The stars were still wrong.
They twisted in silent arcs above the camp at Weeping Hills, no longer following the laws of heaven, nor the patterns of fate. They moved around her, orbiting like fearful planets drawn into a new gravitational truth.
Liora sat beside Vaerion's slowly recovering body, her back pressed against the root of a massive, dead world-tree that had cracked open when she reclaimed him. He was breathing—shallow but steady. His chest rose and fell like the rhythm of tides against forgotten shores.
She hadn't slept.
She didn't need to anymore.
But tonight, the weariness wasn't physical. It was existential.
She had called him back.
And something else had come with him.
Far above, hidden to mortal sight, a ripple had traveled backward through time and sideways through reality. It passed through the memory of unborn moments, bending what could be, what shouldn't be.
And somewhere in a temple that the gods had sealed in ages before the first war—where time flowed backward and echoes became prophecy before they became words—a child opened her eyes.
The temple was made of bone and moonlight, carved into a glacier that never melted. It had been built by hands that no longer existed. Its altar was cracked in three places, each fracture pulsing with mirrored flame.
In the center of the altar was a cradle.
And in the cradle, she stirred.
Five years old.
Or perhaps five eternities.
Her hair was obsidian silk, yet shimmered with violet under light that hadn't been born yet. Her skin was pale as starlight. Her irises were two black mirrors — each reflecting a different future, each future ending in ruin.
There were no lullabies in this temple.
Only the ticking of time unmaking itself.
She blinked once. Then sat upright.
And she whispered, for the first time, a single word:
"Mother."
Back at Weeping Hills, Liora's heart jolted in her chest.
Not physically. Spiritually.
A thread in the weave of her newly-forged reality had gone taut.
She saw the child—not clearly—but felt her presence echo like a second heartbeat. This wasn't the warm glow she had felt earlier. This was something colder. Sharper. A thing that had no right to exist… but now did.
She stood, swaying slightly. Kelvir, who had kept silent vigil nearby, moved to her side.
"Another tremor?" he asked, noticing the shift in her posture.
"No," she said softly. "Something worse."
She walked toward the edge of camp, away from the soldiers, away from Vaerion, and into the dying forest beyond the cliffline.
There, beneath the ancient hanging boughs, she opened her palm and summoned a mirror of starlight—the same kind the gods used to peer through time.
It flickered at first. Then burned.
And for a single breath, Liora saw her.
A little girl. Beautiful. Pale. Still.
Watching her from a throne of hollow ivory.
A child born not of love… but of balance. Of paradox.
The twin of hope.
Liora fell to one knee, panting.
"Gods help me… what have I done?"
The Guardian materialized beside her, silent as ever.
"She was not born from cruelty," it said. "She was born from correction."
Liora looked up, fury mixing with guilt. "She's not meant to exist!"
"No. But neither were you."
The words struck like ice.
"Is she… real?" she asked. "Does she have a soul?"
"Yes," the Guardian said. "But she is not like your firstborn. She does not crave the warmth of your embrace. She craves only one thing."
Liora already knew.
"Me."
"She is your reflection, forged in the void left behind by choice. Her love is obsession. Her purpose is singular: to claim her place by destroying you."
Liora's voice was hoarse. "She's a child."
"She is your child."
Back at the camp, Vaerion stirred.
The bond between him and Liora had returned, faint but strengthening.
His eyes opened slowly, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he was still caught in the paradox.
But then he saw the trees.
He felt the pulse of real time.
And more than anything—he felt her.
He sat up.
Veyron, who'd been watching in silence, stood slowly. "You should rest."
"There's no time for rest," Vaerion said, rising to his feet.
"She brought you back," Veyron added. "But she also triggered something. The Shard trembled. And the stars… shifted."
Vaerion turned his head sharply. "What did she do?"
Veyron didn't speak.
Instead, he just looked toward the trees.
Toward Liora.
Vaerion followed.
He found her beneath the boughs, her shoulders slumped, the mirror of starlight flickering and dimming in her hands.
She didn't turn when he approached.
"I felt her," he said quietly.
"So did I," Liora whispered. "She called me mother."
He stepped beside her, silent.
"She's not our daughter," Liora said. "Not the one I saw reaching for you. She's… something else. A wound in fate that learned how to speak."
He placed his hand over hers, steadying her.
"But she's still yours."
Liora finally turned to him. Her eyes, glowing faintly with the Shard's influence, shimmered with doubt.
"What do I do?" she asked. "Kill her before she grows into the monster I saw in my vision? Or let her live and risk everything?"
"There's no map for this," Vaerion said. "You've already broken the world once. Maybe you can reshape it again. But this time, not with power—"
"—with love?" she asked, almost laughing.
"No," he said. "With truth."
Far away, in the temple of untime, the dark child moved.
She stood from the cradle, her feet making no sound against the bone-smooth floor.
Statues of old gods cracked as she passed.
The walls whispered to her—not voices, but versions of herself that never were: empress, tyrant, shadow queen, fire-thief.
She didn't listen.
She already knew who she was.
She was born from Liora's defiance.
Shaped by the gods' final cruelty.
Named not by joy… but by absence.
And in the darkness of her temple, she found her voice once more.
"I will meet her."
Then she looked upward.
And the sky blinked.
Back at Weeping Hills, Liora called a council.
Her generals gathered. Veyron. Kelvir. Silra the Pale, returned from the Shadow Coasts. Even some of the Dissonant angels stood in silent attendance.
And beside her sat Vaerion, whole once more.
"I have seen the future," Liora began, her voice quiet but unwavering. "Two daughters. One who reaches toward light… and one born in shadow."
Silra the Pale, ancient and brittle, tilted her head. "Twins of prophecy," she murmured. "One to guide… one to devour."
"They're not both prophecy," Liora said. "One is love. The other… is consequence."
Kelvir asked the only question no one dared.
"Will you kill her?"
Silence.
Then Liora answered.
"No."
Gasps. Disbelief. Even fury from Veyron.
"She will become the end of all things!"
"I know," Liora said. "But I also know this: I was once destined to be the same. And someone—" she looked at Vaerion "—believed in me."
Kelvir bowed his head. "Then what do we do?"
Liora stood.
"We find her."