"…Is that… silver?"
"No, not silver—it's too dull. More like—iron?"
"Wait, no—it's changing. It's darkening—look, it's turning into that hematite hue…"
The murmurs reached Valeria before she even touched the sphere.
She stood before the pedestal now, alone at the center of the Crystal Hall, just as Lucavion had moments before. But unlike his trial, there was no tension in her limbs. Her hands weren't clenched. Her stance didn't falter.
She was calm.
Measured.
The whispers behind her thickened.
"Who is she again?"
The last word struck harder than the others.
Valeria placed her hands on the sphere.
And the color inside responded immediately.
It surged—not in erratic pulses, not in flashes—but in controlled waves. A deep steel-gray, dark and radiant, began to spread from her fingers outward, blooming like tempered alloy under a forge's breath.
Not flame.
Not stone.
Not shadow.
