Mae stepped outside into the cooling air, the fractured sky hanging above like a cracked mirror. The horizon shimmered in shades of copper and violet. She didn't care. She was done pretending everything was okay. Her steps were shaky but sure as she made her way toward the cluster of silver-barked trees near the edge of the reborn garden. They looked peaceful, untouched, but even they bent slightly with the tension in the air. She clenched her fists. Her breaths came fast, uneven, too close to sobs. "Why would he do that?" she whispered to herself. "Why now?" Her throat closed tight.
The trees around her stood still, waiting. Mae didn't scream out loud. But inside, she roared. The power surged up again, hot and fierce, and as she forced herself not to lose control, she pressed her hands against the trees. The bark was cold and grounding. She remembered what Riven had said. Back when they tested her power together. "Let it through you, not from you. Guide it." She took a breath. Let it rise. And then, She let it go. A light burst from her palms, traveling into the trees. The ground vibrated beneath her feet, and the trees pulsed in response, as if they remembered her, as if they knew what she was becoming.
The air snapped like static, just once, and then there was silence. But not for long.
Inside the castle. Mae stepped outside into the cooling air, the fractured sky hanging above like a cracked mirror. The horizon shimmered in shades of copper and violet. She didn't care. She was done pretending everything was okay. Her steps were shaky but sure as she made her way toward the cluster of silver-barked trees near the edge of the reborn garden. They looked peaceful, untouched, but even they bent slightly with the tension in the air. Ashar stood still, arms crossed, jaw locked. His silence was thicker than stone.
Riven paced nearby, glaring at Kaine, who now sat slumped in a chair, bruised from Ashar's earlier rage but not resisting. "So what do we do with him?" Riven asked, turning sharply to Ashar. Ashar didn't answer right away. His eyes were half-lidded, calculating, unreadable. "He goes," Ashar finally said, voice low. "Tonight."
"Agreed." Riven didn't hesitate. Kaine didn't even argue. But before they could decide how, the ground shook. A low boom cracked through the stone halls like a drumbeat from a god's war. Then, light. Blinding, golden-white, it poured through the high castle windows, casting long shadows and painting the walls with threads of fire.
Both men spun toward the door. "Mae," Ashar said sharply. They ran. Outside. Mae stood at the center of it. Light spun from the ground beneath her, forming into arcs, runes that hadn't been written in a thousand years. The trees were glowing. The wind howled without movement. Energy snapped across her skin like lashes of lightning, but she didn't fall. She stood tall. Eyes closed. Tears sliding down her cheeks. "I thought I could trust him." The pain hadn't gone. But she had shaped it. Turned it inward. Not to destroy, but to remember. Ashar and Riven skidded to a halt in the clearing, the light still fading as they approached.
She opened her eyes. Both of them stopped, neither dared speak for a moment. Ashar's lips parted, but no words came. Riven was the first to step forward, slower this time, quieter. "Mae." She didn't pull away. Didn't collapse. She just whispered: "Don't let him near me again." Ashar nodded once. Sharp. Final. "He won't." And the light slowly faded. Riven took a single step forward, then froze. The ground pulsed again. This time stronger. But unlike before, it wasn't chaos. It was alive. The wind shifted. And the light, it changed.
Where moments ago it blazed like wildfire, now it softened, like dawn filtering through heavy storm clouds. A hum began beneath their feet. Gentle. Resonant. As if the land itself had taken a breath. Mae stood in the heart of it, bathed in warm silver-gold energy, her eyes distant but focused. She wasn't collapsing under the weight of her power, she was guiding it now. Family. One word. One thought. She didn't say it aloud. She felt it. With every cracked piece of her heart.Not revenge. Not punishment. But the longing for something safe, permanent, real. Something good.
The sky trembled, not with fear, but with recognition. And then the trees responded.
The soil split, not from violence, but rebirth. They watched in silent awe as strange, graceful creatures rose from silver roots and folds of golden dust. Some stepped out of the trees, others shimmered into form from curls of mist and fractured light. They didn't resemble Earth's animals, these beings were foreign yet familiar, like whispers from a forgotten age. Feathered beasts with glowing eyes. Scaled creatures the size of horses, with wings folded like silk. Small ones too, fox-like, crystalline paws leaving shimmering prints in the earth. All of them circled the clearing. All of them looked to Mae.
Ashar stepped beside Riven, eyes wide, not in fear, but in reverence. "This, this was my people's dream," he whispered. "To restore the bond between existence and nature, to call back what was lost."
"We called them Soulkind," he added. "But no one had seen them since the Fall." Mae's voice broke through the quiet, soft and strong. "If I have a choice…" she said, finally looking at them both, "between becoming what Kaine was, what the Council is, or building something better." Her eyes shimmered, but she didn't cry. "Then I choose creation. Every time." The Soulkind gathered at her feet. One nudged its head into her palm. And then they bowed, not as subjects, but as kin.