The mountains groaned under Laxin's chains, not in protest but in resonance, as if they too had found joy in his defiance. The newborn realm trembled—not from collapse, but from exhilaration, like a heart discovering rhythm for the first time.
Then came the shift.
The silver stars flickered once, twice, before dimming into strange constellations the Trinity had never carved. Lines wove between them—foreign patterns etched across the sky, runes neither of Fenric's fire, nor Aria's bloom, nor Laxin's wrath. They pulsed with a cadence not of this realm's will, but of something else. Something seeded.
Aria rose sharply, wings flaring as her eyes widened. "These aren't of the world. They are intrusions." Her hand pressed to her chest, feeling the hum of the covenant. It shivered uneasily, not broken, but threatened.
