Chapter 65: The Shattering Thread
The fire in the sky was not sunset—it was a warning.
Mira, no—Valeria—stood on the high ramparts of Pyranthos, her crown of emberlight flickering with tension. The Coronation had not even settled before the skies cracked open. A pulse, no, a shockwave, of divine energy exploded outward like a second heartbeat from the realm itself.
Inside her womb, Kael stirred violently. Not like a child—but like a storm trying to tear out of a cage.
"He's waking up too fast," Valeria whispered, clutching her middle, fire blooming beneath her skin.
Below, the palace grounds ruptured. The air shimmered with distortion. Soldiers stumbled, suitors looked upward, even the flame-wielding Pyranthos guard fell to their knees.
And then he appeared.
Not Kael. But Elion—or rather, what Elion had become.
From the heart of the cracked courtyard rose a tall figure cloaked in iridescent robes of white and shadow, his hair now silver streaked with gold. His eyes, no longer mortal, burned with a mirrored flame. The sigil of the Second Flame had awakened.
Valeria descended like lightning, teleporting from ramparts to floor, landing with a force that cracked stone.
"Elion," she said.
But the name felt alien now. His body belonged to him, but his essence—something ancient—had returned. Something that rivaled Pyranthos's legacy.
"Mother Flame," he said, not as a son of court, but as an equal. "Did you really think your line held the only tether to the Eternal Fire?"
The ground groaned.
A veil of memory hit her—visions unraveling as fast as Kael's heartbeat.
Elion was not just a Pyranthian suitor. He was the blood-bound descendant of an ancient fire guardian cast into stasis before the Fall. The Second Flame. The Twin Thread.
He had been placed near Valeria to awaken when Kael's power pierced reality.
From the Divine Council's sealed records. From the buried prophecies. It was all real.
Kael's birth would tear open the Seal.
But Elion's awakening was the lock being tested.
"Stand down," Valeria commanded, though even her voice wavered.
"Kael cannot hold this alone," Elion said. "The second entity… is not me. It's what he will become if unchecked. I'm only here to balance that fate."
A second pulse struck.
This time, not divine—but cosmic.
The Inbetween realm fractured. Ghosts of gods flickered into the sky. Council sigils appeared overhead. Time dilated for a single heartbeat.
Then came the scream.
Kael—still in the womb—let out a cry that all heard. Not with ears. But with soul.
Reality bent.
Jaxon arrived just in time to catch Valeria as she staggered.
"It's starting," she whispered.
"Then we stop it," he said, turning toward Elion.
But Elion stepped back, summoning twin flame blades from his palms. "No. We control it. Or we burn."
Above them, in the shuddering skies, the Divine Council voted again—but their voices were no longer in unison.
They were divided.
Kael's power had not only broken the world—it had broken the gods.
And at the center of it all, Valeria whispered to her son inside her:
"Kael, hold on. Your fire is not alone."
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