The corridors of Blackwood Keep felt longer than Elias remembered.
He ran anyway, boots slipping on polished stone. Shirt torn. Hands stained with soot and drying blood that wasn't his.
Servants pressed themselves against the walls as he passed. Somewhere in the distance, the air still thrummed faintly with the aftershock of the Zone—his mother's authority holding the city together like invisible scaffolding.
He reached the wing reserved for his mother and nearly collided with two house women rushing out with basins of red-stained water.
They froze.
"Young master—!"
One of them stepped directly into his path, hands raised. "You cannot enter like that—"
Elias didn't slow.
"I don't care," he said, and his voice was sharper than he intended.
He moved around her. The second woman tried to catch his sleeve.
"Please—!"
He slipped free and pushed through the door.
The smell hit him first.
Blood.
Herbs burned too long.
And exhaustion.
The room was dim, curtains drawn to keep the light gentle. Aina sat at the bedside, one hand wrapped around Elara's fingers, the other wiping at her own face as if she had simply been too warm. Her usually pristine composure was fractured—eyes red, lips pressed thin.
Miss Gable stood a few steps away, sleeves rolled, forearms and apron streaked in drying crimson. She was wrapping something small and motionless in white cloth.
Elias's heart stopped.
His gaze snapped to the bed.
Elara lay too still.
Too pale.
Too quiet.
Her blonde hair was plastered to her temples. Her lips were slightly parted but unmoving. Her chest—
He couldn't see it rise.
Elias's mind began racing.
'No.'
'No.'
'No.'
The Zone was still active.
He could feel it.
That immense, suffocating pressure of authority over permanence and change still blanketed the city. Even weakened, even fractured, it held.
Which meant—
She was maintaining it, even like this, even now.
He sighed in relief. Aina noticed him.
"Elias," she whispered, voice cracking despite her attempt to steady it. "You shouldn't—"
"El…ias…"
The sound was faint.
Barely air.
But it cut through him like lightning.
Elara's eyelids fluttered.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Then they opened.
Her emerald eyes, dulled by fatigue, found him.
For a moment, he just stared.
Then he moved. His boots felt too loud against the stone.
His throat tightened.
Miss Gable adjusted the bundle in her arms without looking at him.
A chill ran down his spine.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed and grabbed her free hand.
"Mother," he said, and despite himself his voice trembled.
"Are you alright? Does it hurt? You need to—"
She smiled.
It was weak. But it was real.
"I'm fine my dear," she murmured, lifting her hand just enough to stroke his hair.
"Just… just a little tired."
He bit his lip hard enough to taste blood.
'You're not fine.'
He could feel the truth. Her Flow was thin. Frayed. Like silk stretched past its limit.
And yet the Zone persisted.
She was still protecting them.
Even now. Even in this state.
'It's not fair.'
Elias swallowed.
'I have enough.'
He did.
'More than enough.'
His reserves were obscene for any human or even enity to posses. Infinite Flow wasn't just a name—it was capacity without natural ceiling.
'If I transferred some...'
Carefully.
Slowly.
'But what if I did it wrong and someone sensed the scale?'
Before he could decide, a murmur rippled through the women gathered near Miss Gable.
"…why isn't she crying?"
"…did you see her eye?"
"…that wasn't—"
"...Its creepy"
Elias's head snapped toward them.
The bundle in Miss Gable's arms shifted.
The cloth wriggled.
Miss Gable adjusted her grip, exhaustion etched deep into her face. There were dark crescents beneath her eyes. She looked as though she had been fighting a war with her bare hands.
"She's breathing," Miss Gable said hoarsely, stepping closer.
"Healthy lungs. Strong pulse."
Elias let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Alive, his sister was alive.
Miss Gable placed the small bundle carefully into Elara's arms. Elara looked down at her daughter and smiled in a way that made something unfamiliar twist in Elias's chest.
Soft. Complete.
Elias forced his thoughts into order.
He reached inward and let a controlled stream of Flow slip from him into her hand.
Gentle.
Measured.
Like pouring water into cracked porcelain.
Elara's eyes widened faintly and she glanced at her son. Within moments, color began returning to her cheeks. Her breathing steadied. Not fully restored—but slightly better.
She looked at him with quiet surprise.
"Elias…?"
He smiled faintly. "You need it more than I do right now."
Aina's gaze sharpened.
She felt it the other source of energy too. But she said nothing.
Instead, she wiped her eyes quickly and stood straighter.
"I told you she'd be fine," Aina said, voice steadier now, though relief softened her edges.
"Elara Mellou knows no defeat."
Elara chuckled weakly.
"Would you like to see her?" she asked Elias.
He hesitated.
In his previous life, siblings had been distant figures. Obligations. Not bonds.
But something in this body responded differently.
A pull.
A warmth.
It wasn't entirely him, it was the blood, the shared lineage,the quiet instinct to protect.
Or so he thought.
He nodded.
Elara shifted the bundle closer.
Elias leaned in.
The baby had a head full of red hair streaked with blonde—an inversion of his own coloring.
Her eyes were closed and she was breathing steadily. But she wasn't crying.
'Strange.'
Crying was what forced the lungs fully into rhythm. It was how the body declared its arrival into the world.
And the whispers—
'What were they saying about her eyes?'
As if sensing his gaze, the baby stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Then opened.
Her left eye was emerald green with thin streaks of ruby—mirror to his own inversion.
Her right eye—
Elias froze.
It looked normal.
And yet it didn't.
Looking into it felt like staring into sunlight.
Not brightness.
Radiance.
For the briefest fraction of a second, something formed within it.
A symbol.
Complex.
Ancient.
Briefly, Elias saw his reflection in the pool of radiance and then it was gone.
And she began to cry.
Sharp.
Clear.
Healthy.
The women exhaled in collective relief.
"There," Miss Gable muttered, visibly sagging.
"There it is."
Elara, with renewed strength from Elias's transfer, gently rocked her daughter.
"It's alright," she whispered. "You're safe."
Aina moved to assist Miss Gable, who was already preparing herbs and fresh cloths.
"Sit down," Aina told her firmly. "You look worse than Aunt did."
Miss Gable snorted. "That's because I was elbow-deep in blood."
Across town, in Beth's shop, a similar tension hung in the air.
Liora stood near the bed, equally exhausted, sleeves stained red.
The newborn lay quiet in Beth's arms.
"She's breathing fine," Liora said carefully. "But she hasn't—"
Jamie leaned closer and the baby's eyes opened.
Her left eye held a soft lunar radiance, reflecting Jamie's face as she leaned in far too close.
"Whoa—" Jamie whispered.
Then baby began to cry.
Liora sighed deeply.
Beth laughed weakly, tears streaming down her face.
"She's strong," she murmured.
Wilcris burst through the door.
"— Is she—"
"Quiet!" Beth, Liora, and Jamie snapped simultaneously.
He froze.
"…sorry."
He approached slowly, eyes wide and shining.
"She's perfect," he whispered.
Jamie crossed her arms observing the family reunion. Then she felt a longing and something tugging at her heart.
Then she frowned.
'I'm going to look for papa.'
Liora gave her a tired look as she moved out.
"Be careful."
Back at the Keep, Elias rose.
"I'll take these to Beth," he said.
Miss Gable nodded. "There are clean linens and herbs in that satchel."
He gathered what was essential for a new mother—carefully, methodically. Given the state of affairs, Beth wouldn't have access to some of these things, given where she delivered. He volunteered to take these over in place of Miss Gaable since she was mundane and could'nt avoid the monsters that may still be lurking so Elias offered to go so she could stay and take care of his mother.
Before leaving, he looked once more at his sister.
She was quiet now sleeping peacefully in their mothers bossom.
Something about her presence felt…
He couldn't define it.
But he felt it.
Then he turned and left.
In the forest, the air had gone still.
Lyle released SK's throat abruptly and stepped back several paces.
His manic grin faltered.
His shoulders trembled.
"S-sister Minerva…" he said, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle.
Minerva possessed an unsettling kind of beauty.
Clear blue eyes, sharp and luminous, seemed to see beyond the surface of things. Long, curly white hair fell down her back in soft spirals, framing a slender, graceful figure. Her dark blue lips and the matching pigment beneath her eyes gave her an almost ceremonial, inhuman elegance.
Like Elara, she carried an otherworldly aura—but where Elara felt warm and sovereign, Minerva felt distant, cosmic, and quietly absolute.
"I d-didn't expect....f-funny seeing you h-here. Hahahahahah-ah..."
The robed figure stood before him, the breeze blowing through her robes and her white hair.
Her gaze lowered as she looked down at her younger brother, clearly not amused.