# CHAPTER 58 – "The Pulse Before War"
## POV: Vanessa
Something's different. Can feel it soon as I wake up.
The three artifacts are sitting on the stone table where I left them last night. The Heart of Unity pulses soft and steady. The Shard of Memory glows pale blue. The Crown of Echoes hums with old power. But now they're doing something new. Something that makes the air in the chamber taste like lightning.
They're talking to each other.
Not with words. With energy. Light flows between them in patterns I don't understand. Creating connections. Building something bigger than what any of them could do alone.
And it's changing me.
I look at my hands. The marks that used to glow under my skin are gone. Now the light comes from inside. Deep inside. Like I swallowed a star and it's burning its way out.
