The cathedral was not still for long.
Before dawn's first light, the bells tolled a sharp summons, rattling through the Sanctuary's stone heart. Elders in heavy robes gathered beneath the storm-stained glass, their torches throwing flickering halos across the pews. They had seen the signs in the waters, in the skies, in the unnatural quiet that came before the winds. And now, seeing Elena and Jaime return from the Wellspring transformed, they wasted no time.
"Bring them forward," one elder hissed. "The bond has been sealed. Their power is not theirs to hoard. We must prepare- NOW."
So Elena, Jaime, Juan, and Esperanza were called from their beds, dragged into the cold nave, their faces still damp with sleep and irritation.
Elena's garnet eyes were gone. What burned back at them instead was violet, cracked with veins of indigo lightning that pulsed like storm veins beneath glass. Jaime's gaze too had changed, no longer the mortal earthy brown, but a permanent oceanic depth, glowing indigo when the divine stirred within. Together, they stood as proof of what the Wellspring had demanded, proof that gods now moved through mortal veins.
The elders circled, voices rising in discord:
"They must fight."
"They must give us their weapons."
"They belong to the Sanctuary."
Elena's jaw tightened. Jaime's fists curled at his sides.
Guabancex's hiss split the air, rippling from Elena's throat with thunder's cadence:
Fools. You think the gods are weapons to wield? We are not your blades, not your shields. We are the storm and the sea. We reestablish balance.
Her violet gaze crackled with lightning, indigo veins flashing across her irises. The elders recoiled.
Coatriskie stirred within Jaime then, his ocean-blue gaze igniting with watery light. His voice was not his own when he spoke, but the deep surge of the tide itself:
El León Negro rises. Do not cower. Do not delay. We will meet him head on. At last… it is time for revenge.
The cathedral shook with the resonance of it. The elders froze, their mouths parted in awestruck silence.
Then Juan stepped forward, golden pollen glowing like a halo in his eyes. For an instant, Gueyaba looked out through him- serene, terrible, fertile with the weight of endings and beginnings. When Juan's own voice returned, it was steady:
"We'll help prepare. Strengthen the Sanctuary, ready the people. The cultists will move soon."
Jaime, released back to himself, exhaled sharply. "Double the patrols. Seal the blind spots along the gates. Enlist anyone willing, we'll need every hand."
But Elena… Elena did not stay still. Her violet gaze burned through them all.
"Enough," she said, her voice low but taut as a bowstring. "I can feel it already- this place is a cage."
"After the wedding, the Matteo's will leave the Sanctuary."
Protests broke like thunderclaps around her. The elders surged to their feet, hands waving, voices rising.
Elena snapped.
The air grew heavy. A rainstorm unfurled inside the cathedral, drops cascading in silver sheets from the rafters. Lightning cracked between her hands. The elders gasped as water poured down around them, soaking robes and parchment alike.
And then- silence.
Every drop froze midair, suspended in the vast hush. Rain hung like a jeweled net above their bowed heads. Elena's glowing gaze swept across them, indigo lightning flashing like veins of a living storm.
"Be grateful," she said coldly, "that we are agreeing to this wedding at all."
With a sweep of her hand, the rain fell again, drenching the chamber in a rush of wet stone and thunderous silence. Without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed out. Jaime followed, his ocean eyes still faintly aglow.
Juan and Esperanza exchanged a look, half fury, half fear, before they too departed, leaving the elders shivering in the downpour they could not stop.
But beyond the cathedral doors, the Sanctuary had not slept through the commotion. The bells and the storm had woken them. Families stood barefoot in the square, coats pulled tight, their children clutching at their hems. They had heard the voices within, had seen lightning flash through stained glass.
When Elena and Jaime emerged, drenched but unbowed, a hush spread through the gathered crowd. No one moved. No one dared speak. Mothers crossed their children's foreheads. Old men dropped to one knee. Some wept openly, whispering prayers to gods they no longer trusted.
"Stormborn," someone murmured. "Sea-marked."
Another voice, shaking, whispered what everyone else was thinking:
"If they are gods now… what does that make us?"
The question hung over them, heavier than the storm itself, as the four chosen walked into the dark and left the people staring after them- afraid, worshipful, uncertain which feeling would devour the other first.