The square erupted into chaos.

Mythics and hybrids alike—elders, seers, guards, apprentices—were all speaking at once, voices overlapping in waves of panic, disbelief, and awe. The light around Celeste dimmed slowly, but its echo lingered, shimmering faintly across every surface like oil on water.

“If the Council learns of this—” one of the younger Famdderwyddon cried, wringing her shawl in trembling paws. “They’ll call it blasphemy! They’ll burn us all for harbouring her!”

“They’ll do worse than that,” hissed another, eyes wide. “They’ll purge the entire Accord. They’ve done it before.”

“Silence,” barked one of the Daroganwyr, voice cutting through the panic like a blade. The blind oracle turned toward Celeste, hands raised in reverence and fear. “We know what we saw. The aura matches the Wells—the same resonance, the same pulse. It is the signature of the Kymara. Of Mamgoleuni.”

The Famdderwyddon leader shook her head fiercely, voice cracking. “No! That cannot be proof! A reflection is not the sun itself. Her body—her very shape—is too unstable to contain such a core! She would have imploded by now if it were truly divine!”

“And yet,” one of the older oracles countered, “she has not.”

Celeste clutched her chest, the faint shimmer of her core still pulsing beneath her fur. Her breathing came shallow, fast, each inhale rattling in her throat. Bonbon reached for her, but was held gently back by Lumina, who whispered soft reassurances.

Elder Arlo stepped forward, voice wavering between awe and alarm. “Her physiology is… unprecedented. Hybrid of predator and prey, mana-rich and null-born—her very balance may be the only reason she can bear it.”

“She shouldn’t even be alive!” another elder cried. “If that core truly belongs to a Kymara, the mana output alone should have torn her apart!”

“Maybe something is containing it,” muttered a Famdderwyddon scholar, glancing toward Celeste’s glowing neck. “The rune. It’s dampening her resonance—like a stabiliser.”

One of the Daroganwyr turned sharply. “That’s no Council rune.”

Every head snapped toward him.

He stepped closer, lifting a trembling hand toward Celeste’s brow. “This seal—it’s ancient. Mythic, not Pureblood. Look at the design. It’s a Kymara construct—woven from the old light-weaving craft. You can see the pattern if you trace the edges.”

A ripple of shock went through the crowd.

“A Kymara rune?” whispered one elder. “Then it wasn’t the Council who chained her power…”

Celeste stared at them.

The words should have meant something distant. Ancient. Academic. The sort of thing Bartleby would write down too quickly and then apologise to the page for smudging.

But they were talking about her chest.

Her body.

Her paw drifted to the place beneath her ribs where the pulse still throbbed, wrong and warm and impossible.

“Why?” she whispered.

No one answered.

Her breathing sharpened. “Why is there a Kymara core in my chest?”

The square went still around her, but only for a heartbeat.

Then the murmuring started again—fearful, reverent, hungry for answers.

Celeste’s panic rose faster than thought. She grabbed at the front of her dress with both paws, claws catching in the fabric as if she could tear through cloth, skin, bone, and mana and pull the thing out herself.

“Get it out,” she said, voice breaking. “Please. Please, get it out.”

Ray took a step forward. “Celeste—”

“I don’t want it!” Celeste sobbed, tugging harder at her own chest. “I don’t want something living inside me. I don’t want to be a vessel or a door or whatever they think I am. Just take it out!”

Elder Arlo struck his cane against the stone.

Crack.

The sound cut through the square.

“Stop.”

Celeste froze, trembling.

Arlo stepped toward her, old eyes grave and gentle. “Do not tear at yourself, child. It will do no good.”

“Then help me,” she pleaded. “Please.”

“I am trying.”

“Then take it out.”

Arlo’s face tightened with sorrow. “I cannot.”

Celeste stared at him, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Why?”

“Because it is wired into your lattice,” he said quietly. “Not sitting in you like a stone in a pouch. Woven through you. Through your mana channels, your nerves, your blood, your bones. Through every place where your body remembers how to stay alive.”

Celeste shook her head. “No…”

“To remove it now would kill you.”

Bonbon whimpered from Lumina’s arms. “Na…”

Arlo’s gaze lowered to the faint shimmer still moving beneath Celeste’s fur. “And not only you.”

Arcade’s voice came out smaller than usual. “What does that mean?”

Arlo did not look away from Celeste. “The mana sealed behind that core has been building for years. Perhaps your whole life. If the lattice were cut and the core torn free, all that pressure would release at once.”

Mezzo swallowed. “How bad are we talking?”

Arlo’s expression turned ancient.

“The type of mana held inside her would level Clawdiff.”

Everyone flinched.

Even Brassmane.

The silence that followed was worse than shouting.

Then Ray’s voice cut through it, sharp and shaking.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Celeste looked at her, stunned. “What?”

Ray stepped closer, fury and fear twisting together across her face. “We’ve been next to you this whole time. Sleeping in the same base. Fighting beside you. Standing right there whenever your mana went sideways, and this could happen?”

“Ray,” Hughes warned quietly.

Ray ignored him, eyes fixed on Celeste. “For stars’ sake, Celeste!”

Celeste’s ears flattened. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I swear, Ray, I didn’t know.”

Ray let out a bitter, broken laugh. “Oh, can it. You never know anything, do you?”

The words struck harder than any spell.

Celeste recoiled as if slapped.

Hughes stepped forward at once, voice cracking like a whip. “Shut it, Ray.”

Ray spun on him. “She’s a bomb, Hughes! How am I supposed to unsee that?”

The square went colder.

Celeste stared down at her own paws, at the faint shimmer under her skin, and suddenly she felt radioactive. Like something no one should stand too close to. Like every hug, every hand on her shoulder, every time Bonbon crawled into her lap had been a danger none of them understood.

Pitch exhaled slowly through his nose.

“I knew she was leaking a freaky amount of mana,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Didn’t know it was city-level bad.”

“Helpful,” Mezzo snapped, but even his voice shook.

Lumina looked from Celeste to Arlo, her small face pale. “Does that mean I will too?”

The question pierced through Celeste’s panic.

Arlo turned immediately, his expression softening. “No, Lumina. No. This is only Celeste. What she carries is unique. You are not in danger of this.”

Lumina clutched Bonbon tighter, still frightened. “Promise?”

“I promise,” Arlo said gently. “Your mana has its own path. This is not yours to fear.”

Celeste looked at Lumina, but Lumina was staring at the ground.

That hurt worse.

From the edge of the square, Solas shoved forward from behind two older Mythics, his black-and-green wings tense against his back.

“Why are we even dealing with this?” he demanded, voice too loud, too sharp. “Let the Council have her. If the other caravans find out we brought this into Rustrows, they may banish us from the Accord altogether.”

A ripple of uneasy murmurs moved through the crowd.

Celeste went very still.

Brassmane turned his head.

The movement was small.

The effect was not.

Solas faltered under the weight of his stare.

Brassmane’s voice came low and dangerous. “You will stay out of this.”

Solas swallowed. “But—”

“I said,” Brassmane repeated, mane glowing faintly with restrained sunfire, “you will stay out of it. I will handle this delicately. You will not turn fear into cruelty simply because cruelty feels easier.”

Solas’s ears pinned back. He looked away, jaw tight.

Brassmane moved closer to Celeste, his presence steady as a mountain. “Celeste.”

“Why is it there?” she cried. “Why me? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be made like this.”

“I know,” Brassmane said softly.

Her voice cracked. “I feel like I’ve just been told I’m going to die.”

The words hit the square hard.

No one answered quickly enough.

Brassmane lowered himself before her, golden mane catching the fading light. “Listen to me, little star. We do not know why it is there. Not yet. But this is why the Trial matters.”

Celeste looked at him through tears.

“The leaks in your mana are what push you into primal states,” he said. “Fear. Pain. Rage. Instinct. When the pressure escapes without guidance, it takes your body before your mind can answer.”

Celeste pressed a shaking paw to her chest.

“The Trial will not remove the core,” Brassmane continued. “It will teach you to control the leaks. To shape the surge before it shapes you. When the dam cracks, you must learn how to guide the river.”

Celeste nodded once.

But her face had gone hollow, pale with the awful, faraway stillness of someone trying to understand a diagnosis too large for one body to carry.

Brassmane’s voice softened further. “This is what Lady Umbranox wants to know as well. What sits inside you. What it is doing. What it means.”

At Umbranox’s name, Ray’s jaw tightened. Pitch looked away.

“But control comes first,” Brassmane said. “Before politics. Before fear. Before answers. You must survive yourself.”

Celeste’s gaze flicked toward her friends.

Brassmane followed it. “And it may explain them too.”

Mezzo’s ears twitched. “Us?”

Brassmane looked to Ray, Arcade, Pitch, Mezzo, Hughes, Lumina, Skye, and the others standing around the edge of the square. “It may be the reason your friends can use mana so fluently. Perhaps even better than many Mythics.”

A cold hush fell.

“They may not simply be awakening beside you,” Brassmane said. “They may be channelling through you.”

Celeste slowly turned her head.

Her friends looked back at her.

Mezzo’s grin was gone.

Ray looked shaken, anger swallowed by something more frightened.

Arcade’s mouth had opened slightly, but no clever comment came.

Pitch glanced at her, then looked away first.

Even Lumina seemed stunned, clutching Bonbon tighter as if she suddenly didn’t know whether to comfort Celeste or be afraid for her.

Celeste stared at them all, her own fear reflected back in every face.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Brassmane’s tail lashed once, the air around him humming with restrained force. “Enough.”

The murmuring died instantly. His gaze swept across them—stern, but not cruel. “Speculation will not protect her. I asked a simple question.”

He looked to the circle of oracles and wise women. “Can she endure the Trial?”

Silence followed.

The oracles looked to the Famdderwyddon, who exchanged nervous glances, whispering among themselves before Elder Arlo finally stepped forward.

“Yes,” he said slowly, with visible hesitation. “She can. But we’ll need to reinforce the wards, double the bindings, and strengthen the trial ring. If the Kymara’s power manifests again, it must not spread beyond the chamber.”

Brassmane nodded once, decisive. “Then that’s all I ask.”

He raised a paw and, with a gesture like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, the mana field holding Celeste dissolved.

She fell to her knees, gasping for air, clutching her chest where the pulse of her core still throbbed painfully under her palm. Bonbon broke free from Lumina’s grasp, rushing to her side.

Celeste held the little panda tight, eyes glassy and lost. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone… I didn’t want this…”

Brassmane knelt in front of her, lowering his massive head until his mane brushed the cracked stones. His golden eyes softened.

“I know, little star,” he said quietly. “But you’ve awakened something older than fear.”

He stood, turning to the assembled elders and seers. “Prepare the trial grounds. Reinforce everything. At dawn, we begin.”