Isha was sitting on the warm stone floor, legs folded, utterly serious about an important task.
"Furbols," she said, holding up a wooden block, "this one is the moon. You have to guard it."
Vyomar—longer now, heavier than before but still unmistakably young—lowered himself with exaggerated care and placed a paw over the block. His golden eyes flicked to Isha, solemn.
Satisfied, she nodded. "Good. Don't let it run away."
Arav watched from the steps, a small smile tugging at his lips. Moments like these had become rare gifts—quiet pockets of time where the world did not press in, where rumors and watchful eyes stayed outside the walls.
Sharanya sat nearby, mending cloth, her gaze drifting between her children with soft attentiveness. Meghala leaned against a pillar, pretending not to watch while very obviously watching.
Aaryan stood at the edge of the courtyard, arms folded, presence steady as stone.
"Alright," Sharanya said gently after a while. "It's time."
Isha looked up. "Time for what?"
"For your turn," Sharanya replied, smiling. "Just like Bhaiya had his."
Arav straightened slightly.
He remembered his own awakening clearly—the heat, the pressure, the way the world had bent around him. He had been younger then, confused and afraid, but he remembered.
Isha, on the other hand, only grinned.
"Oh!" She hopped to her feet. "Okay!"
Vyomar rose immediately.
"No," Meghala said flatly, pointing. "You stay."
Vyomar paused, tail flicking in protest.
"He can come," Isha insisted. "He's guarding the moon."
Sharanya hesitated, then nodded. "Alright. But he stays close."
Vyomar puffed up proudly and followed, steps quiet, ears alert.
They moved into the inner ritual chamber—stone walls etched with old Ashvathar markings, the same formation Arav had once stood within. Nothing had changed.
That, Arav would later realize, was the unsettling part.
Isha stepped into the center without hesitation, Vyomar padding after her before settling at the edge of the circle. He sat. Perfectly still.
Aaryan activated the formation.
Light spread along the grooves in the floor—soft, measured, familiar.
Everyone relaxed slightly.
No pressure.
No surge.
No resistance.
Sharanya exhaled.
Then the light stopped moving.
Not dimmed.
Not broken.
Stopped.
Arav felt it first—not heat, not force, but the absence of motion. As if the chamber had taken a single breath and refused to let it go.
The moonlight filtering through the high window did something wrong.
It did not shift with the clouds.
It bent.
Not toward Isha.
Around her.
Shadows aligned without instruction, stretching gently, respectfully, until every one of them pointed toward the small girl standing in the center of the formation, hands clasped, eyes wide with curiosity.
"Oh," Isha said softly. "It's pretty."
Time felt… uncertain.
Not frozen.
Just undecided.
Vyomar lowered his head.
Not in fear.
In instinct.
Meghala's breath caught. She reached for flame without thinking—and stopped herself just as quickly. There was nothing to fight.
Aaryan took a single step forward, then halted.
The formation completed itself.
Without drawing aether.
Without consuming energy.
Without reacting at all.
The light faded.
The shadows returned to normal.
The moonlight resumed its quiet drift.
Isha blinked.
"Am I done?" she asked.
Sharanya moved first, crossing the chamber and pulling Isha into a tight embrace. Her hands trembled.
"Yes," she whispered. "You're done."
Arav stood frozen, heart pounding—not with fear, but with something colder.
Confusion.
He felt nothing.
No resonance.
No echo.
No aftermath.
And yet… his instincts screamed that something irreversible had just occurred.
Meghala let out a shaky laugh. "That's it? That's all?"
Aaryan did not answer immediately.
He knelt, examining the formation lines, his expression unreadable.
"The ritual recognizes her," he said finally. "But it cannot define her."
Sharanya looked up sharply. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Aaryan replied slowly, "that whatever she awakened… does not obey our measures."
Isha wriggled free and toddled back to Vyomar, patting his head. "Did I do good?"
Vyomar looked at her for a long moment.
Then he leaned forward and gently pressed his forehead to hers.
Arav inhaled sharply.
No beast did that.
Not without reason.
At the time, no one spoke of danger.
There were no alarms.
No messengers.
No cracks in stone or sky.
Records were filed.
> Awakening confirmed. Attribute: Undetermined.
Life continued.
But years later—now, sitting on the same steps as the memory surfaced unbidden—Arav understood why the adults had never truly relaxed after that day.
He watched Isha laugh as Vyomar chased the wooden "moon" across the courtyard, her joy effortless, her presence oddly… certain.
Power did not always announce itself.
Sometimes it rewrote the world quietly—
and waited for everyone else to catch up.