The light had barely faded from the ritual circle when Marian stepped forward, her pulse hammering behind her eyes.

Alera stood in the beam's afterglow, clothed in a robe of light that flickered and thinned with every breath she took. Her form was unmistakably that of her seventeen-year-old self, but it was a reflection painted in grief and memory. Her eyes, once soft with wonder, now glinted with something deeper. Older. As though death had layered truth behind them.

Alera glanced down at herself, frowning at her youthful hands, her narrow frame, the soft edges of a face long outgrown. Her lips curled slightly, in disapproval or mourning, it was hard to tell.

"I haven't looked like this in decades," she muttered. "Even before…" Her voice caught, and she left the thought unfinished.

Marian's expression softened, a sad warmth blooming behind her eyes. "That was when I remember you happiest."

Alera looked up sharply. Her eyes, still shimmering with the echo of whatever lay beyond death, darkened.

"That's not how I remember it," she said. "You were obsessed back then. With growth. With power. With vengeance. You called it protecting us but what it brought was fear. Isolation. Misery. Tell me, was it worth it?"

Marian's smile was slight and humorless. "I became one of the strongest mages of our generation. I'd say it worked out well enough."

Alera's head tilted, her gaze weighing something unspoken. "I don't," she whispered. "I truly don't."

Marian swallowed. "Alera..."

"Why did you bring me here again?" The words cut like frost. "How many times must you call me back?"

Alera's voice was the same. Almost. But it echoed strangely, touched by something beyond the veil. Her eyes swept over the ritual circle, her lips drawn in disappointment.

"I warned you what it costs," she said, stepping from the dwindling column of aether. "Each time you do this, it takes more. From me. From you. From the world."

Marian winced, guilt briefly surfacing before her resolve hardened. "I had no choice."

Alera looked at her, silent. "You disturbed something that should stay buried."

Marian blinked. "I couldn't let you stay gone."

"You should have," Alera said, stepping past the flickering sigils, her shadow stretched long and warped across the glass. "You don't understand what it feels like, what's on the other side. What I had to give up to be here, even for this… brief flicker."

"Then tell me," Marian said. "Help me understand."

Alera shook her head. "You wouldn't. Because you still think this is about power. About fixing things with strength, with will, with more magic. But some things aren't meant to be fixed. Not like this."

Marian licked her lips. "Thorne was here."

Alera froze.

The world paused with her. The lights flickered. The hum of the aether stilled, as if nature itself leaned in to listen.

"What?" Her voice cracked.

"I met him two days ago. He came here, in Aetherhold."

The anger in Alera's face drained away, replaced by disbelief, then fierce, radiant joy. "He's alive?"

Marian nodded. "Older than you would expect. Taller. Stronger. But… yes. He's alive."

Tears welled up in Alera's eyes, luminous in the fading ritual glow. "You saw him. Spoke with him?"

"I did. And there's something else," Marian added. "He's... different, Alera. Exceptionally so."

Alera's brows furrowed. "How?"

Marian hesitated, then turned to the wide arc of crystal windows surrounding them, as if needing to see the world to speak of what it now held. "He's powerful. Unstable. Wild. The aether doesn't simply respond to him, it flocks to him. It wants him."

Alera pressed her hand to her chest, steadying herself. "He always had a strong core. Even as a child."

"This is beyond strong." Marian's voice grew quieter. "It's divine."

For a moment, neither spoke. Alera's tears fell freely now, and Marian found herself watching the lines of her friend's face, tracing the memories they shared.

"He survived," Alera whispered. "And now he's here. In this pit of serpents."

"I've told him nothing he wasn't ready to hear," Marian continued. "But Alera… you should know, he's not the same boy you left behind."

"I didn't leave him." The words burst out of her, sharp and pained. "They tore him from me."

"I know," Marian said gently.

They stood in silence. Then Marian added, "I've pieced together what I can. I searched far and wide. From what I gathered... Your son is cold. Calculating. Brilliant. But broken."

Alera closed her eyes.

"Maybe even cruel," Marian went on. "But not beyond hope. Not yet."

She didn't mention the thoughts that had started to creep into her own mind. The possibilities. The chances. The future that could be carved from one boy's will. Not yet. Not while Alera wept.

But the seed had been planted.

He could lead us. He could unite us. He could save what remains of our kind.

He could be our answer.

Alera wiped her cheeks and met her eyes. "Then guide him. Please, Marian. If I can't be there… you must protect him."

Marian nodded once.

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"I will. I swear it."

But even as she spoke the words, she knew it wouldn't be that simple. For Thorne wasn't just a boy anymore.

He was a storm waiting to be named.

Alera's gaze hadn't left the point where the ritual light had faded. Her fingers slowly curled at her sides.

"What has he been through?" she whispered, her voice fragile.

Marian hesitated. "More than most grown warriors. From what I've pieced together… after you were taken, he was raised by a man known only as Uncle. A guildmaster of the worst kind. He was molded, broken, sharpened. Used as a tool. An assassin."

Alera closed her eyes, her lips trembling. "He was a child."

Marian didn't respond. There was nothing to say that could soften the truth.

"Has he… killed?" Alera asked, and there was no accusation in her voice, only dread.

"Yes," Marian said simply. "More than once. More than... you could handle..."

Alera let out a shuddering breath. "He shouldn't have survived that. But he did."

Marian studied her friend. The robe of conjured light clung to her ephemeral form, and even as Alera's face was youthful, there was a weariness in her movements, in her posture. Like the ghost of an old wound that never quite healed.

"He's strong," Marian said. "Stronger than you know. But that strength has come at a cost."

"I want to see him," Alera murmured. "I want to hold him. Gods, Marian… he was just a baby."

"I know," Marian said gently.

Alera turned, looking around at the sigil-lined chamber. Her voice grew quiet. "I don't know who he is now. But he must be hurting. Alone."

"He is," Marian admitted. "But he hides it. Well."

Silence fell between them again, one made heavier by the unspoken ache pressing at both their hearts.

Then Marian asked softly, "Alera, did you ever learn what kind of Elderborn you were?"

Alera blinked, caught off guard. "No. Not truly. I always assumed… my father had elven blood. And my mother, perhaps something older. A kind of fae, maybe. My features match. The affinity too."

Marian nodded absently, but her brow furrowed. "A fae?"

Her tone was skeptical. "Possibly. I've studied the old records, Alera, what's left of them. Of the primal lines. There were a dozen true fae clans, and perhaps even more false ones. But the power Thorne carries… it's something else. It runs deeper. Older. Like he's rooted in something the rest of us only dream of."

Alera looked at her, brows drawn in concern. "You think he's dangerous."

"I think," Marian said slowly, "that we have no idea what he is. And that terrifies me."

She didn't mention the secret journals she kept locked away. The diagrams, the theories, the sketches drawn by mad historians of species long thought extinct. Thorne resembled none of them, and all of them.

"I will need to see his true form," Marian said quietly, more to herself than to Alera.

Alera's expression hardened. "You won't get him to show you."

Marian met her gaze. "I know."

The admission was tinged with something that felt like both frustration and awe.

Alera studied her. "You're not just helping him out of loyalty to me, are you?"

Marian didn't answer immediately. Her expression softened, but her eyes, always too sharp, flickered with something else.

"You said it yourself," Marian murmured. "He's unique. Exceptional. Maybe… maybe even a chance."

"A chance?"

Marian stood and turned to the window. Beyond the glass, the sky rippled with the residual shimmer of the ritual's passage, starlight refracting through crystalline layers.

"A chance to do more than survive. A chance to fix what's broken. To remind the world what the Elderborn once were, what we could be again."

Alera's voice was quiet. "You want him to lead."

"I want him to live," Marian said. "But I'd be lying if I said I hadn't wondered… what he might become. What he might do."

Alera was silent for a long moment. "He's not a weapon, Marian."

Marian paused, because all the facts pointed towards that he was indeed a weapon. But her friend wouldn't bear to hear such a truth. "No. But he could be a beacon."

Alera moved closer. Her form, still young and flickering with unnatural light, shimmered like something half-remembered from a dream.

"I worry," she said softly, "that you see him as a solution more than a person."

Marian's smile was tinged with sadness. "Maybe I do. But I will protect him. I swear that."

Alera nodded, but her eyes lingered, full of uncertainty. "Be careful, Marian. He's not like us. He's… fractured. But he still feels. He still hopes. You can't shape him like a spell."

"No," Marian agreed, "but I can help him survive the storm."

Alera turned back to the remnants of the ritual circle. "I don't have long."

"I know."

"I want to see him. One day."

"You will," Marian promised. "When he's ready."

Alera's form flickered. Her hands curled slightly.

Marian stared through the crystal glass, her voice low. ""He has so much weight on him, maybe it's time someone helped him carry it."

Silence fell again, a softer one now, reverent, heavy with what had been said.

But then Marian's jaw tensed. She hesitated.

"There's more," she said. "Thorne didn't come to Aetherhold just for study. He came… to find someone."

Alera's form pulsed. "Who?"

"His sister."

Alera's breath hitched, her eyes going wide, ethereal light bleeding from their corners. "My little girl," she whispered, stunned. "My little girl is alive?"

Marian raised both hands in a calming gesture. "I don't know. He believes she is. He told me she was taken, not killed. That the soldiers spared her. That they mentioned bringing her somewhere. And since all Elderborn are brought here..."

"She wasn't Elderborn," Alera interrupted, tears forming again. "She… Bea took after her father. She was mortal. She was… human."

Marian nodded slowly. "That may have made things better. Or worse. perhaps she was spared. Or perhaps her blood made her expendable. I don't know, Alera. But I gave Thorne my word. I'll look for her."

Alera's face crumpled. "She was just a child."

"I'll do what I can," Marian said softly. But she didn't say the rest, not aloud. Not the truth already twisting in the corners of her mind.

Bea might not be found.

But her memory might serve another purpose.

The light above the ritual chamber flickered, dimming by degrees. Alera's form began to blur, her outline losing coherence, as though the world could no longer hold her.

"We're running out of time," she whispered. Her voice was frayed, almost translucent. "Help him, Marian. Please. And if there's even a chance... help my daughter too."

Marian bowed her head in a solemn nod. "I will do what I can."

But the words caught in her throat. Because she knew, deep down, that she couldn't promise the girl was alive. That she might not even find a trace. But Bea could be something else. A thread. A guiding light. Something to give Thorne direction.

A lure.

A purpose strong enough to shape him into what he needed to become.

Alera was fading fast now, her light folding in on itself, her body evaporating with every heartbeat.

"It's time," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Until next time… friend."

But the moment stretched and then Alera's eyes flared wide.

"No!" she shouted, the sound reverberating, twisting, warping into something inhuman.

And just like that she vanished.

The beam shattered into spiraling threads of purple that faded into nothing.

The chamber cracked with silence.

Marian stood alone.

And then her body locked. Her heart clenched.

The crystal above her burst into dim light and something inside her broke.

She dropped to her knees, a sharp gasp escaping her lips as a piece of her core, small but vital shattered.

The backlash hit instantly.

Her levels dropped. Again.

Far away, carried by the strange magic of the world's forgotten roots, a howl rang out. A voice of anguish. Then another. And another. Wailing. Clawing. Scraping at the edges of her mind.

"No..." Marian gasped.

The voices wouldn't stop. They screamed inside her skull. Screamed and screamed and screamed.

She clutched her head, falling to her side on the ritual floor. Her fingers tore at her hair. Her mouth opened in a soundless cry.

The dead were speaking.

The cost had come due.

And Marian... Marian was no longer sure she'd survive the price she had paid.

Not this time.

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