Aurora stood above the castle, floating just slightly off the tallest stone spire — not as a show of power, but because gravity had forgotten her presence. The wind ripped through her silver hair, snapping strands into the stormlight, like threads of silk unspooling from a god's torn robe. She did not move. She did not blink.
Her eyes were closed — but she saw more than most men ever could.
The mana nerves beneath her skin throbbed with life, flickering like veins of starfire. They mapped the world around her, every flutter of bird-wing, every spark of a distant soldier's torch, every scream still trapped in the bones of the earth. They told her things. Whispered truths. Warnings. Omens.
And now?
Now they screamed.
Not in pain.
Not in fear.
But in recognition.
The world was shifting again. Not yet broken. Not yet undone. But bending — bending toward a shape she had not dreamed, not planned, not prepared for.
