Alaric's hands shook as he took in the full extent of Seraphina's injuries. The blood was a stark, terrifying contrast against the pale fabric of her ruined dress.
"Where is Eveline?" Alaric demanded, his voice cracking with a desperation he had never shown on the battlefield. "She's the only one who can close these wounds. We have to find her—now!"
He tried to hook his arm under Seraphina's to lift her, his eyes darting toward the Palace gates. "I'm getting you to a healer. Forget the Ministry, forget the crest. You're losing too much blood, Seraphina. You can't even stand!"
"Alaric, listen to me," Seraphina gasped, clutching his forearm. "Eveline is in the Tower. She's... she's changing. She's becoming what she was always meant to be."
"The Tower is sealed!" Alaric countered, his panic blinding him to anything but the crimson staining his gauntlets. "If she's locked in there, she's useless to us. I have to get you to the Royal physicians—"
Before he could take a single step, the ground beneath them groaned. The violet hum that had been a dull roar suddenly spiked into a piercing shriek. At the Palace's summit, the massive Siphon Stones began to glow with a blinding, iridescent light—but they weren't pulsing with the dark, heavy energy of the ritual anymore.
Suddenly, the stones didn't explode outward into the city. Instead, they were wrenched upward.
Alaric and the surrounding knights froze as the massive boulders of mana-soaked rock were lifted toward the clouds, caught in invisible, spiraling currents of air and anchored by beams of raw, ancient light.
High above, the stones hit the upper atmosphere and shattered. But instead of a rain of debris, they erupted into a silent, breathtaking display. Streaks of emerald green, deep sapphire, and brilliant gold painted the night sky, turning the terrifying ritual into a celestial aurora that stretched across the entire horizon.
The commoners in the Plaza, who had been cowering in fear, looked up in awe as the "death stones" became a festival of light.
Alaric stared at the sky, his mouth slightly open. "The ritual... it failed? No, it didn't just fail. Someone divertedit. How? The mages are prisoners, and the Saintess is locked away."
Seraphina leaned her head against Alaric's shoulder, a tired, knowing smile playing on her lips. She saw the emerald streaks—Caelum's wind—guiding the debris away from the homes below. She saw the golden core—Eveline's awakened light—neutralizing the rot.
Only she knew that the "monsters" in the Tower had just saved the Empire.
"The mages," she whispered, her voice fading as the adrenaline finally left her system. "They chose to be the heroes of a story no one will ever tell."
As the last of the stones faded into harmless sparkles of mana, Seraphina's grip on Alaric's arm loosened. The Silver Crest clattered to the stones.
"Seraphina!" Alaric caught her before she hit the ground, his panic returning as her eyes fluttered shut. "Stay with me! It's over, the sky is clear! Just stay with me!"