Each of us stood before a tall candle, its white wax threaded with gold and encircled at the base by thin chains of sun-etched silver. The torch in Rosalyn’s hand cast a steady flame that shimmered without flicker. One by one, we stepped forward to light our candles, our hands trembling slightly, even those who wore confidence-like armor.

Iris lit hers with controlled precision. Oswald’s hand wavered. Cedric made a show of smirking but said nothing. Veronica’s face was impassive. Samuel glanced at me as he lit his, something questioning in his gaze.

I was the last.

As my candle ignited, Benedict raised his hands again.

“Let the light remember its promise.”

The room dimmed.

Soft music played from an unseen quartet. The chandeliers slowly dimmed to glowing embers. A faint golden mist began to rise from the base of each candle, curling into the air like vapor spun from silk.

The guests stared upward.

The mist met at the ceiling and began to form something, a shape blooming like a flower of light.

Feathers.

Wings.

Eyes that glowed without pupils.

The seraph.

It hovered above us, radiant and impossible, the same being I had seen in the vision. Six wings outstretched and layered in golden flame. Its form was human but too perfect, symmetrical, and expressionless. The guests gasped. A few fell to their knees, overcome by the divine illusion.

And then it was gone.

Snuffed out.

In a single breath, darkness poured into the ballroom, not from the doors or the windows, but from every corner at once. The candles sputtered. The chandeliers dulled. The warmth vanished.

An enormous shadow stretched across the floor, rippling like smoke but thicker than fog. It swallowed the light from the seraph and spread over the ballroom in the shape of a thousand tendrils. For a moment, the only thing visible was the faint outline of the chandelier above our heads.

Then the screams began.

Guests staggered backward, chairs toppling. Someone dropped a tray, glass shattering like ice. A noblewoman shrieked, clutching her chest. Another fainted entirely.

I turned to my parents, searching for calm, for something familiar, but found none.

Rosalyn Lucidus’s face had gone cold.

The warmth, the composure, the constant elegance, it all fell away. For the first time since I’d returned to this version of the world, her expression darkened into something unreadable.

She said nothing.

She simply turned and began walking, fast, with purpose, toward the northern arch of the ballroom, her hands clenched tightly at her sides.

“Mother?” I called. “Where are you going?!”

She didn’t answer.

She disappeared through the arch.

I didn’t hesitate.

Dodging panicked guests, I slipped past Iris and Oswald and darted into the hallway, my footsteps echoing through the marble corridor. Rosalyn’s pale dress flickered just ahead, turning sharply at a corner like a wisp of fog trailing a storm.

“Mother, please!” I shouted, chasing the fluttering hem.

I turned the same corner—

And stopped.

A dead-end hallway stretched before me. Bare walls. A single unlit candelabra. No doors. No alcoves.

No Rosalyn.

She was gone.

Like she had vanished into the stone.

My chest rose and fell too fast. The silence around me was suffocating. The shadows on the walls felt too still.

And behind me, the flicker of the candles in the ballroom returned.

But the light… felt different now.

Like it was only pretending to be whole.

I stood in the dead-end corridor, eyes scanning the stone as if some hidden doorway might slide open if I stared hard enough. But there was nothing. No sign of Rosalyn. No trace of movement. Only the eerie stillness that remained after the shadow had passed.

A chill sat heavy in my chest as I turned and started back toward the ballroom.

But before I reached the threshold, I saw them.

All five of them, Oswald, Iris, Samuel, Veronica, and Cedric, were already in the hallway, walking toward me. Each of them looked unsettled, their expressions tight with worry.

“There you are,” Iris said, her arms crossed tight. “You just ran off. What happened?”

I slowed, my voice still shaky. “She’s gone. My mother… I followed her, but she turned a corner and vanished into a solid wall. Like she was never there.”

Cedric frowned. “After that light show, I believe it.”

“What was it?” Samuel asked. “That shadow, it wasn’t just some trick of the light.”

“It was Umbrovultus,” I said. “Or at least something like it. It was real. And it swallowed that seraph like it was nothing. The guests barely understood what they saw, but Rosalyn, she knew. That’s why she left. She didn’t want anyone to see her reaction.”

Veronica’s face darkened. “So what do we do now?”

“We go back,” I said without hesitation. “To the room. The motif. Umbra’s waiting for us.”

No one argued.

We moved quickly through the halls, the golden banners and clean walls now feeling colder under the weight of what we’d seen. Every echo of our footsteps felt like it carried deeper than before, down through layers of something forgotten.

The door to the room was still slightly ajar when we arrived.

I pushed it open fully and stopped.

Umbra was there.

Unconscious.

She lay sprawled at the center of the room, with her dark gown fanned around her like spilled ink. Her hand was outstretched, fingers almost grazing the edge of the motif, which had changed again.

More of it had been revealed.

The ring of sunbursts that had once encircled the edge had now shrunk inward like something had pulled them closer to the center. And between those shrinking rays, new symbols had emerged, eclipses, carefully woven between the suns like threads of shadow stitched into golden cloth.

The outer ring was whole now. Clear. Complete. Beautiful in its symmetry. Terrifying in its implications.

But the center…

It was still chaos. Lines and spirals, jagged sigils, fragments that refused to take form. It looked as though someone had shattered a stained glass window and tried to reassemble it with shaking hands.

“What happened to her?” Oswald breathed, moving beside me.

“She must have encountered something while we were gone,” I said quietly, kneeling next to her. “Or something was shown to her.”

Cedric crouched near the motif’s edge. “It’s not just glowing anymore. Look, those patterns, they weren’t there before. It’s almost like it’s rearranging itself.”

“Trying to finish,” Veronica added.

Samuel looked over my shoulder. “What happens when it does?”

I touched Umbra’s wrist. Her pulse was steady, but her skin was clammy. She was breathing just barely. Still caught in whatever had gripped her before we arrived.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But my gut tells me… it won’t be good.”

We stood in silence, the motif glowing faintly beneath us.

The outer ring was complete.

And the center, the part that mattered most, was waiting to awaken.