Outside the church, evening had fallen over Jenora.
The sky was darkening to purple, the first stars beginning to appear, and the city was settling into its nighttime rhythm.
And then the sky exploded into color.
The orbuculum detonated somewhere high above the city—high enough that the explosion was safely distant, but visible for miles.
It wasn't a normal explosion.
No fire or smoke.
Just color.
Brilliant, impossible colors that spread across the sky like paint spilled on canvas. Gold and silver and blue and green and shades that didn't have names, rippling and flowing and creating patterns that looked almost alive.
It was beautiful.
Haunting.
And completely, utterly unnatural.
Every person in Jenora stopped what they were doing and looked up.
In the plaza, merchants abandoned their negotiations.
In the taverns, drinkers set down their mugs.
In the homes, families came outside to stare.
The colors swirled and danced, creating images that might have been random or might have been something more—shapes that suggested vast wings, ancient symbols.
And then, slowly, they began to fade.
Dispersing like smoke on the wind until the sky was just sky again, stars twinkling innocently as if nothing had happened.
In the testing chamber beneath the church, Styx pressed her face against her mother's shoulder and whispered with absolute delight:
"Fireworks!"
Several miles east of Jenora, on the road leading toward the frontier territories, four travelers had made camp for the night.
Vale was standing watch, leaning against a tree and ostensibly scanning the darkness for threats, though in reality she was thinking about a certain small child with silver-white hair and how his hand had felt so tiny in hers and—
"Vale's daydreaming again," Milliana announced from beside the fire.
"I am not," Vale said automatically, not moving from her position.
"You have that look."
"I don't have a look."
"The fluffy baby look. You're doing it right now."
Before Vale could formulate a denial, the sky lit up.
All four of them looked up as colors bloomed across the heavens—impossible, beautiful, and emanating from somewhere in the direction they'd just left.
Astral stood slowly, his scholar's mind already trying to analyze what he was seeing. Magical detonation, clearly. But the patterns, the colors, the sheer scale...
A thoughtful smile tugged at his lips. "What a monstrosity of a family," he murmured.
Borin grunted, sitting up from where he'd been checking his equipment. "Speaking of monstrosities—" He held up his shield, scowling at the jagged crack running across its surface. "Thirty years. Thirty damn years this shield's been with me. Dragons, giants, a lich's death curse—survived it all. Then one woman kicks it and..." He traced the crack with his thumb. "Cracked like cheap pottery."
"You could get it repaired," Milliana suggested.
Borin snorted. "Repaired? Lass, this is mythril reinforced with ancient dwarven runes. To fix this properly, I'd need a master smith and materials that don't exist anymore." He shook his head. "Might as well forge a new one. Take less time."
"That bad?"
"Aye. That bad." Despite his grumbling, there was a hint of respect in his voice. "Can't even be mad about it. Woman's defending her cub—that kind of strength comes from somewhere primal. Seen it before. Never pretty."
Vale, meanwhile, was entirely oblivious to the conversation around her. A soft, dreamy smile lingered on her lips, her eyes glazed over in a faraway gaze.
"He's just... so fluffy," she murmured. "That face... those cheeks... like a puffball of chaos..."
"Hello? Earth to Vale?" Milliana waved a hand in front of her face.
No response.
"She's gone," Milliana said to the others. "We've lost her to the baby fever."
Astral, however, had already turned away from the spectacle in the sky, his eyes narrowing in thought.
That family. That child.
The mana he'd sensed. The power contained in such a small vessel.
And now this—whatever this was—originating from the exact city they'd just left.
"Maybe we'll cross paths again," he murmured, half to himself, half to the universe. "Right, little Piers?"
A quiet curiosity burned behind his calm gaze. The scholar in him wanted to know. Needed to know.
What was that child?
What would he become?
And when the storm inside him finally broke free...
Would they be there to witness it?