When the world asked, "Why?" the first answer was not a word.
It was a tremor in War Heaven.
It started as a thin vibration in the floor of the Terralux Grand Hall, subtle as the shiver before a fever. The jade tiles beneath thousands of sandaled feet thrummed, then rang with a hidden note. Lanterns along the vaulted ceiling flickered in a slow, synchronized stutter.
The weaker initiates looked up from their tablets and cultivation circles, unsure if it was an earthquake or an omen.
Lyra knew it was both.
She stood at the center of the amphitheater, Director of the Soterian Schools, a mortal in form and rank yet wreathed in faint spirals of thalassion water-light and aether glyphs. Her authority wasn't her power—Crown III, Level 10, nothing more. Her authority was that Kael Soter himself had laughed in approval and placed the Archivist's staff in her hand.
The staff vibrated now, rings of water hovering around its tip like captive halos.
"Remain seated," she called, voice amplified through resonant runes. "This is not a breach. This is the question arriving."
The tremor resolved into a tone—high, clear, neither heard nor unheard. Sigils ignited across the dome: the Nine Orders of the Ascendants, each in its own color.
The Soterians of Terra Lux shone gold and green.
The Archivists of Ishara shimmered blue, runes like moving water.
The Flameguard of Balthor burned vermilion.
The Silent Choir of Selene bloomed in dusk violet.
The Iron Sentinels of Darius glowed steel-white.
The Verdant Covenant of Elyon unfurled in living emerald.
The Starborn of Nyxion sparkled with starlit indigo.
The Dreamwalkers of Amal pulsed with soft aurora.
And the Bloodforged of Kora smoldered in wine-dark crimson.
Nine lights, nine paths, nine answers to the same unkillable question.
Above them all, the Seal of Dominion turned like a halo broken into a spiral—its rotation slowing as if something older were reaching through it.
Lyra lifted the staff and drew a spiral in the air, water and aether weaving together.
"Today's examination," she said, "is no longer theoretical."
Nervous laughter skittered among the initiates. They were First and Second Crown students—Thread-Bearers and Vessel-Forger hopefuls, children compared to the immortal wars beyond the firmament. Yet many carried beast cores at their belts, simple herbs in their satchels, and the stubborn fire of those who dreamed of Saints and beyond.
"Director," asked a shy boy from the Verdant rows, "I thought it was a philosophy trial."
"It still is."
Above them, the Seal dimmed.
"And the cosmos," Lyra added quietly, "is listening to your answers."
---
I. The Question of Meaning
Floating above the central dais, the examination glyph blossomed: a simple, brutal set of lines in Soterian script.
WHY DO LIVES MATTER?
Underneath, in smaller script:
State your answer as if no god will save you.
Ink sticks shook in unsteady hands. Even in War Heaven, the thought of an unguarded cosmos was obscene.
Lyra walked the concentric steps, weaving through rows of initiates. She saw them for what they were: the future meat of wars, perhaps a handful of future Saints, maybe—if Eternity was in a generous mood—a single future Divine.
"Remember," Lyra said, "there is no neutral position. To say life has no meaning is to declare your own Crown empty. To say meaning is given to you is to forfeit cultivation. The Spiral Crown System we walk does not carry those who refuse to step."
A girl from the Silent Choir raised her hand.
"If we answer wrong," she asked softly, "what… happens?"
Lyra thought of Hela-Azrael's feather, of Kael standing in the storm, of Maraketh's brood. Of Cain's laughter echoing in a gorge of corpses. Of the Prime Beast watching evolution like a cruel mathematician.
"Then," Lyra answered, "you will have told the truth about yourselves. That is all meaning ever does—reveal what was already there."
The hall hushed.
Quills began to scratch.
Above the dome, unseen by all but the highest senses, Babel watched from a balcony of still air; Hela-Azrael's presence coiled as invisible vectors along every sentence. Somewhere far below, in the primal dark where beast and god once bled together, Kora the Blood-Forged felt a tug in her crimson core.
Meaning was being weighed.
And the cosmos had grown tired of merely watching.
---
II. The Council of Crones
While the children wrote their souls onto paper, another gathering unfolded in a hidden sector of War Heaven—behind nine veils and a single honest question.
The Pantheon Mother-Crones convened in Lysora's Sector, a garden that refused to decide whether it was a laboratory or a graveyard. Glass trees grew there, each leaf a crystallized equation of alchemy; beneath them, bone-petaled flowers drank from soil rich with extinct gods.
Lysora, flawless and exhausted, presided at the central stone table. To her right sat Lycanna Moonhunter, wolf-eyed and moon-marked, her silver hair braided in war-knot patterns. To Lysora's left lounged Lilith, other-wife of Cain, bare feet on the sacred table, eyes amused and unimpressed.
Around them gathered lesser goddesses and witch maidens from every pantheon—draped in stars, roots, shadows, or half-remembered cult sigils.
A bloom of foxfire hovered over the table, shaped roughly like a spiral crown.
"So," Lilith said, picking dirt from under a black nail, "the Four are stirring again."
Lysora's jaw tightened. "Eternity does not stir. It rotates."
"Then the rotation's getting suspiciously pointed," Lycanna murmured. "The Prime Beast's realm is restless. My wolves won't sleep on the edge of the Primal Veil anymore. Something is pushing up from below."
A witch maiden of Ishara's Archivists cleared her throat.
"Our oracles saw alien craft in the upper firmament again. The Aetherians report increased beast incursions along the Sky-Sea boundary. Monster giants, eldritch composites, things that even Kora's lineage hesitates to name."
"So?" Lilith shrugged. "The universe remembers we're edible. Let it bite."
Lysora turned a cool gaze on her. "And your son?"
And the garden went cold.