The soft light of early evening filtered through the tall windows, casting long, trembling shadows across the polished floor. Anna lay beneath the blankets, restless and fever-weary, caught between sleep and wakefulness. Faint voices drifted near her bed, low and urgent, stirring her curiosity despite herself.
"…Selene, you must understand," Aeloria's voice was careful, measured, yet edged with worry. "This resonance… your daughter's gift—it is not merely rare. It is profound, dangerous if left unchecked. Her connection to the ley lines, the way the magic hums within her… I've seen it before."
Selene's fingers clenched the folds of her gown. "You mean… your mother?" she whispered, a tremor betraying the fear she tried to hide.
Aeloria's lips pressed into a thin line. "Yes. My mother… She possessed the same resonance. She could shape the earth, bend the cosmos itself to her will, but it consumed her in the end. The magic does not forgive inexperience, Selene. It does not wait for control."
Selene swallowed hard. "And the emperor… Valerius must never know. Not until we understand it ourselves. If he realized—" Her voice faltered as her gaze flicked toward Anna's blankets.
"She is sleeping," Aeloria said softly, her eyes tracing the small, restless figure beneath the covers. "For now, let her rest. She does not need to hear this yet. But you must prepare yourself… and her. The resonance will not be tamed by will alone. It must be guided, nurtured… restrained."
Selene knelt closer, brushing a damp strand of hair from Anna's forehead. "I don't even know where to start. How do you guide something you barely understand yourself?"
Aeloria's sigh carried the weight of generations. "You begin with caution, with patience. And you remember the lessons my mother learned too late. Power like this… it is a double-edged thread. Pull it recklessly, and it can unravel everything. But guided… it can reshape the world."
Anna stirred beneath the blankets, her small fingers curling against the sheet. A faint, familiar hum vibrated beneath her skin—the echo of the power she had wielded in the Ashenwood. Aeloria's eyes narrowed slightly, and Selene's breath caught.
Selene's voice broke the tense silence. "Your mother… she had a name, didn't she? In the annals of the Empire… something whispered with fear and awe. The resonance mage… what did they call her?"
Aeloria's eyes darkened, a shadow of grief passing over her features. "Yes," she said softly. "They called her The Reaper's Warden. A name meant to inspire both caution and terror. She could shape forests and stone, bend life itself to her will. Whole battalions would vanish before her power. And yet… even with all that strength, it could not save her from herself."
Selene's breath caught at the weight of that title, her fingers still resting lightly against Anna's damp temple. The Reaper's Warden. The words felt heavy, like iron sinking in her chest.
"She was a legend," Selene whispered. "Children used to whisper her name during storms, as though she might appear in the lightning. But I thought she was… a story. A myth to frighten ambitious mages."
Aeloria's lips curved in a bitter shadow of a smile. "She was real. And her downfall was no myth." Her gaze drifted past Selene, as though seeing not the room, but a memory she wished she could banish. "In the end, it was not an enemy that destroyed her. It was the resonance itself. The ley lines sang too loudly within her veins, pulling her deeper and deeper into their current. She stopped hearing the voices of her allies, her people, even her own family. All she heard was the hum beneath the world."
Selene's hand trembled against Anna's brow. "And you think Anna… my little girl… will face the same fate?"
"No." Aeloria's voice sharpened with sudden conviction, her hand tightening on Selene's shoulder. "Not if we act now. My mother had no guide, no one to show her how to listen without drowning, how to shape without tearing herself apart. Anna has you. And she has me. And she has this…."
Aeloria's grip on Selene's shoulder eased, though her gaze remained fierce, unyielding. Slowly, deliberately, she reached into the folds of her cloak, murmuring words so old and strange they seemed to warp the very air around her.
The candles guttered low, their flames stretching thin and pale as her chant deepened into a throaty hum. Symbols of violet light shimmered briefly across the polished floor, spiraling out from her hand in intricate, geometric patterns.
"Veras tharyn, echom veir, somnus caelis, arcanum revir."
The last word thrummed like a struck chord, and with a muted pop of displaced air, a small, rectangular object appeared within her grasp. It was wrapped in layers of protective wards that glimmered faintly before fading away like smoke.
Selene gasped as Aeloria lifted it into view. "What… is that?"
Aeloria's expression softened, though her tone remained reverent. "A legacy," she said quietly. "The only one my mother left me."
The object resolved into a tome bound in cracked, dark leather. Its cover bore a sigil unlike any Selene had ever seen—a pattern of interwoven circles and lines that seemed to shift if one stared too long, as though the design itself were alive.
Etched into the spine in precise, angular script were words Selene couldn't read, but she felt them, vibrating faintly in her bones like the distant toll of a bell.
"This," Aeloria continued, brushing her fingers over the sigil, "is the Codex of Resonance. My mother's journal, grimoire, and confession, all bound in one. She filled its pages with her studies of the ley lines, the pathways beneath the world's skin that carry the heartbeat of magic itself."
Selene's eyes widened. "You mean to say… she mapped them?"
Aeloria nodded gravely. "And more than that. She chronicled her own descent into the resonance, step by step. The Codex holds not only her discoveries but also her warnings—the methods she devised to restrain the power when it grew too loud to bear."
She opened the tome carefully, as though afraid it might crumble to dust. The pages within were a patchwork of densely packed runes, diagrams of ley networks, and frantic, almost desperate notes scrawled in the margins.
Selene leaned closer, awe warring with fear. "It looks… alive."
"It is," Aeloria murmured, her fingertips gliding across a page marked with concentric rings of runes. "The resonance saturates these pages. When my mother wrote in it, she wasn't just writing words—she was binding pieces of her own magic into the parchment.
Selene's breath hitched. "And you think this… this book can help Anna?"
"Yes," Aeloria said with absolute certainty. "My mother left instructions—rituals designed to quiet the song when it grows overwhelming, meditative patterns to teach focus and control. She called them 'resonant bindings.'"
She turned a page, revealing a delicate diagram of intersecting lines and shapes that seemed to shimmer faintly, like moonlight on water. "Here. This is the first of them. It helped her survive her earliest surges before the resonance began to drown her completely."
Aeloria's expression darkened, and she slowly closed the tome with a soft thump, her fingers lingering on the strange, shifting sigil etched into its cover.
"There is only one problem," she said quietly, the words heavy with frustration.
Selene's brow furrowed. "What do you mean? You said your mother left the answers here. That this Codex could teach us to help Anna."
"It can," Aeloria admitted, "but not completely. Not to me." She exhaled sharply, her voice tight, as though the admission itself pained her. "I can read fragments—words, patterns, snippets of ritual. Enough to glean intent, to piece together some of the resonance bindings. But there are entire sections that remain… sealed to me. Even when I trace the runes, they shift beneath my eyes, as if the Codex itself is alive and rejecting me."
Selene's gaze dropped to the tome, dread curling in her stomach. "Rejecting you? But you're her daughter. Shouldn't that matter?"
Aeloria's lips pressed into a thin line. "Blood means little to the resonance. My mother bound her knowledge to a condition she herself never fulfilled. She wrote these words for a successor who could hear the ley lines as she did—not merely sense them, as I can, but truly speak their language."
Her fingers tapped the cover in a slow, frustrated rhythm. "To anyone else, those pages are little more than indecipherable marks and echoes of power. To a true resonance mage…" She glanced toward Anna, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. "…the Codex would open fully. The runes would settle. The knowledge would flow freely, as if it had been waiting for them all along."
Selene's breath caught in her throat. "You mean… Anna."
"Yes." Aeloria's gaze was unwavering. "Only she has the potential to unlock the entirety of the Codex. Only she can see what my mother truly intended to pass down."
Selene's grip on the blanket tightened until her knuckles turned white. "But she's a child, Aeloria. She can barely control the smallest flicker of her magic. You can't expect her to shoulder this now."
"I don't." Aeloria's tone softened, though her eyes held an unrelenting edge of determination. "But we must prepare Anna for the day when she will need the codex."
Aeloria's voice grew quieter, her gaze dropping to the closed tome in her hands as if it weighed far more than mere leather and parchment. "There is… one ritual I have managed to fully decipher," she admitted. "The symbols were clearer, perhaps because my mother intended it as a last resort."
Selene's stomach turned at her tone. "What kind of ritual?"
Aeloria's fingers curled tightly around the Codex, knuckles pale. "A binding." She said the word with reverence and dread all at once. "It's designed to seal the resonance within Anna, to cut her connection to the ley lines entirely. The hum, the surges, the uncontrollable magic—it would all be silenced."
Selene's breath hitched. "Silenced? You mean… she wouldn't be able to use her magic at all?"
"Yes," Aeloria confirmed, her voice flat. "It would be as though the resonance never awakened in her."
For a heartbeat, hope flickered across Selene's face—fragile and desperate. "That sounds like salvation. If it keeps her safe, if it spares her from what happened to your mother—"
Aeloria cut her off with a sharp shake of her head. "Selene, listen to me. This ritual is not without cost."
The fragile hope shattered, replaced by creeping dread. "…What cost?"
Aeloria hesitated, her throat working as she forced the words out. "Memory."
Selene stared at her, uncomprehending. "Memory?"
"The binding doesn't just sever the magic," Aeloria explained, her voice heavy with grief. "It erases everything connected to it—the moments when the resonance shaped her thoughts, her actions, even her identity. The ritual would take her memories of magic… and everything tied to it. She would forget her power, her struggles, even why she ever felt different."
Selene's hand flew to her mouth, stifling a gasp. "She'd forget me?"
"No," Aeloria said quickly, though her voice trembled. "The memories of you, of your love, of family—they should remain untouched. But…" She closed her eyes briefly, steadying herself. "The resonance is part of her. The deeper it runs, the more entwined it becomes with her very sense of self. The ritual cannot always distinguish where the magic ends and the person begins. Some memories may… unravel with it."
Selene shook her head violently, tears springing to her eyes. "No. I won't let you strip my daughter of herself. That's not salvation, Aeloria. That's obliteration."
Aeloria knelt beside her, grasping Selene's hands with fierce urgency. "I don't want this either. Do you understand me? This would be the last resort—the only way to save her if the resonance begins to consume her. If she starts to hear nothing but the song, like my mother did. If we face a moment where she is drowning, and there is no other path."
Selene's breath came in ragged sobs, her mind whirling. She looked down at Anna's small, fever-flushed face, at the slight twitch of her fingers as though even in sleep she reached for something unseen.
Selene's arms tightened protectively around Anna, as though she could shield the child from the very idea of the ritual. Her breath trembled against her daughter's hair, and when she finally spoke, her voice was hoarse but steady.
"How could I ever decide something like that?" she whispered. "How can a mother choose the moment to take her child's memories, her very self, away? To choose between saving her life and erasing pieces of her soul?"
Aeloria's eyes softened, but she did not flinch. "You shouldn't have to. No one should. But if the time comes—if the resonance begins to devour her from within—you may not be given a choice. That is why we speak of it now. Not to plan it… but to know it exists."
Selene shook her head slowly, eyes glistening. "Every part of me wants to say 'never.' That I'd rather risk the tide, rather risk everything, than take something from her she can never get back. But…" Her voice cracked. "I've seen what the surges do to her already. The fever, the dreams. I've felt the hum under her skin. It's growing stronger every day."
Aeloria placed a hand on Selene's shoulder, her grip firm but gentle. "We won't decide now," she said. "Not while she still sleeps, not while there's still time to teach her, to guide her. This ritual is not a path—it's a cliff's edge. We only stand there if we're forced to."
Selene's gaze fell back to Anna, her thumb brushing a damp strand of hair from the girl's temple. "Then promise me," she whispered. "Promise me we won't act unless we're certain. Unless it's the only way to bring her back to me."
"I promise," Aeloria said softly. "As long as there is another way, we will find it. Together."
For a moment, neither woman spoke. The room was quiet but for Anna's faint, fevered breaths and the muted toll of bells in the distance.
Then Selene's eyes flicked toward the Codex, still clutched in Aeloria's hands, its sigil glimmering faintly like a heartbeat beneath the leather. "If that day ever comes," she murmured, "it won't be your hands alone or mine that choose. It will be both of us. Together."
Aeloria inclined her head solemnly. "Together," she echoed.
Selene held her daughter close, her mind already racing—not with plans, but with questions. How will I know? When is the line crossed? When does saving her become losing her?
She pressed a kiss to Anna's brow and whispered, as much to herself as to the sleeping girl, "I will fight for you until my last breath. I won't let the world, or the resonance, take you from me."
The faint hum beneath Anna's skin pulsed once—like a quiet answer.