been beautiful.
If the air did not feel wrong.
Aurèlle stepped onto the grass and felt it immediately — a tremor beneath her slipper, subtle but undeniable. The earth was not shaking.
It was listening.
Dahlia squeezed her hand. "You're pale," she whispered. "Maybe we should sit—"
A gust of wind cut her off.
Not strong.
Not yet.
But deliberate.
Guests turned, glancing upward as silk sleeves fluttered and candle flames leaned sideways in unison. The wind did not sweep across the garden.
It circled.
Centered.
Around Aurèlle.
Her breath grew shallow. She had not called it. Had not asked for anything.
The wind answered anyway.
Across the lawn, her stepmother stood rigidly still. The pleasant smile she wore for her guests did not falter — but her eyes sharpened. She saw the circle forming. She saw where it began.
She saw Aurèlle.
"My friends," she announced smoothly, raising a jeweled hand as though nothing were amiss. "The night air carries such energy. Let us embrace it."
Another gust interrupted her.
Stronger this time.
Lanterns swung violently, casting fractured light across startled faces.
A crack of lightning split the horizon.
There were no clouds.
A murmur rippled through the guests.
Aurèlle's pulse thundered in her ears.
The temperature shifted suddenly. To her left, the air grew humid and warm, thick like midsummer rain. To her right, frost laced the grass in delicate white veins.
Then the sky broke.
Rain fell in a perfect circle around her.
Heavy. Sudden. Silver.
Beyond that circle, snow drifted down in soft spirals.
Screams erupted.
Women gathered their skirts. Men stumbled backward. Musicians abandoned their instruments as droplets hissed against harp strings and frost crept across polished wood.
"Aurèlle," Dahlia breathed, fear threading her voice.
Aurèlle tried to answer.
The ground beneath her feet pulsed.
And then it bloomed.
Flowers burst from the soil in violent succession — roses splitting open in seconds, lilies unfurling from nothing, vines twisting upward as though time had accelerated beneath her.
The earth did not crack.
It yielded.
Vines shot across the lawn in emerald arcs, curling around chair legs, table posts — and then ankles.
Not crushing.
Holding.
Guests cried out as they were rooted gently but firmly in place.
"I did not—" Aurèlle gasped.
The wind roared.
Her feet left the ground.
Just inches at first.
Her heart lurched.
The garden fell silent.
She rose higher.
Rain and snow collided in the air around her, hissing as warmth and cold clashed in shimmering mist. Lightning webbed across the sky again, closer now, illuminating her suspended form in stark white brilliance.
Her hair lifted around her face like a living halo.
"Aurèlle!" Dahlia reached for her, but a soft current of air pushed her back — not violently, just enough to keep distance.
Aurèlle's arms drifted outward.
She was not lifting them.
They were being lifted.
Her eyes opened fully.
As the wind tightened around her, Aurèlle's head lifted slowly.
Her eyes opened.
For one suspended heartbeat, they were her own — wide, frightened, green like her father's.
Then the power surged.
The green vanished.
Light flooded her irises, washing them into that same luminous, otherworldly shade that had once defined her mother — that impossible, celestial glow the court had not seen since the day she died.
Silver at the edges.
Gold at the core.
Radiant.
Ancient.
But brighter.
Brighter than memory.
Brighter than legend.
They did not merely reflect light.
They emitted it.
A soft halo spilled from her gaze, illuminating the rain as it fell, turning every droplet into liquid starlight.
Someone in the crowd whispered, voice trembling:
"It's her…"
And there was no need to say the name.
Because everyone knew.
The resemblance was no longer in her cheekbones or the curve of her mouth.
It was in her power.
In the way the air bent toward her.
In the way the earth answered.
In the way the sky seemed to bow.
Her mother's eyes — but awakened in a way no one had witnessed before.
Not restrained.
Not measured.
Untamed.
Above her, the moon brightened unnaturally, swelling in brilliance until it washed the garden in silver. The stars sharpened, piercing and near.
And on the opposite horizon—
A second light rose.
The sun edged upward.
Impossible.
Day and night shared the sky, suspended in luminous tension.
The wind spiraled faster, lifting her higher still, until she hovered above the palace balconies. Fireworks — meant for Dahlia's blooming — ignited prematurely in brilliant cascades behind her.
Gold exploded.
Silver flared.
Crimson rained downward.
She was framed in fire.
Divine.
Terrifying.
Uncontainable.
Below, the vines shifted again.
This time they did not merely bind guests.
They reached toward the stepmother.
She stepped back — too late.
Emerald coils wrapped around her gown, climbing silk and jewel alike. They tightened, lifted her gracefully from the ground.
Her composure cracked.
"Release me," she hissed, struggling as the vines hoisted her into the air.
They did not listen.
They listened to Aurèlle.
Aurèlle, who did not know how to command them.
"I don't understand," she whispered.
The sky answered with thunder so loud it shook the palace windows.
Lightning struck the garden fountain, shattering stone into glittering shards. Rain intensified into a violent downpour. Snow thickened on the edges of the lawn.
The elements collided in chaos.
Wind.
Water.
Flame from the fireworks above.
Life from the earth below.
All of it converging around her.
The gold in her eyes burned brighter.
Her chest ached with the force of it.
It felt endless.
It felt ancient.
As though something in her blood had waited years — centuries — to breathe.
But she could not breathe.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," she choked.
Below her, Dahlia broke free of the vines as they loosened slightly and fell to her knees.
"Come back!" she cried. "Aurèlle, please!"
The word pierced through the storm.
Come back.
Aurèlle looked down.
She saw fear on every face.
She saw her sister crying.
She saw her stepmother suspended, no longer regal — but afraid.
Truly afraid.
For the first time.
The gold in Aurèlle's eyes flickered.
The wind faltered.
Rain thinned.
The snow evaporated midair.
The sun began to sink back toward the horizon. The moon dimmed to its natural glow.
The vines slackened.
Her body tilted.
The wind that had held her steady dissolved.
She began to fall.
Not fast enough to kill.
But fast enough to terrify.
Gasps erupted across the garden.
Dahlia ran forward.
Aurèlle struck the grass hard, breath exploding from her lungs.
At once, everything ceased.
The rain stopped.
The frost melted.
The vines withdrew into the soil as though they had never existed.
The fireworks fizzled out into smoke.
The sky returned to perfect, ordinary night.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Oppressive.
Aurèlle lay staring upward, chest rising unevenly. The stars looked normal now. Distant. Untouched.
As though the heavens had not just bent toward her.
Footsteps approached cautiously.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
Dahlia knelt beside her first, brushing damp strands of hair from her face. Her hands trembled.
"What are you?" she whispered.
Aurèlle swallowed.
She did not know.
But something inside her did.
Something vast and newly awake.
Across the ruined garden, her stepmother lowered slowly back to the ground as the final vine unwound from her waist.
Her gown was torn.
Her hair disordered.
Her smile gone.
She did not look at the destruction.
She looked only at Aurèlle.
Not with irritation.
Not with disdain.
But with calculation.
And fear.
The celebration for Dahlia's blooming had ended in silence.
But something else had begun.
The court had witnessed it.
The sky had answered her.
And there would be no pretending now that Aurèlle was ordinary.
The world had felt her.
And it would not forget.