The glow faded slowly, retreating into the seams of the Everspire, like light tucking itself into the bones of the tower. A calm had settled over the place—a peace that wasn't silent, but instead full of breath and heartbeat and potential.
Rose let go of Mortain's hand gently but didn't step away.
"So what now?" Basil asked, arms crossed but eyes soft. "You turn mortal and open a bakery?"
Mortain smiled faintly. "I burn too hot for pastry."
"True," Nimbus muttered, "your soufflés would probably achieve sentience."
But the question hung in the air: What now?
Mortain wandered toward the base of the spiraling staircase, looking upward. "The gods will feel this. The shift. I broke the rules by remembering what I wasn't meant to. And by not destroying you when I had the chance."
"You mean when you tried and failed," Nimbus chirped.
Mortain gave him a sideways look. "Yes, that too."
"They'll come for you," Basil said.
"They'll come for all of us," Rose added.
Mortain turned to them, eyes still glowing faintly like the last pulse of a dying star. "Then we make a pact."
Nimbus narrowed his eyes. "This isn't going to involve blood, is it? Because last time I agreed to something without reading the fine print, I was stuck impersonating a weather curse in Droneshire for three years."
"No blood," Mortain said. "But power. Shared."
He raised his hand, and the air shimmered.
A sigil formed between them—a swirling glyph of wind and root, flame and echo. It pulsed with their individual magic. Rose felt her own fire curl into it like smoke. Basil's shadow, precise and silent, layered beneath. Nimbus added a small streak of mischievous lightning for flair.
Mortain wove his own energy in last—not overwhelming, but steady, ancient, like thunder humming through a mountain's spine.
"I bind no one," he said. "But I offer this: a storm not to destroy, but to defend."
Rose stepped forward. "Then we bind by choice."
She pressed her hand to the sigil. Her magic welcomed the contact like it had been waiting for years.
Basil followed. Then Nimbus, reluctantly, with a muttered, "If this thing makes me sprout wings or a conscience, I will riot."
Last, Mortain pressed his hand to the glyph.
With a soft chime, the sigil spun, flattened, and sank into the air above them—marking them not as servants to fate, but as defiers of it.
The Everspire rumbled once more, but not in warning.
In recognition.
Outside, clouds gathered—not ominous, but eager. The sky was listening.
Rose looked out one of the tower's tilted windows. "So, where do we go first?"
Mortain's voice was quiet but firm. "To warn the world."
Basil grinned. "And maybe steal a little cake on the way."
Nimbus stretched his sparks. "Adventure, cake, and a possible divine siege. Just another Tuesday."
Together, they stepped from the tower—not as fugitives, but as something new.
A storm made of choice, not prophecy.
And it was coming.